Books: The Pillars of the House, V1

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

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So Wilmet was innocent of all suspicions--wise experienced Wilmet!
That was enough to make Cherry forget that little thorn of jealousy,
especially as things subsided into their usual course, and she had no
more food for conjecture.

CHAPTER XII

GIANT DESPAIR'S CASTLE

'Who haplesse and eke hopelesse all in vaine,
Did to him pace sad battle to darrayne;
Disarmd, disgraste, and inwardly dismayde,
And eke so faint in every ioynt and vayne,
Through that fraile fountaine which him feeble made.'
SPENSER.

Felix's majority made no immediate difference. His thirteenth part of
his father's small property remained with the rest, at any rate until
his guardian should return from his travels in the East; but in the
course of the winter his kind old godfather, Admiral Chester, died,
and having no nearer relation, left him the result of his small
savings out of his pay, which would, the lawyer wrote, amount to
about a thousand pounds, but there was a good deal of business to be
transacted, and it would be long before the sum was made over to him.

Wilmet and Geraldine thought it a perfect fortune, leading to the
University, and release from trade; and they looked rather crestfallen
when they heard that it only meant 30 pounds per annum in the funds,
or 50 pounds in some risky investment. Mr. Froggatt's wish was that he
should purchase such a share in the business as would really give him
standing there; but Wilmet heard this with regret; she did not like
his thus binding himself absolutely down to trade.

'You are thinking for Alda,' said Felix, smiling. 'You are
considering how Froggatt and Underwood will sound in her ears.'

'In mine, too, Felix; I do not like it.'

'I would willingly endure it to become Redstone's master,' said
Felix, quietly.

'Is he still so vexatious?' asked Geraldine: for not above once in
six months did Felix speak of any trials from his companions in
business.

'Not actively so; but things might be better done, and much ill blood
saved. I cannot share W. W.'s peculiar pride in preferring to be an
assistant instead of a partner.'

'Then this is what you mean to do with it?'

'Wait till it comes,' he said, oracularly. 'Seriously, though, I
don't want to tie it all up. The boys may want a start in life.'

Neither sister thought of observing that the legacy was to one, not
to all. Everybody regarded what belonged to Felix as common property;
and the 'boys' were far enough into their teens to begin to make
their future an anxious consideration. Clement was just seventeen,
and though he had outgrown his voice, was lingering on as a sort of
adopted child at St. Matthew's, helping in the parish school, and
reading under one of the clergy in preparation for standing for a
scholarship. He tried for one in the autumn, but failed, so much to
his surprise and disgust, that he thought hostility to St. Matthew's
must be at the bottom of his rejection; and came home with somewhat
of his martyr-like complacency at Christmas, meaning to read so hard
as to force his way in spite of prejudice. He was very tall, fair,
and slight; and his features were the more infantine from a certain
melancholy baby-like gravity, which music alone dispersed. He really
played beautifully, and being entrusted with the organ during the
schoolmaster's Christmas holidays, made practising his chief
recreation. That Lance would often follow him into church for a
study, and always made one of the group round the piano when Alice
Knevett came to sing with them, was a great grievance to Fulbert, who
never loved music, and hated it as a rival for Lance's attention.

These two were generally the closest companions, and were alike in
having more boyishness, restlessness, and enterprise than their
brothers. This winter their ambition was to be at all the meets
within five miles, follow up the hunt, and be able to report the
fox's death at the end of the day. Indeed, their appetite for
whatever bore the name of sport was as ravenous as it was
indiscriminate; and their rapturous communications could not be
checked by Clement's manifest contempt, or the discouraging
indifference of the rest--all but Robina, who loved whatever Lance
loved, and was ready to go to a meet, if Wilmet had not interfered
with a high hand.

Before long Felix wished that his authority over the male part of the
family were as well established as that in her department.

One hunting day the two brothers came in splashed up to the eyes,
recounting how they had found a boy of about their own age in a
ditch, bruised and stunned, but not seriously hurt, how with
consolation and schoolboy surgery they had cheered him, and found he
was Harry Collis, whom they had known as a school-fellow at Bexley;
how they had helped him home to Marshlands Hall, and had been amazed
at the dreariness and want of all home comfort at the place, so that
they did not like to leave him till his father came home; and how
Captain Collis had not only thanked them warmly, but had asked them
over to come and shoot rabbits the next day.

