Volume Two—Chapter Six.
The Fly on the Wall.
“Well, mother, it might have been worse,” said Richard, sitting down to his humble dinner about a week later. “Here, Jessie, pull my ears.”
Jessie, who looked very pale and red-eyed, as if with weeping, went behind her father’s chair, took hold of his ears playfully, and pulled them, while he drew one hand before his face.
“Will that do, dear?” she said, drawing his head back so that she could kiss his puzzled forehead.
“Beautiful, my darling! Nothing like it. Tightens the skin, and takes out all the wrinkles. Keeps you young-looking, and makes your wife fond of you. Don’t it, mother?”
Mrs Shingle sighed, but looked at him affectionately, as she placed a spoon in the potatoes.
“That’s right,” said Dick. “Smiles is human sunshine, and don’t cost anything. You both look as bright again to-day. Hallo! old fellow,” he continued, thrusting a spoon into some hash. “Now, it won’t do, you know. You can’t deceive me, in spite of your brown gravy. You’re that half-shoulder of mutton we had on Sunday.”
“Yes, it is, Dick,” said Mrs Shingle.
“I knew it. Didn’t he gape wide open as soon as I cut into him, and pretend that three people had been helped? Oh, I knew him again! Come, look bright, both of you: things might be worse. See how I’m trying to shine! Come on: the best side of the looking-glass, both of you. The glue and wood will do for old Max.”
In spite of his endeavours, the dinner was a sorry repast, the only one who enjoyed it being the boy; and as soon as it was cleared away, Dick and the others resumed their work.
“Do you really mean to go, Dick?” said his wife at last, after making three or four efforts to speak.
“Yes, certain!” he said; and he glanced at Jessie, who was just then looking at him, when both lowered their eyes directly.
“But how can we leave without paying?” Mrs Shingle ventured to say at last.
“Sell the furniture,” said Dick bitterly. “There—it’s no use, mother, I won’t humble myself to him no more. I’ve as good as took a couple of rooms off St. John Street, and go we will—for many reasons,” he added.
“But, Dick dear—”
“Hold your tongue, mother!” he cried sternly. “I’m going to turn over a new leaf. Other folks make money; I’m going to make some now—somehow. But I don’t know how,” he added to himself. “Now, you sir, get on—we’ve got to make a fortune yet,” he continued, hammering away; while Jessie’s sewing machine clicked musically, and her little white-stockinged feet seemed to twinkle as they played up and down.
Mrs Shingle looked very much in trouble, for every now and then she wiped a furtive tear from her eye.
“How much money did you bring from the warehouse this morning, my gal?” said Dick suddenly, as he looked up from playing cat’s-cradle over a boot.
Jessie gazed at him in a frightened manner, and then dropped her head lower over her machine, while her hands trembled so that she could hardly direct her work.
“I say, Jessie, my gal, how much did you draw this morning?”
“None, father,” said Jessie, with a sob. And then, covering her face with her hands, she burst into a passion of weeping.
“Why, Jess, my gal—Jess!” cried Dick, dropping stirrup-leather and boot. “Here, you sir: here’s a penny. Go down to Wilson’s and get a pen’orth o’ wax.”
“But here is plenty, master,” said the boy.
“Go down to Wilson’s and get a pen’orth o’ wax,” said Dick sternly.
“Hadn’t I better go to Singley’s, sir? it ain’t half so far.”
“Go and get a pen’orth o’ wax at Wilson’s,” said Dick angrily. And he saw the boy off the premises before he crossed to Jessie.
“Why, what’s the matter, my pretty one?” he said tenderly.
“Oh, father dear, don’t be cross with me,” she sobbed. “I couldn’t tell you before.”
“Just as if your poor stoopid old goose of a father could be cross with you!” he said, fondling her and drawing her close to his heart. “At least,” he added, “I could be cross, but not with anything you’d go and do. Now, then, what’s the matter?”
“Oh, father, I can never go to the warehouse again.”
“What?” said Dick; “not go—”
“No, father,” she sobbed: “that man—”
She stopped short, and Dick, with his face working, patted her tenderly on the shoulder, and then rolled up his sleeves.
“It’s only father, my precious: tell him all about it,” he whispered.
As he spoke he made a sign to Mrs Shingle to be silent. “That man, father,” she sobbed hysterically—“several times lately—insulted me—dare not say anything—the money—you so poor, dear!”
“Jessie,” cried Dick, in a choking voice, “my poor darling,—if I’d known!”
“Yes, father dear, I know,” she cried, placing her arm round his neck and kissing him tenderly; “but you wanted the money so badly, I would not speak.”
“But it was wrong, my darling,” he said angrily. “But tell me—all.”
“This morning—I went,” she faltered, “and there was no one in the room, and he caught me in his arms—and kissed me,” she sobbed, with her face like crimson. Then, indignantly, “I screamed out, and Tom—”
“Was Tom there?” cried Dick reproachfully.
