Books: The Pillars of the House, V1

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There was no sentiment about Fulbert. He jumped at the offer as
instinctively as a young swallow would prepare to migrate, seemed to
brighten all over, and shake off his dull, defiant mood, and gave no
sign of feeling about brother or sister--except that he said he
believed Felix would get on better without him; and that he told
Lance that they would have splendid fun together when he was big
enough to come out and ride a buck-jumper.

CHAPTER XIII

PEGASUS IN HARNESS

'Fear not on that rugged highway
Life may want its lawful zest,
Sunny glens are on the mountain,
Where the weary heart may rest.'
CHARLES GAVAN DUFFY.

There was much relief and comfort in that visit of Mr. Audley's. For
one thing, Geraldine was able to pour out all her troubles, as she
had been used to do ever since her father had left her in his charge
--her repentance for the stirrings of her naturally fretful, plaintive
temper, for her fits of impatience and her hard judgments, and, what
surprised him chiefly, for jealousy.

'Yes,' she repeated, at his word of surprise, 'I am jealous!'

'Indeed!'

'I never knew it till the choral festival. I used to be very fond of
her, but-- I'm sure it is jealousy; I don't like to see her more
eagerly attended to than myself. Not that there is anything to
complain of. He never neglected me in his life.'

Mr. Audley smiled. 'People would tell you it is the natural lot of
sisters.

Then she saw that he knew all about it; for, in fact, Felix had,
rather to the general surprise, observed that the Miss Pearsons would
like to meet Mr. Audley, and the trio had spent a musical evening
with the Underwood party.

'Oh,' she cried, 'is it all my own horridness? Or is it really--'

'My own horridness or my own discernment?' said he, taking the words
out of her mouth. 'My dear, such an affair as this would be generally
the family jest.'

'Oh!'

'It is just as well it should not be so here,' continued Mr. Audley,
'for nonsense is not always a cure, and the talk would be
mischievous; besides, I think both are unconscious.'

'He is, I believe,' said Cherry.

'At any rate, he is more than ordinarily full of sense and self-
control, and may safely be trusted to do nothing imprudent. She is
pretty and attractive, and of course he likes to be with her; but I
should think it very unlikely it would go farther. Has any one else
observed it?'

'Not Wilmet, only Lance.'

'And has not made fun of it? That speaks well for Master Lance's
discretion. Yet you all feel the weight of life too heavily. I had
rather have found you amused by these little prepossessions, than
weighing them seriously, and wearing yourself to fritters.'

'I _will_ try not to mind, but I can't help being afraid for him! It
must be very wrong to be almost turned against her because he likes
her; and yet, what is all very well as my friend does not seem enough
for Felix.'

'Nor will it be. My dear Cherry, such things come on and go off
twenty times in a man's life. You will treat the symptoms more
lightly before you have done with your seven brothers. Meantime,
don't fret your conscience over fancies, unless you have spoken or
acted unkindly or fretfully.'

'O Mr. Audley, what shall I do when you are quite gone? All this time
I have felt as if I were without my pilot.'

Mr. Audley, too, had been thinking this over, and wished to put her
more formally under the spiritual charge of Mr. Willoughby of St.
Faith's, feeling that the morbid and sensitive nature needed external
support, and that it was not right to deprive it of what the Church
sanctions.

Her only doubt was Felix's approval. His nature did not readily
accept progress beyond that to which he had been bred up; and in
border lands like these, an unfavourable medium made much difference
to the clearness of the sight. Clement's contempt for what had
satisfied his father annoyed him: and his mind was self-reliant, his
soul accustomed to find its requirements met by the system around
him, and his character averse to intermeddling, so that it was
against the grain with him that spiritual guidance should be sought
outside the family, or, at any rate, outside the parish. He thought
such direction weakened the nature, and Mr, Audley, after warning him
against taking the disease for the effect of the remedy, had to laugh
at him as a British householder. After all, he yielded, because he
thought Mr. Audley had a certain right over Geraldine, and that it
was proper to defer to his judgment; while his guardian trusted to a
sight of St. Matthew's for the overthrowal of the prejudices that
Clement had managed to excite.