There was nothing to blame them for, but Felix had much rather it had
never happened. Captain Collis was one of a race of squires who had
never been very reputable, and had not risen greatly above the
farmer. He had been in the army, and had the bearing of a gentleman;
but ever since his wife's death, he had lived an unsatisfactory sort
of life at the Hall, always forward in sport, but not well thought
of, and believed to be a good deal in debt. His only child, this
Harry Collis, had been sent somewhat fitfully to the St. Oswald's
Grammar School, and had been rather a favourite companion of Lance's;
but separation had put an end to the intimacy, and this renewal was
not at all to the taste of their eldest brother.

'It can't be helped this time,' he said, when he heard of the
invitation; 'I suppose you must go to-morrow, but I don't fancy the
concern.'

Fulbert's bristles began to rise, but Lance chatted gaily on. 'But,
Fee, you never saw such a place! Stables for nine hunters. Only
think! And a horse entered for the Derby! We are to see him to-
morrow. It is the jolliest place.'

'Nine hunters!' moralised Clement; 'they cost as much as three times
nine orphans.'

'And they are worth a dozen times as much as the nasty little
beggars!' said Fulbert.

On which Angela put in the trite remark that the orphans had souls.

'Precious rum ones,' muttered Fulbert; and in the clamour thus raised
the subject dropped; but when next morning, in the openness of his
heart, Lance invited Clement to go with them to share the untold joys
of rabbit-shooting, he met with a decisive reply. 'Certainly not! I
should think your Dean would be surprised at you.'

'Oh, the Dean is a kind old chap,' answered Lance, off-hand;
'whenever he has us to sing at a party, he tips us all round, thanks
us, and tells us to enjoy ourselves in the supper-room, like a
gentleman, as he is.'

'Do you know what this Collis's character is?'

'Hang his character! I want his rabbits.'

And Lance was off with Fulbert; while Clement remained, to make
Geraldine unhappy with his opinion of the temptations of Marshlands
Hall, returning to the charge when Felix came in before dinner.

'Yes,' said Felix briefly, 'Mr. Froggatt has been telling me. It must
be stopped.'

'Have you heard of the mischief that--'

'Don't be such a girl, Tina. I am going to do the thing, and there is
no use in keeping on about it.'

Felix had not called Clement Tina since he had been head of the
family, and irritability in him was a token of great perplexity; for
indeed his hardest task always was the dealing with Fulbert; and he
was besides very sorry to balk the poor boys of one of their few
chances of manly amusement.

He would have waited to utter his prohibition till the excitement
should have worked off, but he knew that Clement would never hold his
peace through the narrative of their adventures; so, as they had not
come in when his work was over, he took Theodore on his arm, and
retreated to the little parlour behind the shop, where he lay in
wait, reading, and mechanically whistling tunes to Theodore, till he
heard the bell, and went to open the door.

The gas showed them rosy, merry, glorious, and bespattered, one
waving a couple of rabbits, and the other of pheasants, and trying to
tickle Theodore's cheeks with the long tails of the latter, of course
frightening him into a fretful wail.

'Take Theodore upstairs, if you please, Lance,' said Felix, 'and then
come down; I want you.'

'The Captain was going to dine at Bowstead's,' said Fulbert, 'so he
drove us in his dog-cart. If the frost holds, we are to go out and
skate on Monday.'

Felix employed himself in putting away his papers, without answering.

'I had very good luck,' continued Fulbert, 'four out of six;
wonderful for so new a hand, the Captain said.'

'Such a lovely animal you never saw,' said Lance, swinging himself
downstairs. 'You must walk out and see it, Fee, for you'll have it in
the Pursuivant some Saturday.'

'Lance, I am very sorry,' said Felix, standing upright, with his back
to the exhausted grate. 'Just attend to me, both of you.'

'Oh!' said Lance, hastily, 'I know there's a lot of old women's
gossip about Collis; but nobody minds such stuff. Harry is as good a
lad as ever stepped; and there was no harm to be seen about the
place;--was there, Ful?'

'The old Frog has been croaking,' hoarsely muttered Fulbert.

Boys of sixteen and fourteen were incapable of coercion by a youth of
one-and-twenty, and the only appeal must be to conscience and reason,
so Felix went on speaking, though he had seen from the first that
Fulbert's antagonism rendered him stolid, deaf, and blind; and
Lancelot's flushed cheeks, angry eyes, impatient attempts to
interrupt, and scornful gestures told of scarcely repressed passion.

