Books: The Pillars of the House, V1

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

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'You must,' said Felix decidedly. 'Why, you might as well turn
nursery-girl at once.'

'I should like it,' said Wilmet. 'I shall be miserable at school--
always thinking something is going wrong. And Cherry can never bear
with the babies! Oh! please don't tell me I must.'

'I tell you to begin,' said Sister Constance. 'You can always give it
up if you feel that the need lies at home; but I think the few hours'
change every day--for duty's sake, mind--will give you vigour not to
be worn down by the home cares.'

'But Cherry will have them always! She who cares for books and
drawing so much more than I!'

'Yes; but if you go on learning, you can teach her,' said Sister
Constance.

'Oh!' cried Wilmet; 'Cherry knows more than I do.'

'Little Cherry is the cleverest of us all,' added Felix.

'Still,' said the Sister, 'the mere going over your work with you
will give her change and interest. I do feel strongly convinced; dear
Wilmet, that to shut yourself up with her, without gathering anything
from elsewhere, would be very bad for both.'

'We must see how Mamma is, and how Cherry gets on,' was all that
Wilmet would say, but the arrangement was made, and was to take
effect in ten days' time, when Mr. Mowbray Smith was coming to be
second curate, and Sister Constance must change places with the three
absent children, and Alda would be gone to her adopted home.

Then Mr. Audley took leave; and as Felix went to the front door with
him, he said, 'Forgive me, Felix; but I am a younger brother myself,
and I do hope you do not mean to assert your authority by licking.'

Felix coloured a little; and though he spoke respectfully, it was
with some little annoyance. 'There is nothing else that does with
Fulbert.'

'Stay, Felix; I am not questioning that he may be the sort of boy for
whom flogging may be good from some one.'

'He is!' said Felix. 'He never will behave himself till he has felt
his master! It has been so at school; and once, even my father made
himself quite ill for a week with having to flog Fulbert for
disobedience. It settled him; but he is not like the others--Clem and
Lance are not any trouble; but--I know it will come to it sooner or
later; Ful will never mind me or Wilmet till I have done it once.'

'And when his strength is equal to yours?'

'Then I hope he will have more sense.'

'Yes, Felix; but what if by forcing him into dogged submission by
your bodily strength you have lost his confidence, and have no moral
power over him? Things that can be borne from a father come very
differently from a brother.'

Felix was quite crimson now. 'But what shall I do, Mr. Audley, when
he defies Wilmet, and teases Cherry and the little ones?'

'Try all you can with his better sense, but don't anger him by tones
of authority. What you think needful rule may seem to him
domineering. And if necessary, call me. My blows will not leave the
after rankling that yours will, even if they are necessary.'

Felix sighed. He was not desirous of beating his brother in the main;
but being unhappily master of the house, he was unwilling not to be
so entirely. He wished Mr. Audley good-night, not in his most
perfectly cordial tone.

However, the next morning he had brought himself to thank Mr. Audley.

Thank you, Felix,' said the Curate; 'it is a great relief to me. I
was afraid you thought you were going to bring a meddling fellow in
upon you.'

Felix coloured, and with an effort--for which Mr. Audley liked him
the better--said, 'I know I shall always deserve what advice you give
me, and I hope another time I may take it better than the last.'

Soon after, one train carried away four of the young Underwoods to
begin life elsewhere. The Thomas Underwoods had desired that Alda and
Edgar should meet them at the station, and at Felix's entreaty had
also undertaken to convoy Clement, who, thanks to Mr. Audley, was to
be a chorister, and live in the clergy-house at St. Matthew's,
Whittingtonia. It would have been Fulbert, only unluckily he had no
ear, and so he was left at home, while Lady Price, Mrs. Thomas
Underwood, and all the ladies they could enlist in their service,
canvassed desperately, and made the cards of 'Fulbert James and
Lancelot Oswald, sons of the Rev. Edward Fulbert Underwood, THIRTEEN
children,' a weariness to every friend of a subscriber to clergy
orphan schools. Robina was not quite old enough to stand for the like
election; but Sister Constance had negotiated with a lady who had
devoted herself to educating children of better birth than means, and
the little girl was to be dropped at the nearest station to her
school at Catsacre. It had all been settled in a wonderfully short
time, by Sister Constance and Mr. Audley, with full though helpless
acquiescence from Mrs. Underwood. They felt it well to lessen the
crowd of children in the house, and the responsibilities of the elder
ones, and acted at once.