Before leaving England, Mr. Audley was resolved that little Theodore
should be shown to some London physician. The child was five years
old, but looked no more than three. He could totter in an uncertain
run, and understood a few simple sentences, but came no nearer to
language than the appropriation of a musical sound to every one whom
he knew. There was nothing unpleasant about him, except his constant
purring and humming; he was perfectly docile, loved music, and could
be amused by simple recurring games. His affections seemed to have
gone out chiefly to Felix and to Sibby; and as to his twin-sister, he
seemed lost without her, and she seemed to view him as the complement
of herself--like a sort of left hand, giving him things to hold in
his feeble grasp, saying her lessons to him, and talking as if to a
doll. There was something sad in the very resemblance; for their eyes
were of the same shade of deep blue, their long soft hair of the same
flaxen tint, their faces equally fair, but while hers was all
colour, light, and life, his was pale and vacant, and scarcely ever
stirred into expression.

Mr. Audley thought it right to ascertain whether treatment could be
of any use; and finding that his father's London house was only
occupied by his brother the Captain, he arranged that Felix should
come up to town with the child and Sibby, when the law business could
be arranged, and there would be an opportunity of his seeing
something of the world.

He had never had a holiday before, and Mr. Froggatt rivalled his
guardian in his desire that it should not be too short. The first
call was by appointment on the doctor. He was not used to have
patients like Theodore brought by youths of Felix's age, and was
touched by the care and tenderness of the young man, as he tried to
overcome the alarm that was rendering the little one impracticable,
when it was desirable to exhibit his slender store of
accomplishments. His nearest approach to his natural state was when
perched on his brother's knee, with his back to the strange faces,
listening as Felix whistled the tunes he loved best.

After all, little was gained by the consultation, except the
assurance that the poor little fellow was as well situated as was
possible. A few directions for treatment and discipline were given,
but very little hope was held out of any important change for the
better.

The verdict disappointed Felix to an extent that surprised Mr.
Audley, who had better understood the hopelessness of the case. Of
all the family, Felix had the most of the parental instinct for the
most helpless; and while he warmly thanked his friend, he looked so
mournfully at the child who clung to him, that Mr. Audley said in a
voice of sympathy, 'It is a burthen, but one that will never bring
the sting of sin.'

'Not a burthen,' said Felix. 'No; as my father said when he gave him
to me, he is the Gift of God, the son of my right hand. May it always
be able to work for you!' he murmured, as he bent his head over the
little one.

'And I think the gift will bring a blessing!' said Mr. Audley.

Theodore was sent home with Sibby, thus restoring Stella to herself,
for she had been greatly lost without her speechless companion: but
Felix remained in London for a week of business and pleasure. Captain
Audley was very good-natured and friendly, and abetted his brother in
all his arrangements for showing Felix as much of life as was
possible in a week, assuring him that every new experience was a duty
to the Pursuivant--a plea that Felix, with his lover-like devotion
to every detail of his paper, admitted with a smile. Edgar was of
almost all their expeditions, and dined with them nearly every day.
That young gentleman's peculiar pleasantness had very nearly averted
the remonstrances with which his brother and his guardian had come up
armed. There he was, finding his work real, and not a royal road to
immediate wealth, idling, lounging, and gratifying his taste for art
and music; and when his employer stormed and threatened, listening
with aggravating coolness, and even sweetness, merely hinting that
his occupation was a mistake; and living all the time as a son of the
house, with a handsome allowance, and free access to society and
amusement. Thus, when Mr. Audley talked to him, he smiled with a
certain resignation, and observed that he was concerned for poor old
Tom, to have been unlucky enough to have drawn such a fellow as
himself. Probably it was a judgment on him for not having come
forward sooner, when he might have had Felix! And when Mr. Audley
upheld Felix as an example of hearty sacrifice of taste and
inclination, it was to obtain an enthusiastic response. Nobody
breathed equal to dear old Fee, and it was the most ardent desire of
Edgar's heart to take some of the burthen from his shoulders! When it
was hinted that such an allowance as Tom Underwood gave afforded the
opportunity, Edgar smiled between melancholy and scorn, saying,
'Times must have altered since your time, Mr. Audley.--No, I forgot.
Expense is the rule in our line. Swells can do as they please.'

However, there things rested; Mr. Underwood treated him exactly like
an idle son, storming at him sometimes, but really both fond and
proud of him, and very gracious to Felix, whom he invited once to a
very dull and dazzling dinner, and once sent to the opera with his
ladies.

