Books: The Pillars of the House, V1

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'Why, what would you have done without Cherry?' said Felix.

'I'd have come to stay with her! And it is such a pity! A merchant is
a gentleman, and I am sure you could get to be anything--a member of
Parliament, or a baronet, or--' as if her imagination could not go
farther; but she looked up at him with a dew of eagerness glistening
in her bright hazel eyes. 'I was telling Cherry it does seem such a
dreadful horrible pity that you should be nailed down in this little
hole of a place for life.'

Felix smiled--a man's superior, gratified, but half melancholy smile
--as he answered, 'At any rate, you won't lose the pleasures of
imagination or of pity.'

'But I want to see you have the spirit to try,' cried Alice, eagerly.
'I know you could.'

'It would not be right,' said Felix, sitting down by her, and in full
earnest gentleness and gravity setting before her the reasons that
Cherry had hardly thought it worth while really to explain--namely,
the impossibility of their being able to pay their way and meet the
needful expenses, and the evils of the young, inexperienced household
residing in London, resigning security for dependence.

Alice, flattered by being treated as a sensible person, said, 'Yes,'
and 'I see,' at all the proper places; then drew a sigh, saying, 'It
is very good in you.'

'I knew you would see it in the right light,' replied Felix.

'Oh!' but the sigh recurred. 'I can't help being sorry, you know.'

'There is nothing to be sorry for,' he said gratefully. 'I was
disappointed at first myself; but for sheer usefulness to one's
neighbour, I believe that this present position, if I have sense to
make use of it rightly, is as good as any; and the mere desire of
station and promotion is--when one comes to look at it properly--
nonsense after all.'

She opened her eyes in amazement, and made a little exclamation.

'They may be well when they come,' said Felix in answer: 'but I have
thought it over well to-night, and I see that to do anything
doubtfully right for their sake would be a risk for all that I have
no right to run.'

Alice hung her head, overcome by the pure air of the region where he
was lifting her; and in a sort of shyness at the serious tone in
which he had spoken, he added, smiling,

'Then you'll forgive the "sound of it."'

'O Mr. Underwood,' she said, in the simplest and most earnest voice
that Cherry had ever heard from her, 'I'm ashamed to recollect that
nonsense!'

CHAPTER XIV

WHAT IT MAY LEAD TO

'I never was so berhymed since I was an Irish rat,
which I can scarcely remember.'--As You Like It.

'Dim memories haunt the child,
Of lives in other beings led--
Other, and yet the same.'
KEBLE.

In the autumn Alda made a visit at home. She had, as usual, gone with
Mr. and Mrs. Underwood to their German baths, and had there fallen in
with a merry set of her intimates in London, who had persuaded her to
join them in an expedition to the Tyrol, which lasted till the end of
September. On her return, she was dropped at Bexley, where her
sisters were greatly edified by her sketch-book, a perfect journal in
clever scenes and groups, like the 'Voyage en zig-zag.' Two of the
gentlemen seemed always in waiting on the graceful outline that did
duty for Alda; and indeed, she gave Wilmet to understand that only
the skill that played them off one against the other had averted an
offer from each, hundreds of miles from home, when it would have been
so very inconvenient! Every morning Wilmet considered how her dinner
would appear if one or both should suddenly drop in to pursue his
courtship.

Even Felix, though he had pooh-poohed the mysterious whisper from his
sisters, was startled at the apparition of a picturesque figure; in
Tyrolese hat, green knickerbockers, belt, knapsack, loose velvet
coat, and fair moustache, marching full into the shop; and while the
customers who were making it a rendezvous gazed in doubt between
gamekeepers and stage banditti, holding out a hand too fair and
dainty for either character, and exclaiming, 'How are you, Mr.
Froggatt! Hollo, Felix!'

Mr. Froggatt was amazed beyond measure, and it was only on hearing
the ring of the mirthful laugh that he exclaimed, 'Mr. Edgar This is
an alteration. You will find the young ladies up-stairs.'

Felix was disengaged at the moment, and could take him through the
parlour, too glad to have him there at all to utter the faintest wish
that he would have rung at the private door; and he ushered him into
the drawing-room with the words, 'Here's the artist who has begun
with himself;' and then retreated.

'Edgar! oh, you wonderful boy!' cried happy Geraldine, as he threw
his arms round her; while Alda asked: 'Is that the thing now,
Edgar?'

'Quite comifo,' he answered. 'Ha, little ones, have you forgotten
me?'

'Stella says you're the clarionet in the brass band,' said Bernard.
'What have you got in that pack?'