As to Alda, she was too miserable at home not to be ready to follow
Edgar, though she had at first implored to stay and help Wilmet till
their mother was about again; but the Thomas Underwoods were
unwilling to consent to this--and after all, Alda was more apt to cry
than to be of much real use. Sister Constance saw that she was only
another weight on her sister's hands, and that, terrible as the
wrench would be between the twins, Wilmet would be freer when it was
once over. Poor Wilmet! she had felt as if she could hardly have
lived over these weeks save for fondling the younger twins, and
waiting on her mother. She was almost passive, and ran up and
downstairs, or prepared the wardrobes of the departing children, just
as she was bidden, all in one quiet maze of grief. The tears seemed
to be always in her eyes, very often dropping, and yet they never
hindered her, and she never uttered a word of deprecation or
complaint; only she could not eat, and a kiss would bring down a
whole shower; and at night, the two sisters would hold each other
tight, and cry and kiss themselves to sleep.

So had come the last day--the last for all four. Robina, who had only
just come back from St. Faith's, was grave, puzzled, and awestruck,
clinging chiefly to Lancelot, and exchanging confidences in corners
with him, in which they were probably much less childish than they
showed themselves to the outer world. Clement was very grave and
unhappy; but seemed to be most distressed at parting with Harry Lamb,
a favourite school-fellow of his own quiet stamp, with whom he spent
all available time. Alda and Wilmet were hand in hand at every
possible moment, and if possible cheek to cheek--each felt as if
herself was cut in two.

Then Edgar, who had only come home for that farewell Sunday, had
another of his paroxysms of sorrow at the changes at home, which he
contrived to forget when at Centry. All that was becoming in a manner
usual to the others was a shock to him, and he was so very miserable
the whole day, that he treated every attempt of the others to cheer
him as a mere token of their hardness of heart. He went in to see his
mother, and was so overcome at finding her no better, that he rushed
away, and threw himself on a sofa as if he was going to faint; and
when at church he saw his father's place filled up he fell into such
a fit of sobbing, that half a dozen smelling-bottles were handed
across the seats.

However, he had recovered himself on Monday morning, and made it his
particular request that nobody would come bothering to the station,
to make them look like Fulbert's canvassing-card of the thirteen
children--and as the mention of it always affronted Fulbert deeply,
it was plain that he would be no good company. However, Felix had
been allowed an hour from his business for that very purpose, and he
simply said, 'Nonsense, Edgar, I shall take Robin down.' Wilmet
submitted, though with a great pang. She had no assurance that she
should not break down, and a crying match at the station--oh no! It
might make Bobbie roar all the way.

So Alda clung round her neck and Geraldine's in their own little
parlour, and wished her mother good-bye, scarcely knowing whether it
were with a full understanding how many were parted from the wing
that now seemed unable to shelter them; and then Wilmet went up and
quietly lay down by her mother on her bed, feeling as if there was
nothing she cared for in all life, and as if youth, hope, and
happiness were gone away from her for ever, and she were as much
widowed as her mother. She was even past crying--she could do nothing
but lie still. But then her mother's hand came out and stroked her;
and presently one of the babies cried, and Wilmet was walking up and
down the room with it, and all activity with her outward senses,
though her heart felt dead. Meantime, the luggage went in the
omnibus, the four children walked up together only escorted by Felix,
and were passed on their way by the prancing and thundering carriage
from Centry.

But the sense of usefulness that came gave strength and energy to
Felix and Wilmet Underwood as the first excitement passed away, and
they better understood their tasks.

Of the absent ones they heard good accounts. Alda was altogether one
with her cousin's family, and seemed to be completely on an equality
with Marilda; and Edgar had been sent by Thomas Underwood to acquire
modern languages under the care of an Englishman who took private
pupils at Louvaine, whence Edgar despatched most amusing letters and
clever sketches. Clement was in great favour, both musically and
morally, at St. Matthew's; and little Robina was reported to have
bewailed her home with floods of nightly tears, but to have soon
settled down into the bonnie little pet of the elder girls.

Except for the separation, the cloud had hardly fallen on these, but
their departure had made a great hole in the hitherto unbroken
family; and while Felix and Wilmet, by the loss of their
contemporaries, seemed placed at a point far away from the others,
Geraldine was conscious of much loneliness. The twins had always
consorted together, and regarded her as a mere child, and her chief
companions had been her father and Edgar, so that she seemed left at
an equal distance both from the elder and younger party.