'You may have seen no harm, I find no fault' (Fulbert scowled); 'but
if I had known what I do now I should not have let you go to-day. My
father would rather have cut off his right hand than have allowed you
to begin an acquaintance which has been ruinous to almost all the
young men who have been in that set.'

'But we are not young men,' cried Lance, 'it is only for the
holidays; and we only want a little fun with poor Harry, he is so
lonely--and just to go out rabbiting and skating. It is very hard we
can't be let alone the first time anything worth doing has turned up
in this abominable, slow place.'

'It is very hard, Lance. No one is more concerned than I; but if this
intimacy once begins, there is no guessing where it will lead; and I
do not speak without grounds. Listen--'

'If it comes from old Frog, you may as well shut up,' said Lance.
'There's been no peace at Marshlands since he took that cottage--a
regular old nuisance and mischief-maker, spiting the Captain because
one of the dogs killed his old cock, and bothering Charlie to no end
about him.'

'I have heard from others as well,' said Felix; and he briefly
mentioned some facts as to the scandals of the dissipated household,
some of the imputations under which Captain Collis lay, and named two
or three of the young men whose unsatisfactory conduct was ascribed
to his influence.

He saw that both lads were startled, and wound up with saying,
'Therefore it is not without reason that I desire that you do not go
there again.'

With which words, he opened the door, turned off the gas, and walked
upstairs, hearing on the way a growl of Fulbert's--'That's what comes
of being cad to a stupid brute of an old tradesman;' and likewise a
bouncing, rolling, and tumbling, and a very unchorister-like
expletive from Lance, but he hurried up, like the conclave from the
vault at Lindisfarn, only with a sinking heart, and looks that made
his sisters say how tired he must be. The boys were seen no more, but
sent word by Bernard that they were wet through, they should not
dress, but should get some supper in the kitchen, and go to bed.

On Sunday Lance had recovered himself and his temper, but in the
evening he made another attempt upon Felix in private. His heart was
greatly set upon Marshlands, and he argued that there was no evil at
all in what they had been doing, and entreated Felix to be content
with the promise both were willing to make, to take no share in
anything doubtful--not even to play at billiards, or cards--if that
would satisfy him, said Lance, 'but we will promise anything you
please against playing, or betting, or--'

'I know, Lance, you once made such a promise, and kept it. I trust
you entirely. But before, it would have been cruel to keep you from
that sick boy; now this would be mere running into temptation for
your own amusement.'

'Harry is not much better off than Fernan was,' said Lancelot,
wistfully.

'Poor fellow! very likely not; but it would be more certain harm to
yourself than good to him. Any way, no respectable person would
choose to be intimate there, or to let their boys resort there; and
it is my duty not to consent.'

'Ful is in such an awful way,' said Lance, disconsolately. 'Fee, you
don't know how hard it is, you always were such a muff.'

'That is true,' said Felix, not at all offended, 'and I had my father
and Edgar; but indeed, Lance, nothing ever was so hard to me to do as
this. I cannot say how sorry I am.'

'You do really order me not?' said Lance, looking straight up at him.

'I do. I forbid you to go into Captain Collis's grounds, or to do
more than exchange a greeting, if you meet him.'

'I will not. There's my word and honour for it, since--since you are
so intolerably led by the nose by old Frog;' and Lance flung away,
with the remains of his passion worked up afresh, and was as glum as
his nature allowed the rest of the evening; but Felix, though much
annoyed, saw that the boy had set up voluntarily two barriers between
himself and his tempted will--in the command and the promise.

But the command that was a guard to the one, was a goad to the other;
for Fulbert had never accepted his eldest brother's authority, and
could not brook interference. Still his school character was good,
and there was a certain worth about him, which made him sometimes
withdraw his resistance, though never submit; and Felix had some hope
that it would be so in the present case, when, while speeding to
church in the dark winter Monday morning, he overheard Lance say to
Clement, 'I say, Clem, 'tis a jolly stinging frost. If you'll take
your skates and give us a lesson, we'll be off for the lake at
Centry.'

One of the Whittingtonian curates had taken the boys to the ice in
the parks, and taught them so effectively, that Clement was one of
the best skaters in Bexley; but he was too much inclined to the
nayward not to reply, 'I have to practise that anthem for Wednesday.'

'Oh, bother the practice!'

(Which Felix mentally echoed.)

'I can play that anthem, if that's all,' said Lance; 'and I believe
you know it perfectly well. Now, Clem, don't be savage; I think, if
you will come, we might put that other thing out of Ful's head.'