“Yes, father; I could not help his being there. We had never spoken since that dreadful day, when Uncle Max—”
“Yes,” said Dick hastily: “go on.”
“But he has come and watched me every day, father, at a distance, and seen me go to and from the warehouse.”
“Bless him!” muttered Dick.
“And when I shrieked out,” continued Jessie, with a look of pride lighting up her face, “Tom rushed in; and, oh, father, it was very dreadful!”
“What was?” said Dick hoarsely, for he was evidently suffering from suppressed passion.
“Tom!”
“Mr Thomas Fraser, my gal?”
“Mr Thomas beat him dreadfully,” continued Jessie, “till he cried for mercy; and dear Tom—”
“Mr Thomas, my gal,” said Dick, correcting.
“Made him go down upon his knees and beg my pardon, and then he brought me away.”
“God bless him!” said Dick fervently, “But it’s Mr Thomas Fraser, my dear; and he’s nothing to you but a brave, true young fellow, who acted like a man. But, that it should come to this!” he groaned, striding up and down the room. “This is being a poor man, and having to eat other people’s bread. Oh, it’s dreadful, dreadful! If she’d been rich Max’s daughter, mother, no one would have dared to insult her; and as for this blackguard, I’ll—”
He caught up the hammer, and had reached the door, when Jessie and her mother ran and clung to him, Mrs Shingle locking the door till he promised to be content with the castigation the fellow had received.
“Mr Tom would be sure to beat him well, father,” said Mrs Shingle.
“Well, that is one comfort,” said Dick, cooling a little. “I should have nearly killed any blackguard who had touched you. Well, mother,” he continued, “when things comes to the worst they mends; but it don’t seem to be so with us any more than with shoes, unless some one mends ’em, I mean to mend ours somehow. ‘Why don’t you try?’ every one says. Well, I do try.”
Just then the boy came back, and making a sign to Jessie and his wife not to let him see their trouble, all tried to resume their work, but in a despairing, half-hearted manner, in the midst of which, in a doleful, choking voice, Dick began to sing over his sewing, while the boy seemed to keep time with the hammer with which he was driving in nails.
“For we always are so jolly, oh—
So jolly, oh—so jolly, oh—so jolly—”
sang Dick; but he had soon done, and his voice trailed off into a dismal wail, as, unable to contain themselves, Jessie’s face went down over her sewing machine and Mrs Shingle hid hers in her apron.
“My God! what can I do?” the poor fellow moaned, as, with a catching in his breath, he glanced at those most dear to him. “I hav’n’t a shilling in the world, and the more I try—the more I try—”
He caught up a hammer savagely, and began to beat vigorously at the leather, forcing himself to sing again, as if he had not seen the trouble of his wife and child—
“To get his fill, the poor boy did stoop,
And, awful to state, he was biled in the soup.”
“Oh, master, please, master, don’t sing that dreadful song,” cried Union Jack, with a dismal howl. “I can’t bear it: please, master, I can’t bear it, indeed.”
“Hold your tongue, you young ruffian,” cried Dick, with a pitiful attempt at being comic. “It’s a good job we’ve got you in stock; for if things do come to the worst, you’ll make a meal for many a day to come.”
“Oh, please, don’t talk like that, master,” cried the boy.
“Dick, dear,” whispered his wife, “don’t tease the poor lad: he half believes you.”
“I’m not teasing of him, mother,” said Dick aloud; “only it’s a pity to have to boil him all at once, instead of by degrees. Here, get out the cold tea, mother, and let’s take to drinking—have a miserable day, and enjoy ourselves. Jessie, my gal, you’ll rust that machine raining on it like that. Come, mother, rouse up; it’ll all come right in the end.”
“I was not crying, Dick,” said Mrs Shingle,—“not much.”
“Yes, you were,” he cried, with a rollicking air of gaiety. “I saw two drips go on your apron and one in that child’s shoe. Come, cheer up.”
There was a pause then, during which all again tried hard to work; but the knowledge that they were about to turn out of the little home, and that their prospects were so bitter, combined with sorrow for their child, made a sob or two burst from Mrs Shingle’s breast, while even the boy kept on sniffing.
“Here, I can’t stand this,” groaned Dick at last, getting up and walking about the room. “I don’t spend no money, mother—only a half-ounce or two of tobacco for myself, and one now and then for poor old Hopper, who seems to be cutting us now we are so down. You don’t spend much, mother: and it’s as true as gorspel about shoemakers’ wives being the worst shod; while as for me, I haven’t had a real new pair this ten years.”
“Don’t take on about it, Dick,” said Mrs Shingle, making a brave effort to smile. And she took and patted her husband’s hand affectionately.
“I wouldn’t care, mother, if things were better for you two; and I can’t see as it’s my extravagance as does it.”