'Munitions of war!' he answered, unstrapping his bag, and producing
packets of French bon-bons, bought on his way home, from the
sketching tour Mr. Renville always made with sundry of his pupils in
early autumn. 'Gobble them up, little mice, before the cat comes
home.'

Stella paused with a dutiful 'May I?' and Cherry had to interfere
between the little maiden's scruples, Bernard's omnivorous
inclination, and Theodore's terror at any new article of food; while
Alda and Edgar exchanged eager question and answer:

'You've been at home. You've seen them all?'

'I dined there on Sunday--might do so any day; they can't do without
me, that's a fact.'

'Nor me, I imagine,' said Alda. 'I suppose I am to go back with you?'

'So Madam proposed; but the fact is, that Molly has done uncommonly
well without you this time.'

'What do you mean ?' asked Alda, sharply.

'What think you of a friend of Cherry?'

'I haven't got any friends.'

'Think again! Not the great convert, the Cacique of all the Mexicos?'

'Ferdinand Travis! You don't mean it?'

'_I_ don't; but the elders mean it, and the youngers will do it.'

'Do tell me! I can't understand,' cried Alda, much excited. 'We have
never met him.'

'The uncle or father--which?

'The uncle.'

'Well, the uncle has been in England, and fraternised with our
governor at Peter Brown's; there was a banqueting all round, and his
nephew was carried at his chariot wheels. If I am not much mistaken,
gold and timber jingled to silver and bullock-hide, and concluded a
prospective union in the persons of my nephew and my daughter. I'm
sorry. I have long been persuaded that a very small effort on the
part of our respected Blunderbore might have redeemed the family
fortunes in the person of Polly.'

'How could you think of anything so absurd?' said Alda.

'As if my uncle would consent!'

'If Tom has any sentiment, it is for my father and the name of
Underwood,' said Edgar. 'You remember he was sorely disappointed that
Felix would not step into my shoes.'

'And very angry and hurt,' said Alda, 'as well he might be.'

'Yes; but that anger proved the vastness of his good intentions.
Besides there's something about our old giant--steadiness and
breeding, I believe--that uniformly makes Tom knock under to him; and
there's a peculiar affinity of good sense between him and Marilda,
that ought to have ripened under favourable circumstances.'

'And is he really cut out!' said Alda. 'I don't know how to believe
this! How far has it gone?'

'Hanger on and oyster in love,' promptly answered Edgar.

'Honest Polly has the most comical look of anxious coyness on her
jolly face, and holds her elbows squarer than ever; and a few paces
off stands Montezuma, magnificent and melancholic; and Edgar assumed
the posture.

'Melancholy, no wonder,' said the conscious beauty; 'Edgar he must be
over head and ears in debt.'

'So it struck me; but he must have managed it uncommon quietly, for
they call him the Mexican Muff, he's hand and glove with all their
holinesses up at Clement's shop, and the wildest orgie he has been
detected at was their magic-lantern.'

'Then it is real goodness that draws them together!' exclaimed
Cherry, looking up from her presidency over the comfits.

'Goodness and a balance,' said Edgar.

'Did you know,' said Cherry, 'that as soon as he came of age, he paid
the Insurance all the money for the Fortinbras Arms? The agents were
quite overwhelmed, and wanted to put it in the Pursuivant.'

She was cut short by the return of Wilmet and Angela, accompanied by
Miss Knevett. The effect of Edgar's appearance was startling. Alice
gave a little scream of surprise, Angela crept behind her sisters,
and Wilmet stood for a moment like a stag at gaze; then, as he said,
'Well, Mettie, are you going to send for the police?' exclaimed,
'You, Edgar! What a figure you have made of yourself!'

'See how our eldest crushes me!' said Edgar. 'Such a face as yours,
Mettie, ought not to be wedded to the commonplace.'

'I suppose it is like German artists,' said Wilmet, trying to resign
herself.

'It is such a beautiful becoming dress,' whispered Alice to
Geraldine; while Edgar rattled on--'No wonder there is a
deterioration in taste from living in the very tents of the
Philistines. Why, Cherry, how do you bear existence surrounded by
such colours as these?'

'The paper?' asked Wilmet, surprised. 'It is rather a large pattern,
to be sure.'

'I call it cruelty to animals to shut Cherry up among the eternal
abortive efforts of that gilded trellis to close upon those blue
dahlias, crimson lilacs, and laburnums growing upwards, tied with
huge ragged magenta ribbons. They would wear out my brain.'

'Well, I think when you remember our old paper, you might be
thankful!' said Wilmet.

'Precisely what I do, and am not thankful. What our paper may have
been in its earlier stages of existence, I am not prepared to say,
but since I can remember, that hateful thing, the pattern, could only
be traced by curious researches in dark corners, and the wall
presented every nuance of purplish salmon or warm apricot.'