Felix's Sunday was chiefly spent at St. Matthew's, which he was very
glad to see without Tina's spectacles. He was amazed to find so much
more good sense and reality than the effect on Clement had led him to
expect; and Mr. Fulmort, who struck him as one of the most practical-
looking men he had ever seen, spoke in high terms of Clement's
steadiness and wish to do right; but added, 'I am afraid we have
rather spoilt him. He came up to us so unlike the kind of boy we
generally get, that we may have made rather too much of him at
first.'

Felix smiled. 'Perhaps we had knocked him about, and made too little
of him at home,' he said.

'Besides, esprit de corps in so small a place as this is apt to
become so concentrated as not to be many removes from egotism. I
daresay we have been a terrible bore to you.'

Felix laughed. 'We have always been very grateful to you, Sir.'

'I understand. I am glad he is going farther a-field. He will be much
improved by seeing other places, and having his exclusiveness and
conceit shaken out of him; but we shall always regard him as the
child of the house, and I only hope he may end by working among us.'

'Poor fellow! Conceit has been pretty well shaken out for the
present,' said Felix.

'I hope it may last. He was rather hurt at my not making his
misfortune of more importance: but it seems to have been accident,
all except the priggish self-confidence that led to it.'

Felix increased much in cordiality towards Mr. Fulmort, and at the
same time mounted many stages in Clement's estimation on the
discovery that, however behindhand his ecclesiastical advantages
might be, the Vicar was exceedingly impressed by his excellence.

A day or two after Felix's arrival, Ferdinand Travis was first
encountered riding a spirited horse in the park, looking remarkably
handsome, though still of the small-limbed slender make that recalled
his Indian blood. His delight in the meeting was extreme, and he
seemed to be as simple and good as ever. He was in deep mourning,
having newly heard of his father having been killed in an American
railway accident, and though his uncle seemed proud of him, and
continued his liberal allowance, the loss and blank were greatly
felt--all the more that he had not found it easy to make friends
among his brother officers in the Life Guards. His foreign air was
somehow uncongenial; he had no vivacity or cleverness, and being
little inclined to some of the amusements of his contemporaries, and
on his guard against others, he seemed to find his life rather dull
and weary. He did not seem to have anything to love except his
horses, especially the creature he was then riding, Brown Murad. He
had obtained it after such competition, that he viewed the purchase
as an achievement; while Felix heard the amount with an incredulous
shudder, and marvelled at Mr. Audley's not regarding it as wildly
preposterous. It was a dangerous position; and though Mr. Audley
certified himself, through his soldier brother, that Travis was
steadiness itself--neither betted, gamed, nor ran into debt--yet
while he seemed personally acquainted with all the horses that ran,
and apparently entered into no literature but the Racing Calendar,
it was impossible not to be anxious about him, even though he seemed
perfectly happy to be allowed to be with his two godfathers, and
followed them everywhere, from the Houses of Parliament to St.
Matthew's.

This was not the last expedition Felix had to make to London that
spring. After many appointments of the time, and as many delays, a
telegram suddenly summoned him in the beginning of May to bring
Fulbert up to London, when the business would be wound up, and
Captain Audley would take his brother and the boy in his yacht to
Alexandria, there to join the overland passengers.

So Fulbert's farewells were made in the utmost haste, and mixed up
with Wilmet's solicitous directions for his proper use of all her
preparations for his comfort on the voyage; and Lance could only be
seen for the brief moments of halt at the Minsterham Station, during
which neither spoke three words, but Lance hung on the step till the
train was in motion, and then was snatched back, and well shaken and
reprimanded, by a guard; while Fulbert leant out after him at even
greater peril of his life, long after the last wave of the trencher
cap had ceased to be visible.

Felix believed that this parting was more felt than that with all the
other eleven, and while Fulbert subsided into his corner, the elder
brother felt much oppressed by the sense that it was his duty to give
some good advice, together with great perplexity what it should be,
how it should be expressed, and whether it would be endured. He would
have been thankful for some of Clement's propensity for preaching
when he found himself tete-a-tete with Fulbert in a cab; but while
he was still considering of the right end by which to take this
difficult subject, he was startled by his beginning, 'Felix, I say,
I'm glad you are going to get shut of me.'

'I believe it is for your good,' said Felix.

'You'll get on better without me,' repeated Fulbert; then, with an
effort, 'Look here. It isn't that I don't know you're a brick and all
that, but somehow nothing riles me like your meddling with me.'

'I know it,' answered Felix. 'I wish I could have helped it; but what
could be done, when there was nobody else?'

'Ay,' responded Fulbert, 'I know I have been a sulky, nasty brute to
you, and I should do it again; and yet I wish I hadn't.'