“Oh, no, no, Dick dear.”
“One half-pint of beer this month, and it’s the beer as is the ruin of such as me,” he said, with a comical look—“and one screw of tobacco this week, and the paper as was round it, for thickness, why, it was like leather.”
“Don’t, don’t mind, Dick,” whispered Mrs Shingle. “We’ll sell the things, and clear ourselves, and start free again.”
“It’s all right, mother,” he cried, with a kind of gulp. “It’s got to the worst pitch now—see if it ain’t. Don’t make it rain indoors,” he added, in a remonstrating tone; “’specially when we’ve only one umbrella in the house, and it’s broke. Here, Jessie, my gal, what’s that song you sing about the rain?”
”‘There’s sunshine after rain,’ father,” said Jessie, looking up in so piteous a way that Dick had hard work to keep back a sob; but with another struggle to drive off his cares, he cried—
“To be sure. ‘There’s sunshine after rain, my boys; there’s sunshine after rain,’” he sang, making up words, and a peculiar doleful tune of his own, as he set-to again and hammered vigorously at a piece of leather. “Work away, Union Jack, and sing, you dog—‘There’s sunshine af—aft—after—’”
The hammer fell at his feet, and he rose once more.
“Go away, Jack, my boy,” he said, in a different tone of voice.
“No, no, master: don’t send me back,” cried the boy passionately. “I’m very sorry; and I’ll try so—so very hard not to be hungry.”
“Hush, my boy, hush!” said Dick softly.
“And when I am, master, I’ll never—never say I am. Don’t send me away.”
“Tell him—tell him, mother,” whispered Dick, who had been so near breaking down before that the boy’s passionate appeal completely unmanned him.
“There’s nobody to care for there, master, and it’s all whitewash. Miss Jessie, please ask him not to send me away.”
“Come here, Jack,” said Mrs Shingle.
“No, no, missus; I’ll stop here on bread and water—I will, missus. Please let me stay!”
“I—I only want you to go outside for a bit, Jack,” said Dick, with his lips quivering. “Go out and play, my boy.”
“But,” said the boy suspiciously, “you won’t cut off, master, and leave me. Fain larks, you know.”
“No, no, no, my lad. Go and stop out in the court.” The boy gazed keenly in his face, and then, with a suspicious look in his eyes, went outside.
“It seems to me as the poorer people is the fonder they get of you, mother,” said Dick pitifully. “Oh, my gal, what have we done, that we should be so poor? Here have I worked early and late for the few pence we drag together, and can’t get on. It’s because I’m a wretched bungler, and it would have been better if I’d never been born.”
“Dick, dear Dick,” whispered his wife, as he sat down despairingly, and leaned his head upon his hand, while she bent over him. “Don’t give way. I can bear anything but that.”
“I do try, my gal, harder than you think,” he groaned; “and when I’m making most of a fool of myself, and laughing and singing, it’s because I’ve got such a gnawing here.”
He raised his hand to strike his chest, but it was caught by Jessie, who drew it round her neck as she knelt at his feet.
“And I’ve been so much trouble instead of a comfort, father; and it’s all my fault,” she sobbed.
“Your fault, my precious!” he cried, as he took her piteous face in his hands and kissed it a dozen times over—“your fault! Why, you’ve been like sunshine in the place ever since you used to sit on your little stool there, and play with the bits of leather, and build houses with mother’s cotton-reels. Your fault, my darling! There—there—there! It’s all over, mother, and the sun’s coming out again. It won’t rain any more to-day.”
There was a pause here, and the little place was very silent as the cries of the children at play floated in.
“There, we’ll have Jack in again. And, look here: it’s cowardly and mean of me to give up like that; but it’s the last time. So there, mother,” he said, smiling, as he rose and stood between them, “as a respectable tradesman I object to swearing, as is only allowable when you want to take an oath. I’m going to take an oath now, when I says I’ll be cussed if I give way again, and—”
“Here’s a letter, master!” cried the boy, rushing in.
“A letter?” said Dick, taking it with his apron. “Who’s been a-writing to me? Perhaps it’s about that money, mother, and we shall—Here, my eyes are all of a swim. Did the postman give it to you, Jack?”
“Yes, master, at the door,” said the boy eagerly.
Mrs Shingle took the letter, and opened it, to find a clean, new ten-pound note inside, which she spread out and held to her husband.
Dick took it, turned it upside down, over, round and round, and held it up to the light.
“It’s—it’s a duffer, mother,” he said at last, with his voice trembling; “it’s a flash note, like—like they are at the races. Bank of Elegance.”
”‘For the Governor and Company of the Bank of England,’” read Jessie slowly.
“No! Does it say so?” cried Dick excitedly. “Then it’s a good one, and it’s a mistake. It isn’t for me. Give me the envelope.”