'Dear old paper!' cried Cherry. 'Yes, wasn't it soft, deepening off
in clouds and bars, sunsets and storm-clouds, to make stories about?'

'Where it was most faded and grimy,' said Wilmet. 'It is all
affectation not to be glad to have clean walls.'

'Clean!' cried Edgar, in horror. 'Defend me from the clean! Bare,
bald, and frigid, with hard lines breaking up and frittering your
background. If walls are ornamented at all, it should not be in a
poor material like paper, but rich silk or woollen tapestry
hangings.'

'We couldn't have tapestry now,' said Alice, in a puzzled voice.

'Then, '"Comrades, take warning by my fall,
And have it strong or not at all."'

'Not walls,' laughed Cherry.

'Let them be of natural, or, at any rate, uniform tint; and cover
them with your own designs of some character and purpose, not
patterns bought by the yard.'

'Oh! I see what you would be at,' said Wilmet quaintly.

'You are bewailing the loss of your great Man Friday.'

'Achilles, I beg your pardon.'

'He never would come out,' said Angela; 'he came through the
whitewash after the measles.'

'I wonder what the present inhabitants think of him,' said Cherry.
'One comfort is, if he is a bogy now, they may show him some day as
an early effort of Sir Edgar Underwood, President of the Royal
Academy.'

'Oh dear! I must go!' cried Alice. 'I only came to fetch a pattern
for Aunt Maria, and she is waiting for it; but you are all so
delightful here.'

'What pretty little thing have you picked up there?' asked Edgar, as
she went.

'Have we not told you of Miss Pearson's niece?'

'You should take her likeness, Cherry, as a relief from the
classically severe.'

Cherry opened her portfolio, and showed two or three water-coloured
drawings of the graceful little head and piquant features. Edgar
criticised, and promised a lesson; and the sitter, nothing loth,
though rather coy, was caught. She blushed and smiled, and took
exception at little personalities, and laughed her forgiveness, going
through a play of countenance very perplexing to the pupil, but much
relished by the master, as he called up the pout and smile by turns,
and played with her little airs.

He took Alda back on Monday, but promised to come home for Christmas,
and kept his word. Perhaps the Renville wirthschaft afforded less
contrast with home than did the Underwood menage; and, in spite of
the Philistine furniture, the rooms in the High Street agreed better
with his tastes than the old house in St. Oswald's Buildings. He was
above objecting to the shop; and whereas Clement carefully avoided
the public precincts, he was often there, hunting up books, reading
newspapers, gossiping with Mr. Froggatt or with Redstone, and always
ensuring himself a welcome by the free bright sweetness of his manner
and his amusing talk.

It was a prosperous winter; Felix, as partner and acknowledged
editor, was in a more comfortable position both as to income and
authority. Other matters were going well. Fulbert, to the general
surprise, turned out a capital letter-writer, and sent home excellent
accounts of himself, working heartily in a situation in the post-
office, which Mr. Audley's Somerville interest had managed to secure
for him. Moreover, all close scholarships had not been abolished, and
Felix's opportunities in the newspaper line had enabled him to
discover one at St. Cadoc's, a small college at Cambridge, to be
competed for by the natives of the county where Clement had
fortunately been born. A letter to the parish clerk of Vale Leston,
to ask for the baptismal register of Edward Clement Underwood,
produced a reply from a well-remembered old Abednego Tripp, who
declared himself 'horned and rejoiced' at hearing from Master Felix,
and at being able to do anything for one of the Reverend Mr. Edward's
sons. The competition was not very severe; Clement obtained the
scholarship, and therewith his maintenance for three years to come;
and he was at the same time able to exercise a bit of patronage on
his sisters' behalf, more gratifying to his own feelings than theirs.
Mr. Fulmort's unmarried sisters had lived in the country with a
former governess, until on the death of the elder, the survivor
decided on employing her very considerable fortune in establishing a
school where girls of small means might be prepared for becoming
first-rate governesses, with special openings for the daughters of
poor clergy and of missionaries.

One of the first families thought of was that of the favourite
chorister; so Angela, now ten years old, was nominated at once, to
the relief of Wilmet, who did not think her romping intimacies with
the girls at Miss Pearson's very desirable. Moreover, after a
correspondence between Miss Fulmort and Miss Lyveson, it was decided
that Robina should be transferred to the new school at Brompton with
her sister, partly by way of infusing a trustworthy element, and
partly that her studies might be perfected by London masters. Robina,
whose allegiance to Miss Lyveson was most devoted, was greatly
grieved, but she was a reasonable, womanly little being, aware that
governess-ship was her profession, and resolute to qualify herself;
so though she came home with tell-tale spots under her eyes, she
replied to all condolences with, 'I know it's right what must be
must;' and her spirits rose when Lance came home, bound only to
return during the holidays on two or three special days when his
voice was indispensable at the cathedral.