'Well, if you think it is to be of use----'

'That's right! Thank you,' cried Lance. 'And you won't jaw us all the
way? He can't stand that, you know.'

Clement winced; but in compensation, apparently, for this forbidden
lecture, he observed, 'I am glad you at least take it properly, Lance,
though it would be worse in you than in him, considering your--'

'Bother it!' unceremoniously broke in Lance; and the words of wisdom
were silenced.

Lance did his best to organise his party, but it was a failure;
Fulbert said he had made an engagement, and would not break it; he
was not bound to toady old Froggy, nor in bondage to any old fogeys
of a dean and chapter; and he walked off the faster for Clement's
protest, leaving Lance to roll on the floor and climb the balusters
backwards to exhale his desire to follow. He was too much upset even
to follow Clement to the organ, or to settle to the drawing which
Cherry was teaching him, and was a great torment to himself and his
sisters till dinner-time, when Clement had done his organ and his
Greek, and was ready for a rush for the ice; and Robina went joyously
with them. 'Between two young ladies one can't well run into harm's
way,' said Lance.

So things went on for a fortnight. Fulbert never shuffled, he went
openly to Marshlands Hall; and though not boasting of his
expeditions, did not treat them as a secret. Wilmet and Geraldine
each tried persuasion, but were silenced rudely; and Felix, unable to
enforce his authority, held his tongue, but was very unhappy, both
for the present and for the future. He did not believe much harm was
doing now, but the temptation would increase with every vacation as
the boys came nearer to manhood; and he seemed to have lost all
influence and moral power over Fulbert.

Good old Mrs. Froggatt gave a small children's party, to which, with
many apologies, she invited the lesser Underwoods, under charge of
Wilmet. They were to sleep at the cottage, and Wilmet having offered
to help in dressing the Christmas-tree, they set out early in the day
to walk, escorted by the three brothers. That the trio did not return
to tea did not alarm Felix and Geraldine, who suspected that the
dislike the two elder expressed to the whole house of Froggatt had
melted before the pleasure of working at the tree.

The evening was taken up in the discussion of a letter of Edgar's,
more than usually discontented with his employment; and another of
Alda's, who had been laid under orders to write to her eldest
brother, and desire him to remonstrate with Edgar on his inattention,
laziness, and pleasure-seeking. The anxiety had long been growing up;
Felix had come to write his difficult letter by the light of
Geraldine's sympathy, and they were weighing what should be said,
when the door-bell rang, some sounds puzzled them, and just as Felix
was getting up to see what was the matter, Fulbert put his head in at
the door, and said, low but earnestly, 'Step here, Felix, please.'

He thought there must have been some terrible accident; but when from
the top of the stairs he beheld Clement's aspect under the gas in the
passage, and heard the thick tones in which he was holding forth
according to instinct, his consternation was almost greater than at
any injury. Fulbert looked pale and astounded. 'I can't get him
upstairs,' he said.

However, sense enough remained to Clement to give effect to his
eldest brother's stern words, 'Be quiet, and come up;' and they
dragged him stumbling upstairs without more words.

'Where's Lance?' then asked Felix.

'Stayed at the Froggatts'. I wish he hadn't. He will walk home by and
by.'

'Now, Ful, run and tell Cherry that nobody is hurt. Do not let her
get frightened.'

Felix spoke resolutely, but he felt so full of dismay and horror,
that he hardly knew what he was doing till Fulbert had returned, and
repressing all poor Clement's broken moralities, they had deposited
him safely in bed, and shut the door on him. Then Fulbert gazed up at
Felix with eyes full of regret and consternation, and he gathered
breath to enter his own room, and say, 'What is the meaning of this?'

'His head must be ridiculously weak: or there was some beastly trick.
Nobody else was the least queer!'

'Marshlands Hall?'

'Well, he had gone on at me so, that when Lance let himself be
persuaded into staying to hang up the lamps, it struck me what a lark
it would be to take Tina across the Hall lands, and then tell him he
had been on the enemy's ground. So I told him of the old chantry that
is turned into a barn, and of course he must go and see it, and take
sketches of the windows for his clergy. While he was doing it, up
comes young Jackman. You know young Jackman at the Potteries--a
regular clever fellow that knows everything?'

'Yes, I know him.'

'Well, they got into early pointed, and late pointed, and billets and
dog-tooths, and all the rest, and Clem went on like a house on fire;
and by that time we had got to the big pond, where Collis and half a
dozen more were, and he had got his skates, and I believe he did
surprise them; they called it first rate.'