He took it hastily, and read aloud, “Mr Richard Shingle, Shoemaker, Crowder’s Buildings, Lower Street, Islington.”
“That’s me, mother,” he said, looking from wife to daughter, “ain’t it?”
“Yes, Dick, it is for you.”
“Let’s look inside. What does it say in the letter?”
“Nothing! There, we’ve only the blank sheet of paper in which the note was wrapped. Yes, on one corner, the words—‘For you, Richard Shingle.’”
“Then, it’s from that Tom Fraser,” cried Dick, plucking up; “and I won’t take it.”
“No, father,” cried Jessie eagerly; and she trembled, too, as she took the paper. “It is not his writing; and he would have said ‘Mr. Richard Shingle.’”
“So he would, my gal,” said Dick, nodding. “Then it’s from Max; and he’s sorry he’s been so hard on me—dear old Max! And he wants to be friends again. Blood is thicker than water, after all, mother; and I always said it was. There, I’m as pleased as if it was a hundred from any other man.”
The tears stood in his eyes, as he looked from one to the other; but to read no sympathy in the countenance of wife and child.
“That’s five times, you know, the money’s come like that,” said Dick, “and always when we’ve been in great trouble. It is from Max, mother; and his roughness is only the way he’s got.”
A faint flush of hope illumined Jessie’s face as she tried to believe her father’s words; but it died out directly.
“Why, mother,” cried Dick joyously, “we can clear all off, and have some money to go on with; and- But, I say, if Max sent this, he wouldn’t like us to go.”
“Max did not send it,” said Mrs Shingle decidedly. “Eh?”
“I am sure of it,” she said.
“Then you know who did?”
“If I knew who sent it, Dick,” said the poor woman, laying her hand upon his arm, “you’d have known too.”
“So I should, mother—so I should,” he said quietly, as he nodded his head. “Who could it be, then?”
“Some good, true friend, who don’t want to be known,” said Mrs Shingle.
“It would be a bitter pill to swallow,” said Dick thoughtfully, “if it was done in charity—a gilded pill, mother, wrapped up in that bit of paper. Oh, mother, mother!” he cried, stamping up and down the room, “I’m only a poor, miserable fellow, but I’ve got my pride, like better men. I don’t like this beggarly dependence on other people—this taking money in charity. If I could only hit a bright—invent some new thing that all the world would buy!”
“Watts was an inventor, and made the steam engine,” said the boy softly.
“Hang Watts!” cried Dick impatiently. “Here, you be quiet. I don’t want your union-school copy-books here.”
“All right, master,” said the boy, with a sniff.
Dick walked up and down the room in an excited way, with the bank-note in his left hand, while a bluebottle fly came in at the window and buzzed round the room, now up, now down, its loud hum rising and falling, as, apparently taken off from his previous thoughts, the man followed it, and as it settled he twice made ineffectual efforts to catch it.
“Buzz—uzz—buzz! Um—um—um!” went the fly; while Jack stood with open mouth and an old slipper, ready to hit at the insect if it came his way; Mrs Shingle and Jessie glancing at one another, and then following Dick in a troubled fashion with their eyes, as he still pursued the great bluebottle.
“You’ve a fine time of it, you have,” he said, “you great, lazy wind-flitter!”
“Buzz—buzz!—um—um—um!” went the fly, round and round.
“Ah,” said Dick, “some men hit bright ideas, and make fortunes, but I don’t; and it seems (ah! I nearly had you that time)—seems, mother, as if we go on as we are that we may toil on (well, he is a sharp one, but I’ll have him yet)—toil on till we get to the workhouse!”
“Oh, don’t, please, master—don’t go there,” cried the boy. “Now, master—quick, quick. He’s settled on the edge of the last shelf.”
“I see him,” said Dick, going cautiously up, with hand ready to catch the fly.
But, before he reached it, away it went round and round the room again.
“Buzz—uzz!—um—um—um!”
“There’s nothing done without trying, mother,” continued Dick, who was excited now over his chase. “Try again, try again till you succeed’s the way. Now, you know, if I was to—was to—(Ah, gone again; but I’ll have you yet)—you see, I might—”
“Now, master, there he is,” whispered Jack; “you’ll have it now.”
“Yes,” said Dick, “I shall get it now. You see, mother, shoemaking and cobbling’s all very well, but it means starvation to us, though it’s a thing in common demand. If I could invent—(Ah! I shall have you directly).”
He went cautiously across the room.
“Invent a pair o’ boots as won’t never wear out, master,” whispered the boy. “Now look, master—there, on the wall!”
The buzzing had ceased, and all was very still in the low, shabby room, as the bluebottle settled on the centre of a figure in the common wall-paper; and Dick went forward, on tiptoe, while, somehow drawn into a keen interest in the pursuit, they knew not why, Mrs Shingle and Jessie still looked on.