'I should be as bad myself if I were a junior,' was the moral
reflection Felix produced for his brother's benefit. 'Only, Ful, if
you try that on with Mr. Audley out there, you'll come to grief.'

'I don't mean to,' said Fulbert.

'And you'll keep in mind what my father meant us to be, Ful--that we
have got to live so as to meet him again.'

Fulbert nodded his head emphatically.

'It is his name you have to keep unstained in the new country,' added
Felix, the fresh thought rising to his lips; but it was met by a gush
of feeling that quite astonished him.

'Ay, and yours, Felix! I do--I do want to be a help, and not a drag
to you. I _really_ don't think so much of any of them--not even
Lance--as of you. I _hope_ I shouldn't have been better to my father
than I have been to you; and when--when I'm out there, I do hope to
show--that I do care.'

The boy was fighting with very hard sobs, and for all the frightful
faces he made the tears were running down his cheeks. Felix's eyes
were overflowing too, but with much of sudden comfort and
thankfulness.

'I always knew you were a good fellow, Ful,' he said, with his hand
on his brother's knee, 'and I think you'll keep so, with Mr. Audley
to keep you up to things, and show you how to be helped.'

All after this was bustle and hurry. Fulbert had to be sent alone to
take leave of Alda, while his brother and Mr. Audley transacted their
business. Edgar came back with him; and after some hurried rushings
out in search of necessaries forgotten, the last farewells were
spoken, and Fulbert, with the two Audley brothers, was out of sight;
while Felix, after drawing a long, deep sigh, looked at his watch,
and spoke of going to see Alda.

'Don't run your head into a hornet's nest,' said Edgar; 'it's all up
with me there. Come this way, and I'll tell you all about it.'

'All up with you!'

'There are limits to human endurance, and Tom and I have overpassed
each other's. I don't blame him, poor man; he wanted raw material to
serve as an importer of hides and tallow, but you, the genuine
article, were bespoken, and my father was not in a state for the
pleading of personal predilections.'

'What is it now?'

'Only a set of etchings from Atalanta in Caledon. That was the straw
that broke the camel's back,' said Edgar, so coolly as to make Felix
exclaim--

'How much or how little do you mean?'

'Separated on account of irreconcilable incompatibility.'

'Impossible!'

'Possible, because true.'

'Why did you not tell before Mr. Audley was gone?'

'It would have been bad taste to obtrude one's own little affairs,
and leave him with vexatious intelligence to ruminate on his voyage.
Nay, who knows but that he might have thought it his duty to wait to
compose matters, and so a bright light might have been lost to the
Antipodes.'

'You actually mean me to understand that you have broken with Tom
Underwood?'

'The etchings were the text of an awful row, in which the old
gentleman exposed himself more than I am willing to repeat, and
called on me to choose between his hides and tallow and what he was
pleased to call my tomfoolery.'

Felix groaned.

'Exactly so. You are conscious that his demand was not only
tyrannical but impracticable. One can't change the conditions of
one's nature.'

'Are you absolutely dismissed?'

'Nothing can be more so.'

'And what do you mean to do?' demanded Felix, stung, though to a
certain degree reassured, by his tranquillity.

'Study art.'

'And live--?'

'On my own two hundred. You will advance it? I only want sixteen
months of years of discretion, and then I'll pay it back with more
than interest.'

'I must know more first,' said Felix. 'I must understand what terms
you are on with Tom Underwood, and whether you have any reasonable or
definite plans.'

'Spoken like an acting partner! Well, come to Renville, he will
satisfy you as to my plans. I am to be his pupil; he teaches at the
South Kensington Museum, and is respectability itself. In fact, he
requires my responsible brother to be presented to him. Come along.'

'Stay, Edgar. I do not think it right by Tom Underwood to see any one
before him. I shall go to him before anything else is done.'

'Do not delude yourself with the hope of patching up matters like
Audley last winter, losing me five months of time and old Tom of
temper.'

'How long ago was this?'

'The crisis was yesterday. I was just packing to come home when
Fulbert burst upon the scene.'

Nothing could be worse news, yet Edgar's perfect self-possession
greatly disarmed Felix. Never having thought his brother and the work
well suited, he was the less disposed to anger, especially as the
yoke of patronage was trying to his character; but he persisted in
seeing Thomas Underwood before taking any steps for Edgar's future
career, feeling that this was only due to the cousin to whom his
father had entrusted the lad. So Edgar, with a shrug, piloted him to
the Metropolitan Railway, and then to the counting-house where, in
the depths of the City, Kedge and Underwood dealt for the produce of
the corrals of South America.