Edgar and he together kept the house in continual merriment, so that
the sober pillars of the house found themselves carried along, they
knew not whither.

'I have had a serious application,' said Felix one evening. 'A solemn
knock came to the office door, and an anxious voice came in--"Please,
brother, I want to speak to you." There stood the little Star! I
thought at least she had broken the chandelier, but no such thing. It
was, "Please, brother, mayn't I have a birthday?"'

'Poor little darling!' cried some voices.

'What could have put it into her head?' said Wilmet.

'She said all little girls had birthdays, and Ellen Bruce had told
Angel all about the dance in honour of hers.'

'Ah!' said Wilmet, 'we'll have Angel out of the way of that kind of
chatter.'

'Poor little maid! of course I had to quench her,' said Felix, as far
as her own day was concerned. I told her more about it than she had
ever heard, but then she took me aback by saying Father was happy,
and she thought he would like her to be happy.'

'You didn't consent!' exclaimed Wilmet.

'I represented that it was Theodore's birthday as well, and that
strangers would make him miserable. She was really very good, and I
want you just to consider whether we could not do something--of
course on a different day--but in the course of the holidays, by way
of treat. Surely you could invite some of Miss Pearson's pupils.'

'I don't like to begin, Felix,' said Wilmet; 'there would be
reciprocity, and no one knows where it might lead to.'

'A few white muslin frocks--eh, W. W.? I think we could stand them.'

'That is not all I mean,' said Wilmet; 'it is the sort of style of
thing. It would be all very well to have a few little girls here, but
they would all ask us again, and I could not answer for what might
happen at their homes.'

'It is out!' said Edgar. 'Now we know the sort of style of thing it
might lead to. Minerva under a mistletoe bough.'

'Hurrah!' burst out Lance, in convulsions of mirth, which infected
Felix and Cherry; while Wilmet, as simple as she was discreet,
blushed up to the tips of her ears, and tried to defend herself.

'They tell me of doings at their parties that are what I should not
like for our little girls, and I don't think you would, Felix.'

'Forfeits, to wit?' asked Edgar. 'Or cards, or waltzing. You may as
well be explicit, Mettie.'

'No, no,' said Felix, 'Mettie shall not be teased: she is right in
the main.' But his tone was that he always used when her prudence was
too much for him.

'And the family refinement is to be secured by sitting in ashes all
Christmas,' said Edgar. 'Slightly unchristian, it strikes me.'

'But,' continued Felix, 'out of these domestic ashes, we must get up
some sport for the children. I stand committed to Stella.'

'Shall I get Bill Harewood, and do Box and Cox?' suggested Lance.

'Might we not get up something they could take part in themselves?'
said Cherry; 'Cinderella, or some such little play?--Edgar, you know
how to manage such things.

'Wilmet doesn't know where they would lead to,' gravely responded
Edgar.

'To Lance's going off with a circus,' said Felix.

'I always had a great mind to do so,' responded Lance. 'To sing comic
songs on one leg on a spotted horse's back, and go about day and
night in a yellow van drawn by elephants--I call that life!'

'Secure a berth for me as scene-painter!' cried Edgar. 'See how I'd
draw a house by the very outline of Mazeppa outside!'

'And Felix will print all our advertisements gratis!'

'Oh!' broke in Cherry, 'I have a notion. Couldn't we make a play of
the conjuror in disguise? It is Dr. Knowall in German popular tales,
Robin the Conjuror in English.'

'Nothing foolish, I hope?' seriously asked Wilmet.

'Oh no. Don't you recollect? The story is, that a set of thieves
steal a jewel, a man comes shamming conjuror and offering to find it
for the owner, intending to trust to chance, and feast at her expense
as long as he is not found out.'

'I remember!' exclaimed Lance, you used to tell us the story.
Somebody suspects him, and brings a creature shut up in a covered
dish to ask him to tell what it was--and it happens to be a robin; so
when he cries out, "Oh, poor Robin!" thinking himself done for, out
hops the bird, and the enemy is sold.'

'Yes; and then he counts his dinners every day, and the thieves who
have come to look on think he is counting them, and throw themselves
on his mercy.'

'It has capabilities,' said Edgar.

'But the moral!' said Wilmet.

'What! Not the lesson against dealing with conjurors? demanded Edgar.
'I'll undertake to arm your pupils against spirit-rapping for ever.'