Slowly and cautiously, as if determined to make up this time for his many failures, Richard Shingle advanced closer and closer, just as a ray of sunshine fell on the wall, making the fly, which was cleaning and brushing itself, stand out plainly before them all.
It was as if the capture of that fly had something to do with their future in life, and the activity that Dick threw into the pursuit was shared by all present.
Would he catch it? Would he fail?
That was the mental question asked, as he made a scoop of his hand, drew just within the required distance, paused for a moment, and then—
There was a rapid dash of a hand across the sunlit patch, and Dick stood up, with outstretched arm and closed fist.
“Bizz—izz—izz” went the captured fly, within the tightened hand, as Jack gave his knee a delighted slap.
“At last—at last!” shouted Dick. “I’ve got it, mother, now. Do you hear, Jessie? I’ve got it.”
“Got what?” they cried.
He paused for a moment or two, turned to them with a curious look upon his face, and then said quietly—
“The fly on the wall.”
“Jessie, my darling—he’s mad,” whispered Mrs Shingle, running to him. “Oh, Dick, Dick!”
“No, mother,” he cried, “I’m not mad; and I’ve made my fortune.”
As he spoke he held his hand to the window, unclosed it, and the fly darted into the sunshine—free.
“At last!” said Dick softly. ”‘Hit a bright,’” Max said, “and—I’ve let it go.”
Volume Two—Chapter Seven.
Who was that?
“Got your Australian money yet, Dick?” said Hopper the next day, when he dropped in as usual.
“No,” said Dick; “but I’ve got this,” and he flourished the ten-pound note before his old friend.
“Hey? Got that,” said Hopper, putting on a pair of tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles, and taking the note in his fingers. “Why, it’s—it’s a ten-pound note. It’s a bad one.”
“No,” said Dick triumphantly; “it’s a good one. I asked our grocer.”
“Hey? A good one! Come by it honestly, Dick?”
“Of course he did,” cried Mrs Shingle indignantly.
“Ah! I don’t know—I don’t know,” said the old fellow. “There’s a deal of trickery in the world. If it’s a good one, then, Dick, and you did come by it honestly, you’ll lend me a few shillings, Dick, eh? Say ten.”
“Hopper, old man,” said Dick, “you shall have a pound if you like. And, look here, I’ve hit a bright idea at last.”
“No—have you?” said Hopper, whose hearing seemed wonderfully good.
“Yes, old chap; and a fortune will come of it. And, look here: we’ve been best friends when it was hard times,—there’s an easy chair in the corner for you when it’s soft times. None of your turning proud, you know.”
“Hey? Turn proud? No; I sha’n’t turn proud. You will. Won’t he, Jessie?”
“No,” said Jessie, speaking up. “Father will never alter—never.”
“Well, I don’t know about that,” said Dick, with a peculiar smile, which he seemed to wipe off directly by passing his hand across his mouth. “Perhaps I may alter, you know, and a good deal too. But, look here, old Hopper, you stop to-day, and we’ll have a holiday—the first I’ve had for years.”
“Hey? Holiday? What, go out?”
“No,” said Dick, “stay at home. We’ll have a bit of supper together, and drink the health of him as sent me that money—bless him. I can’t work to-day. I’m ripening up something, and I can do it best over the old fiddle. We haven’t had a scrape for weeks.”
“Scrape? No,” said the old fellow, “we haven’t;” and, getting up, he toddled to the corner cupboard, from which he drew out a violoncello in its faded green baize bag, and, patting it affectionately, brought it out into the middle of the room. “I was going to take it away to-day,” he said. “It’s too valuable to be lost.”
“Thought we were going to be sold up, eh, Hopper, old man?” said Dick, taking down a violin that hung by the eight-day clock.
“Hey?”
“Thought we were going to be sold up, eh? I should have taken care of your old bass,” said Dick, with a nod and a smile. “It should not have come to harm, Hopper, anyhow. Now, missus, and you, Jessie, give us a cup of tea, with srimps and creases, and a nice bit of supper about eight. We’ll have a happy day in the old house for the last one.”
“Last one, Dick!”
“Yes, mother, the last one. I shall move into better premises to-morrow.”
“Dick dear,” cried Mrs Shingle imploringly—while Hopper seemed to be busying himself over the strings of the ’cello—“what does all this mean? What are you going to do?”
“Do!” said Dick, making his violin chirrup: “throw away wax-end and leather. They say, let the shoemaker stick to his last; but I’ve stuck to it too long. Mother, I’m going to make a fortune.”
“But how, Dick—how?”
“Wait and see.”
“You’ll tell me what you are going to do?” said Mrs Shingle, half angrily.
“I sha’n’t tell a soul,” replied Dick firmly; and then, seeing the effect his words had upon his wife, he kissed her, tuned up his violin, and began to turn over the leaves of some very old music with the bow. “Here’s the note, mother; and don’t spare expense—as far as five shillings go. Get a drop of whiskey, too.”