'Did he know where he was?'

'Not at the beginning of the skating. I only wanted to get him down
from his altitudes, and never thought it would come to this. You
believe that, Felix?'

'Yes, I do. Go on.'

'It was fine moonlight, and we stayed on ever so long, while Jackman
and Clem and two more danced a quadrille on the ice; and when it was
over everybody was horribly cold, and Captain Collis said we must all
come in and have something hot; and Jackman said he was going to
drive home to dinner at eight, and would take us, but every one got
talking, and it was half-past eight before we started. It was all in
such a scramble, that I had no notion there was anything amiss till
Clem began to talk on the way home.'

'What were they drinking?'

'Various things--brandy-and-water chiefly. I don't like it, and had
some ale; but I was playing with Harry's puppies, and not much
noticing Clem.'

'Do you think it was a trick?'

'I can't tell. He is so innocent, he would have no notion how stiff
to make it. If any one meant mischief, it was Jackman; and I did
think once or twice he had found out Tina, and was playing him off.
On the way home, when I was trying to hinder poor Clem from falling
off, he went on chaffing so, that I longed to jump off, and lay the
whip about his ears.'

'Poor Clem!' said Felix, more grieved and shocked than angry, and not
insensible to Fulbert's being even more appalled, and quite
frightened out of his sulkiness.

'It is a bad business,' he sighed. 'It was all Lance's fault for
letting himself be lugged into that baby party.'

Even this was a great admission, and Felix would not blight it by a
word.

'It is well the girls are not at home,' was all he said.

'I only told Cherry that Clem wasn't well. I can't face her; I shall
go to bed. I would not have had this happen for the world.'

'I shall say nothing to her,' said Felix, dejectedly, turning to
leave the room, under a horrible sense of disgrace and stain on the
whole family; but at the door he was caught hold of by Fulbert, who
looked up at him with a face quite unlike anything he had ever seen
in the lad.

'Felix, I never was so sorry in my life. I wish you would give me a
good rowing.'

Felix half smiled. 'I could not,' he said. 'You did not know what you
were doing. Good-night.'

Fulbert gazed after him as he went downstairs, and went back, with a
groan, to his own room.

Felix had never before felt so hopeful about Fulbert; but still he
was too much overset to talk to Cherry, and hurried her off to bed,
soon following her example, for he had not the heart to see Lance
that night.

Of course, the first hours of the morning had to be spent in
attending on the victim, whose misery, mental and bodily, was
extreme, and was aggravated by his engagement to the organ. Lance
could supply his place there, and was sent off to do so, but looking
as subdued and guilty as if he had been making Fulbert's confession
instead of hearing it, and stumbling uncomfortably over the
explanation that Clement was not well, and that Felix could not leave
him.

For there was a fragility about Clement's long lank frame that made
any shock to it very severe, and he was ill enough to alarm his
happily inexperienced brothers, and greatly increase Fulbert's
penitence; but by the time Mr. Froggatt drove the sisters home, and
Wilmet wondered that she could not go out for a night without some
one being ill, he had arrived at a state which she could be left to
attribute to Mrs. Froggatt's innocent mince-pies.

He burrowed under his blankets, and feigned sleep and discomfort
beyond speech, whenever she came into the room, begging only that the
light might be kept out, and that nobody would speak to him. He was
too utterly miserable for anger with Fulbert, but only showed a sort
of broken-hearted forgiveness, which made Fulbert say in desperation
to Lance, 'I wish you would just fall upon me. I shall not be myself
again till I've been blown up!'

'I suppose you are doing it for yourself, and that is worse,' said
Lance.

'And you know it was all your doing, for going to that disgusting old
Philistine's tea and cake.'

'What, you and Clem wanted me to lead you about, like two dogs in a
string?' said Lance.

'No; Tina would have kept the baby-bunting out of harm's way.'

'More likely he would have bored me into going. Poor Tina! I should
almost like to hear him jaw again! After all, you and he never
promised, and I did.'

'I wish I had,' said Fulbert; 'I am awfully afraid they are getting
hold of it in the town.'

'So am I. Mowbray Smith looked me all over, and asked me after
Clement, when I met him just now in the street, as if he had some
malice in his head.'

'What did you tell him?'

'I said he was in a state of collapse, and that serious fears were
entertained for his life and reason; and then he warned me against
the nineteenth-century manners, and I thanked him and made a bow, and
now I suppose he is gone to tell my Lady.