'In that point of view--' said Wilmet doubtfully.

'In that point of view,' said Felix, laughing, 'it has my vote.'

'I don't like deception to succeed,' said Wilmet; 'but at least
there's none of the worst sort of nonsense.'

Lance leapt up and performed a pas seul, insisting that Bill
Harewood must come and be a robber; and Edgar and Cherry instantly
had their heads together as playwrights and managers.

'Never mind, Wilmet,' said Felix at their bedroom doors that night.
'Remember, Father never was a man for all work and no play.'

'I don't mind play, but I don't know what this may lead to;' then, as
Felix laughed merrily at the repetition, she followed him into his
room, saying, 'I mean, I have no trust in Edgar's discretion, or
Lance's either, and all sorts of things may be put into the
children's heads.'

'You can't keep children's heads a blank,' said Felix, 'and Edgar's
good taste ought to be trusted in his own home, for his own sisters.
Even you might stretch a few points to keep him happy and occupied
with Cherry. Besides, I believe we do live a duller life than can be
really good for any one. It can't be right to shut up all these young
things all their holidays without any pleasure.'

'I thought,' said Wilmet, her eyes growing moist, 'it was pleasure
enough to be all at home together.'

'So it is, to staid old fogies like you and me,' said Felix, kissing
her; 'but the young ones want a lark now and then, and I confess I
should be immensely disappointed if this fun didn't come off. No, no,
W. W., I can't have you an old cat; you are much too young and
pretty.'

The levity of this conclusion shocked Wilmet beyond remonstrance. Was
Felix falling from his height of superiority, or was her strictness
wearisome?

Meantime, Geraldine's brain was ringing with doggrel rhymes, and
whirling with stage contrivances, in the delight of doing something
with Edgar, whether versifying or drawing; and as Felix said, to keep
him happy at home for Christmas was no small gain, even though it
brought a painful realisation that their feast was not his feast.

Geraldine suffered in silence, for a word from her was always put
down by some tender jest, avowing as much inferiority in goodness as
superiority in intellect. As to Clement, Edgar's sport was to startle
him with jokes, dilemmas, and irreverences, and then to decline
discussion on the ground that he never argued with _sisters_, and
that Clement would understand when he went to Cambridge. Otherwise,
the subject was avoided at home, but Edgar consorted a good deal with
Mr. Ryder, calling him the only person in the town, except Cherry,
who knew the use of a tongue, and one day, when Felix was assisting
his old master in a search through old newspapers in the reading-
room, Mr. Ryder said, 'By-the-by, your brother Edgar has a good deal
more of the talk of the day than you can be prepared for.'

'I am afraid so, sir,' said Felix; 'but he does not put it forth much
at home.'

'So I hoped. It would have startled your father a good deal; but I
believe myself acting in the spirit of his wishes in letting him talk
out his crudities.'

'Thank you, sir,' said Felix, not quite knowing how to take this.

'It is a phase to be passed through,' said Mr. Ryder. 'Indeed, a good
deal of it is fashion and vanity.'

'Mr. Audley thinks so,' replied Felix. 'He said he thought poor Edgar
did not think enough to have real doubt, but that he considered other
people's a dispensation from attending to the subject at all.'

'Exactly,' said Mr. Ryder, 'except so far as repeating what he has
caught up seems to him knowing, and according to the spirit of the
time, fit to dazzle us down here. Whatever may deepen him will
probably change all that--I do not say into what you or your father
would wish; but what is jargon now will pass away into something more
real, for better or--'

'For worse?' asked Felix anxiously, as he paused.

'I do not say so,' returned Mr. Ryder. 'Perhaps what I chiefly wished
at this moment was to clear myself in your eyes of treachery to your
father.'

'No, sir, that I never could suspect.'

But the conversation might well leave heaviness behind it. Was it
come to Edgar's views being such as to startle Mr. Ryder! who, for
that matter, had of late shown much less laxity of opinion than in
his younger and more argumentative days; and there was little comfort
in supposing that these were not real honest doubts at all, only
apologies for general carelessness and irreligion.

Yet with even this trouble in the recess of the heart, this was the
merriest winter the Underwood household had known since their
father's time.

Edgar chose to frame the play upon the Italian form of the story,
where the impostor is a starveling poet, nicknamed Signor Topo, or
Master Ratton, because his poverty had brought him to live in a hay-
loft. This character he assumed, and no doubt it fitted him better
than either the English cobbler or the German doctor; besides, as he
said, sham court costume is always the easiest to contrive: but
Cherry was by no means prepared to find the Rat-like poet the secret
admirer of a daughter of the Serene Highness who owned the jewel.