“Hey! whiskey? Who said whiskey?” exclaimed Hopper. “Going to have a drop of whiskey to-night, Dick?”
Dick nodded.
“That’s good,” said the old fellow, laughing and nodding his head. “We’ll drink success to the new venture, Dick.”
“We will. Now, then, what’s it to be, eh? Here we go: ‘Life’s a bumper!’ That’ll do, for it is; and many a bump and bruise it has given me.”
Hopper’s head went down over his ’cello, Dick’s cheek on his violin; and the oddly assorted couple began to solemnly scrape away, sometimes melodiously, sometimes getting into terrible tangles over the score, consequent upon its being set for three voices or instruments, and Dick having to dodge up and down, from the treble to the tenor and back; while Hopper, with half-closed eyes, and his head moving to and fro like a snag on an American river, kept on sawing away, regardless of everything but the deep tones he evolved from the strings.
From “Life’s a Bumper” they went on to “Vital Spark,” and from “Vital Spark” to the “Hallelujah Chorus,” and from the “Hallelujah Chorus” to “Forgive, blest Shade;” and then Dick tried a solo known as “The Cuckoo.” But it was a failure; for though he managed the first note of the bird, the second would not come—all owing to want of practice,—so he gave way to Hopper, who, with knitted brows, played his solo, “Adeste fideles,” with variations; the effect upon the boy being absolutely painful, causing him to thrust his legs up under the stool, and head down, with his arms crossed over his person. His face, too, was drawn; and had it not been for the variations, it seemed probable that he would have had a fit of sobbing. These latter, being more lively, saved him; though he had a painful relapse during the third variation, which was largo, and in A minor, his face during the performance being a study. However, he became convalescent during the allegro finale, and all ended well.
Tea being declared ready, the musicians ceased their toils for the time being, and feasted on watercress and shrimps; and though the “creases,” as Dick called them, were a little yellow, and the shrimps dull in hue, and too crumby and soft for crustaceans, the meal was a great success, and Hopper actually made a joke.
Like giants refreshed, Dick and he returned to their instruments, and sawed away until supper, which was luxurious, consisting, as it did, of a highly savoured rump-steak pudding, with so much pepper in it, in fact, that both took off their coats, and perspired in peace.
“Ha!” said Hopper suddenly—“I like this; it’s better than eating curry in company at your brother’s, where you can’t scratch your head.”
“Yes, nice pudding,” said Dick, with his mouth full. “You’ve put a good lot of salt in it, Jessie.”
“Lot!” chuckled Hopper. “I had one bit that tasted as if Jessie had put in Lot’s wife as well—the whole pillar. But, never mind, my dear; that’s the best pudding I ever ate in my life. I could taste your fingers in the crust.”
The table being cleared, half a bottle of whiskey and the pipes were placed, with hot water, on the table by Jessie, whose eyes were always wandering nervously towards the door, as if expecting to see some one come in.
Hopper was the first to help himself to whiskey, which he did liberally, apparently not being able to judge the quantity on account of the foreshortening effect of the tumbler.
“That boy Fred been about here lately?” he said, taking his pipe from his mouth, and poking at the lump of sugar in his glass with a spoon, as if he were offended with it, or looked upon it as Fred’s head.
“Not for some days,” said Dick, puffing out a cloud of smoke, while he glanced at Jessie, whose forehead contracted, and she turned slightly away.
“Don’t have him here: he’s a bad one,” said Hopper. “I don’t like him. Look at his moustaches.”
“Ain’t here.”
“Hey? Ain’t here? Who said he was? Just look at his moustaches, stretching straight out on both sides, and worked into a point with wax.”
“Well, they ain’t pretty, certainly.”
“Pretty? Did you say pretty?”
Dick nodded.
“Look as if they were fixed there as handles to open his mouth with, or to steer him. I don’t like that boy. You, Jessie, if you let that chap make love to you—Heyday, what’s the matter now?”
The matter was that Jessie had darted an indignant look at him and gone upstairs to her bedroom.
“Look at that now!” said Hopper.
“Well, you shouldn’t speak to her like that,” said Mrs Shingle indignantly.
“Oh, if it’s coming to pride, I’m off,” said Hopper.
“This is getting on in the world.” And, laying down his pipe, he prepared to go.
“No, no, no—what nonsense!” cried Dick and his wife. And together they forced the old fellow back into his chair, where, becoming somewhat mollified after another glass of whiskey and water, he began to talk.
“She oughtn’t to have huffed off like that,” he said. “But I like Jessie: she’s a sensible girl, wears her own hair, and doesn’t turn her boot-heels into stilts and walk like a hen going to peck the ground with her beak; though how she expects to get on without being more fashionable I don’t know. Ah! it’s a strange world, but it’s a great nuisance that we shall all have to die some day. Max won’t mind it a bit,” he chuckled, “he’s such a good man.”