Edgar, as he entered the office full of clerks, nodded to their bald-
headed middle-aged senior in a half-patronising manner. 'Don't be
afraid, Mr. Spooner; I'm not coming back on your hands, whatever this
good brother of mine may intend. Is the Governor in?'

'Mr. Underwood is in his room, Mr. Edgar,' was the very severe
answer; 'but after this most serious annoyance, I would not answer
for the consequences.'

'Wouldn't you indeed?' said Edgar quietly, in a nonchalant tone that
made the younger lads bend down to sniggle behind their desks, while
he moved on to the staircase.

Mr. Spooner and he were visibly old foes; but the senior devoured his
wrath so far as to come forward and offer a chair to Felix,
repeating, however, 'Mr. Underwood is very seriously annoyed.'

Before Felix could attempt an answer, Edgar had re-descended,
newspaper in hand. 'Go up, Felix,' he said, threw himself into the
chair, and proceeded to read the paper; while Felix obeyed, and found
the principal standing at his door, ready to meet him.

'What, Felix Underwood! Glad to see you. This intolerable affair
can't have brought you up already, though?'

'No, Sir; I was telegraphed for late last night, to bring up my
brother Fulbert to start with Mr. Audley.'

'Oh, ay. Well, I hope he'll have a better bargain of him than I've
had in Edgar. You've heard his impudence?'

'I am exceedingly sorry--'

Then Mr. Underwood broke out with his account of Edgar's folly and
ingratitude, after all the care and expense of his education. He had
taken up with a set of geniuses for friends, was always rehearsing
for amateur performances with them, keeping untimely hours; and
coming late to the office, to cast up accounts, or copy invoices in
his sleep, make caricatures on his blotting-paper, or still worse,
become 'besotted' with some design for a drawing or series of
drawings, and in the frenzy of execution know no more what was said
to him than a post. Finally, 'the ladies' being as mad as himself, as
Mr. Underwood said, had asked him to draw for a bazaar, and in his
frenzy of genius over the etchings he had entirely forgotten an
important message, and then said he could not help it. On being told
that if so he was not fit for his profession, he merely replied,
'Exactly so, the experiment had been unsuccessful;' and when his
meekness had brought down a furious tempest of wrath, and threats of
dismissal, he had responded, 'with his intolerable cool insolence,'
that 'this would be best for all parties.'

'This is the offence?' anxiously asked Felix.

'Offence? What greater offence would you have?'

'Certainly nothing can be much worse as to business,' said Felix.
'But when he told me what had happened, I was afraid that he might be
running into temptation.'

'Oh! as to that, there's no harm in the lad--Spooner allows that--
nothing low about him.'

'And his friends?'

'How should I know! Raffs those fellows always are, sure to bring him
to the dogs!'

'Did you ever hear of an artist named Renville?'

'Ay?' meditatively. 'He was the master the girls had at one time,
wasn't he?'

'Then he is respectable! I ask because Edgar wants to study under
him.'

'Eh! what!' demanded Mr. Underwood, in manifest astonishment. 'Is the
lad gone crazy?'

'I thought you had dismissed him, Sir.'

'Well, well, said Mr. Underwood, taken aback, 'I told him only what
he deserved, and he chose to take it as final. I thought you were
come to speak for him.'

'You are very kind, Sir, but I doubt whether he would resume his work
here, or indeed if it would not be an abuse of your kindness to
induce him.'

'Eh! what?' again exclaimed Thomas. 'You give in to his ungrateful
folly! Felix Underwood, I thought you at least were reasonable!'

The imperious passionate manner, rather than the actual words, made
Felix side the more with the wayward genius, and feel that having
sacrificed himself for the good of the family, he might save his
brother from the gloomy office and piles of ledgers and bills below-
stairs. 'Sir,' he said, 'I am sorry Edgar has not been better fitted
to return the timely help you have given us, but I am afraid that
such unwilling work as his could never be of service to you.'

'Why on earth should it be unwilling? Better men than he have sat at
a desk before now! I've no patience with young men's intolerable
conceit. There have I done everything for this young fellow, and he
is unwilling, _unwilling_ indeed, to give his mind to the simplest
business for six hours a day.'