Then the world around her was so busy, and she could do so little.
She slept in a little inner room beyond the large nursery, where
Wilmet kept guard over Angela and Bernard; and long before six
o'clock, she always heard the call pass between the eldest brother
and sister; and knew that as soon as he was dressed, Felix--it must
out--was cleaning the family boots, including those of the lodger,
who probably supposed that nature did it, and never knew how much his
young landlord had done before joining him in his early walk to St.
Oswald's.

Meantime Wilmet conducted the toilette of the two little children,
and gave the assistance that Cherry needed, as well as discharging
some of the lighter tasks of the housemaid; leaving the heavier ones
to Sibby and Martha, a stout, willing, strong young woman, whom
Sister Constance had happily found for them, and who was
disqualified, by a loutish manner and horrible squint, from the
places to which her capabilities might have raised her.

Then Wilmet helped her sister downstairs, and a visit was paid to the
mother and the twins, who were Sibby's charge for the night. Mrs.
Underwood was still in the same state. It was indeed possible to
rouse her, but at the expense of much suffering and excitement; and
in general, she was merely tender, placid, and content, mechanically
busied about her babies, and responding to what was said, but
entirely incapable of any exertion of body, and as inactive in mind
as in limb. Wilmet attended to her while Sibby went to her breakfast,
returning with that of her mistress in time to send Wilmet down to
preside at the family meal, a genuine Irish dish of stir-about--for
which all had inherited a taste from their father's Irish mother.
Only Cherry was too delicate for such food, and was rather ashamed of
her cup of tea and slice of bread.

However, this was one of the few times when she could hope she was
useful; for when Felix was gone to the printing-office, the boys to
the grammar-school, and Wilmet, first to the kitchen, and then to
Miss Pearson's, she remained with bowl and cloth to wash up, in her
own peculiarly slow and dainty way, never breaking but always
dreaming, while Angela carried them one by one, first to her, then to
the kitchen.

'Now, Cherry.'

Mr. Audley's door opened, he would step forward and take the well-
worn books in one hand, and hold the doors open with the other as
Cherry tardily hopped in, and perched herself by the table. Her
confirmation studies had been left in his charge, and then followed a
little Greek, some Latin, a page or two of French, the revision of an
exercise, and some help in Euclid and fractions--all studies begun
with her father, and both congenial and useful to her, as the
occupation that (next to drawing) best prevented her from feeling the
dreary loneliness of her days; for though he could seldom give her
more than an hour, the preparation--after he had helped her upstairs-
--occupied her during the whole period of tranquillity while the
younger children slept. Angela appeared first, and did some small
lessons, cat-and-dog readings, and easy hymns, then was generally
content to sit on the floor in Mamma's room, admiring or amusing the
twins. Then Cherry, according to her sense of duty, drew or worked.
There was a horrible never-ending still-beginning basket of mending
in the family, which Wilmet replenished every Saturday; and though
Mrs. Underwood's instinct for piecing and darning had revived as soon
as she was taken out of bed, her work now always needed a certain
revision to secure the boys from the catastrophe of which Wilmet
often dreamt--appearing in public in ragged shirt-sleeves! Geraldine
knew that every stitch she left undone would have to be put in by her
sister in late evening or early morning, and therefore often wrenched
herself from the pencil and paints that best beguiled her thoughts
from the heartache for her father, and the craving for Edgar, or the
mere craving for light, air, liberty, and usefulness. Her only excuse
to her own conscience for allowing herself her chief pleasure was,
that it was her way of helping an old woman who kept a stall of small
wares on market days, and could sometimes dispose of little pictures
on domestic and Scriptural subjects, if highly coloured, glazed with
gum, and bound with bright paper--pickings and stealings, as Felix
called them, gleaned from advertisements and packing-boxes at Mr.
Froggatt's; but these did not allow much scope for the dreams of her
fancy.

Nor had she much choice when Bernard once awoke and came down, in all
the unreasoning tyranny of two years old, when it was an even chance
whether he would peaceably look at the old scrap-book, play with
Angela, or visit Mamma; or be uproarious, and either coalesce with
Angela in daring mischief, fight a battle-royal with her, or be
violent with and jealous of the twins.

The urchin had found out that when once Cherry's crutch was out of
her reach she could not get at him; and he had ridden off upon it so
often, before committing any of his worst misdemeanours, that Cherry
always lay down on it to secure it. After all, he was a fine,
affectionate, impetuous little fellow, but with a very high, proud,
unmanageable will; and she was very fond and proud of him; but never
more so than when he slept till dinner-time.