“You leave Max alone,” said Dick gruffly.
“Hey? what say?”
“I say you leave Max alone. He’s my brother; and blood is thicker than water after all—ain’t it, mother?”
“Hush!” said Hopper, suddenly removing his pipe and making signs with the stem.
“What’s the matter?”
“There’s some one outside, under the window,” he said, in a whisper.
“Why, you can’t hear,” said Dick, in the same low voice.
“Can’t hear? No; but I can feel some one there.”
“It’s the boy,” said Dick.
“No; he’s gone to bed this hour,” said Mrs Shingle nervously.
“Let’s go and see,” whispered Hopper.
“Stop a moment,” said Dick, frowning; and, getting up, he opened the door that led upstairs, when a low whispering was plainly heard from above.
Dick shut the door quickly, and turned to his wife.
“Mother,” he said huskily, “I wouldn’t have believed this if I’d been told. Did you know of it?”
“No, dear—no,” she cried agitatedly. “But pray—stop. What are you going to do?”
“Put an end to it!” he cried fiercely. “My gal’s going to be a lady; and do you think I’m going to let her be the talk of the town?”
“Don’t do anything rash, Dick, old chap,” said Hopper, laying his hand upon the other’s arm.
“Rash!” cried Dick, bitterly. “I’ve been waiting for prosperity to come all my life; but, curse it, give me poverty again, if riches are to be like this.”
A complete change seemed to have come over the man, as he darted to the door and swung it open, just as there was the rush of rapid footsteps along the paved court, and he ran off in pursuit; while Mrs Shingle and Hopper followed.
They met Dick at the entrance, coming back panting; and he motioned them into the house, and closed the door.
“Mother,” he panted, in a voice that trembled with grief and passion, “I’ve left it to you to train our girl while I earned—no, tried to earn—the bread; and it’s been my pride through it all to hold up my head and point to our Jessie, and say to folks, ‘Look at her—she’s not like the rest as go to the warehouse for work.’”
“But, Dick—dear Dick, don’t, pray don’t judge hastily,” cried Mrs Shingle.
“I won’t,” said Dick hoarsely. “All I say is there was a man out there, and she was talking to him on the sly. Is that right, Hopper? I say, is that right?”
The old man looked at him vacantly, and seemed not to hear.
“Curse him! whoever he was,” cried Dick hoarsely; “he was ashamed to meet me. It was Tom Fraser, I’ll swear; and he’s not the man I thought him. Here,” he cried, swinging open the door that led upstairs, “Jessie—Jessie, come down! Hopper, old man, you’re like one of us—you needn’t go.”
The visitor, with a sorrowful look upon his face, had already reached the door, where he stood, leaning upon his stick, as Jessie slowly descended, looking very pale, and glancing anxiously from one to the other.
Mrs Shingle was crossing—mother-like—to her child’s side; but Dick motioned her back.
“Stop there!” he said fiercely; and then, taking a step forward—“Jessie, you were talking to some one outer window just now?”
She did not answer for a moment, but gazed at him in a frightened way.
“I say you were talking to some one outer window?”
“Yes, father,” she faltered.
“It was to Tom Fraser,” he said, in a low, angry voice. “And he’s a sneak.”
There was no answer.
“I say it was—to Tom Fraser.”
“No, father, it was not,” said Jessie, in a low clear voice.
“Who was it, then?” cried Dick.
There was no answer.
“I say, who was it, then?”
“It was to his brother Fred, father,” said Jessie, almost in a whisper.
But all the same Tom Fraser had stood at the entrance to the court, and been a witness of the scene.
Volume Two—Chapter Eight.
After a Lapse.
Max Shingle lived in the unfashionable district of Pentonville; but he had a goodly house there, and well furnished, at the head of a square of little residences that some ingenious builder had erected to look like a plantation of young Wesleyan chapels, growing up ready for transplanting at such times as they were needed to supply a want.
Mrs Max, relict of the late Mr Fraser, was a tall, bony, washed-out woman, with a false look about her hair, teeth, and figure; large ears, in each of which, fitting close to the lobe, was a large pearl, looking like a button, to hold it back against her head. She was seated in her drawing-room, but not alone; for opposite to her, in a studied, graceful attitude, sat Max’s ward, Violante, daughter of a late deacon of his chapel—a rather good-looking girl in profile, but terribly disfigured, on looking her full in the face, by a weakness in one eye, the effect of which was that it never worked with its twin sister, but was always left behind. Thus, whereas her right eye turned sharply upon you, and looked you through and through, the left did not come up to its work until the right had about finished and gone off to do duty on something else. The consequence was that when talking to her you found you had her attention for a few moments; and then, just as you seemed to have lost it, eye Number 2 came up to the charge, and generally puzzled and confused a stranger to a remarkable extent.