That was the hour which brought Felix home to help Sibby to carry his
mother into the sitting-room, pay a little court to the babies, and
enliven Cherry with any chance scrap of news or occupation. Best of
all were the proofs of that unfinished comment on the Epistle to
Philippi, which was being printed by subscription of the
congregation, and the clergy of the diocese. It always did Mrs.
Underwood good to have these read aloud to her by her little
daughter, and she could sometimes find a clue to the understanding of
sentences that had puzzled even Mr. Audley.

The two school-boys never appeared till dinner was imminent; and
then--one unuttered wish of poor Cherry was that Mr. Audley could
have dined with them; but he kept to his own hours, and they were
late.

Whereby dinners on five days of the week were apt to be something on
this fashion. Bell-ringing--Felix helping Geraldine to her seat,
Angela trotting after: a large dish of broth, with meat and rice, and
another of mashed potato; no sign of the boys; Angela lisping grace;
Sibby waiting with a tray.

Felix filled a soup-plate for his mother, and a basin for Bernard.
'We must begin, I suppose,' and he helped his sisters and himself.

'Here, Angel, push over your plate; I'll cut that.--How did you get
on to-day?'

'Very well; the only mistake I made I found out before Smith saw it.
I know all the stationery and steel pens apart now, and haven't made
a mistake for a week. Yesterday Bartlett junior came in. he stood
like a post before Mr. Froggatt till he caught sight of me, and then
he shouted out, "O Blunderbore, you know! What is it that Collis
wants?"'

'And did you?'

'When he said it was a horrid sum-book all little a's and b's.--What
have you been doing, Cherry?'

'I have begun an abstract of the first Punic--'

The door flew open with a bounce, and two hot, wild-locked boys, dust
everywhere except in their merry blue eyes, burst in, and tumbled on
their chairs. 'I say--isn't it a horrid sell? we ain't to have a
holiday for Squire's wedding.--Come, Fee, give us some grub.'

'You have not said grace,' said Cherry.

Lance, abashed, stood up and bowed; Fulbert looked grim, and mumbled
something.

'You have not washed your hands,' added Felix.

'What's the good?' said Fulbert.

'They'll be as jolly dirty again directly,' said Lance.

'But you would be more decent company in the meantime,' said Felix.

At that moment there was a splash in his plate, a skip-jack made of
the breast-bone of a chicken had alighted there with a leap.

'There's Felix's master come after him,' cried Fulbert, and Lance
went off into choking laughter.

'Boys, how can you?' broke out Cherry.

'Look at Blunderbore fishing out his master!' was Fulbert's answer.

'The frog is in the bog,
And Felix is squeamish,'

chanted Lance.

'Bad rhyme, Lance,' said Felix, who could bear these things much
better from the younger than the elder. Indeed, he scarcely durst
notice them in Fulbert, lest he should be betrayed into violence by
letting out his temper.

'I say!' cried Lance, struck by a new idea, 'what prime stuff it is
for making a fort!' and he began to scrape the more solid parts of
his plateful to one side.

'Oh, I say, isn't it?' echoed Fulbert: 'but I've eaten up the best
part of my castle;' and he grasped at the ladle.

'No, I thank you,' said Felix, putting it on the other side. 'While I
am here, you don't play tricks with that.'

Fulbert swallowed a spoonful in a passion, but a bright thought
struck Lance, who always cared much more for fun than for food. 'I
_say_, we'll empty it all into one, and eat it down.'

'You horrid boys!' plaintively exclaimed Cherry, almost crying--for
this return to savage life was perfect misery to her. 'I can't bear
it.'

'I will not have Cherry tormented,' said Felix, beginning to be very
irate.

'We ain't doing anything to Cherry,' said Lance, amazed.

'Don't you know it spoils Cherry's appetite to see you so
disgusting?'

'Then she'll have the more next time,' said Fulbert. 'Get along,
Captain--you've splashed my face!'

'Hurrah! the red-hot shot! The rice is the cannon-balls! Where's some
bread?'

'O Lance!' entreated Cherry; 'no waste--think of Wilmet and the
bills.'

'We'll eat it every bit up,' asseverated Lance; but Fulbert growled,
'If you bother any more, I shall crumble the whole lot out at
window.'

'It is wicked to waste bread,' lisped Angela, and Martha at that
moment appeared to fetch the tureen for the kitchen dinner.

'Can't you eat any more, Cherry ?' asked Felix gloomily.

'Not a bit, thank you,' she said.

'We've not done!' shouted the boys, seizing on her scarcely-tasted
and half-cold plate.

'You must finish after. Come, Cherry!' Then, as they left the room,
and she laid her head on his shoulder--'Little ruffians!' he said
under his breath.

'Oh, never mind, Felix. I don't--at least I ought not to mind--they
don't mean it.'

'Lance does not, but I think Fulbert does. He'll make me thrash him
within two inches of his life before he has done. And then there's no
one to take me in hand for it. It is horridly bad for them, too, to
live just like young bears.'

But he smoothed his brow as he came into the room where his mother
was, and amused her till his time was up.

Mr. Froggatt had explained to his father long ago that Felix's work
would not be that of a clerk in a great publishing house, but
veritably that belonging to the country bookseller and printer, and
that he must go through all the details, so as to be thoroughly
conversant with them. The morning's work was at the printing-house,
the afternoon's at the shop. The mechanical drudgery and intense
accuracy needed in the first were wearisome enough; and moreover, he
had to make his way with a crusty old foreman who was incredulous of
any young gentleman's capabilities, and hard of being convinced that
he would or could be useful, but old Smith's contempt was far less
disagreeable to him than the subdued dislike he met with from
Redstone, the assistant in the shop, a sharp, half-educated young
man, who had aspired to the very post of confidence for which Felix
was training--and being far less aware of his own utter unfitness for
it than was Mr. Froggatt, regarded the lad as an interloper; and
though he durst not treat him with incivility, was anxious to expose
any deficiency or failure on his part. Having a good deal of
quickness and dexterity, he could act as a reporter, draw up articles
of a certain description for the newspaper, and had, since the death
of Mr. Froggatt's eldest son, been absolutely necessary to him in
carrying on the business; and now, it was a matter of delicate
discretion on the master's part to avoid hurting the feelings of the
assistant, whom a little more would have made his tyrant, and a dread
of the appearance of favouritism made it needful to keep Felix
thoroughly in a subordinate post, till real superiority of mind and
education should assert itself over elder years and mere familiarity
with detail. This reserved ill-will of Redstone's had much increased
the natural discomfort of appearing behind the counter to former
acquaintance, and had rendered the learning the duties there doubly
troublesome and confusing; though, in recalling the day's doings,
there was some amusement in contrasting the behaviour of different
people, some--of whom Mr. Ryder was the type--speaking to him freely
in his own person, others leaving him as an unrecognised shop-boy;
and a third favouring him with a horrid little furtive nod, which he
liked least of all. But though awkward and embarrassed at first, use
soon hardened him, and made the customers indifferent, so that by the
spring he had begun to be useful, and to feel no particular
excitement about it.

The worst of his business was that it kept him so late, that he had
but a very short evening, and no time for exercise. He was on his
feet most of the day, but indoors, and his recreation chiefly
consisted in choir-practice twice a week. Not that he missed more
positive amusement; the cares of life and Edgar's departure seemed to
have taken the boyish element of frolic out of him; and left him
gravely cheerful indeed, but with no greater desire of entertainment
than could find vent in home conversation, or playing with the little
ones.

Wilmet and the two boys were at liberty full two hours before him.
The latter generally stayed out as long as light and hunger
permitted. Mr. Audley continually stumbled on them playing at
marbles, racing headlong in teams of pack-thread harness with their
fellows, upsetting the nerves of quiet folk--staring contentedly at
such shows as required no outlay, or discontentedly at the outside of
those that demanded the pennies they never had. They were thorough
little street-boys; and all that he could do for them was to enforce
their coming in at reasonable hours, and, much to their sister's
relief, cause their daily lessons to be prepared in his room.
Otherwise their places in their classes would have been much less
creditable.

Wilmet's return was always Geraldine's great relief, for the
afternoon of trying to amuse her mother, and keep the peace between
the children, was almost more than she was equal to; though, on fine
days, Sibby always took out the two elder babies, with an alternate
twin, for an hour's air, and Mr. Audley daily visited the invalid.
Mr. Bevan did so twice a week, with a gentle sympathising tone and
manner that was more beneficial than Lady Price's occasional
endeavours to make her 'rouse herself.' Miss Pearson and a few
humbler friends now and then looked in, but Mrs. Underwood had been
little known. With so large a family, and such straitened means, the
part of the active clergyman's wife was impossible to her; she had
shrunk from society, and most people knew nothing more of her than
that the faded lady-like figure they used to see among her little
flock at church, was Mrs. Underwood.