“Dear me! Hark at the wind!” said Mrs Max; “and look at it. Give me my smelling bottle, Violante. I’m always giddy when the wind gets under the carpet like that.”
The smelling bottle was duly sniffed; and then, changing her position so that her fair hair and white eyebrows and lashes were full in the light, Mrs Max looked more than ever as if there had been too much soda used in the water ever since she was born; and she sighed, and took up her work, which was a large illuminated text on perforated cardboard.
In fact, Max Shingle’s house shone in brightly coloured cards and many-tinted silken pieces of tapestry, formed to improve the sinful mind. Moral aphorisms about honesty and contentment looked at you from over the hat-pegs in the hall; pious precepts peeped at you between the balusters as you went upstairs, and furnished the drawing-room to the displacement of pictures. Many of them lost their point, from being illuminated to such an extent that the brilliancy and wondrous windings of the letters dazzled the eye, and carried the mind into a mental maze, as you tried to decipher what they meant; but there they were, and Mrs Max and the ward spent their days in constantly adding to the number.
The hall mat, instead of “Cave canem,” bore the legend “Friend, do not swear; it is a sinful habit,” and always exasperated visitors; while, if you put your feet upon a stool, you withdrew them directly, feeling that you had been guilty of an irreverent act; for there would be a line worked in white beads, with a reference to “Romans xii.” or “2 Corinthians ii.” If you opened a book there was a marker within bidding you “flee,” or “cease,” or “turn,” or “stand fast.” If you dined there, and sat near the fire, a screen was hung on your chair, which was so covered with quotations that it made you feel as if you were turning your back on the Christian religion. But still, look which way you would, you felt as if you were in the house of a good man.
Pictures there were, of course. There was a large engraving of Ruth and Boaz, to which Mrs Max always drew your attention with—
“Would not you suppose that Mr Shingle had sat for Boaz?”
And when you agreed that he might, Violante always joined in, directing one eye at you, and saying—
“People always think, too, that the Ruth is so like Mrs Maximilian.” Then the other eye came slowly up to finish the first one’s task, and seemed to say, “Now, then, what do you think of that?”
The place was well furnished, but, from the pictures to the carpets, everything was of an ecclesiastical pattern; and when Max came in, with a white cravat, you felt that you were in the presence of a substantial rector, if he were not a canon, or a dean.
In a wicked fit, Dick had once dubbed his brother and sister-in-law “Sage and Onions”—the one from his solid, learned look; the other from her being always strangely scented, and her weakness for bursting into tears.
Upon the present occasion, she sat for a few minutes, and then, taking out her handkerchief, began to weep silently.
“Your guardian is always late for dinner, my dear; and everything will be spoilt. Where is Tom?”
“Gone hanging about after Miss Jessie, I suppose,” said Violante, with a roll of one eye. “And Fred as well,” she added, with the other.
“It is a strange infatuation on the part of my two sons. Your dear guardian’s Esau and Jacob,” said Mrs Max, wiping her eyes. “I wonder how it is that poor creature, Richard Shingle, makes his money.”
“I don’t know,” said Violante. “They’ve set up a very handsome carriage.”
“Dear me! It is a mystery,” said Mrs Max, still weeping. “Two years ago Richard was our poor tenant; now he must be worth thousands. I hope he is honest.”
“Perhaps we had better work him some texts,” said Violante, maliciously. Then, raising her other eye, “They might do him good.”
“I don’t know,” sighed Mrs Max; “we never see them now they have grown so rich. It is very shocking.”
Violante did not seem to see that it was shocking, for she only tossed her head.
“Has Tom been any more attentive to you lately, my dear?”
“No, not a bit,” said the girl spitefully, and one eye flashed at Mrs Max; “nor Fred neither,” she continued, bestowing a milder ray with the other.
“The infatuation will wear off,” said Mrs Max, wringing her hands, but seeming as if wringing her pocket-handkerchief, “and then one of them will come to his senses.”
“I shall never marry Tom,” cried the girl decidedly. “Don’t speak so, my child,” said Mrs Max. “You know your guardian has so arranged it; and he can withhold your money if you are disobedient.”
“Yes,” cried Violante, “money, money, money—always money. That’s why I am kept for the pleasure of those two scapegraces, and mocked at by that saucy hussy of a Jessie. I wish I hadn’t a penny.”
“Hush, hush!” cried Mrs Max, “here is your guardian.” As she spoke she hastily wiped her eyes—pretty dry this time—and put away her handkerchief, for voices were heard below.
In fact, half an hour before, Max Shingle had been rolling grandly along from the City, looking the full-blown perfection of a thick-lipped, self-inflated, sensual man, when he encountered Hopper, who hooked him at once with his stick.
“Hullo, Max Shingle!” he cried: “been doing good, as usual? Here: I’ll come home to dinner with you,” he continued, taking his arm.
Max swore a very ugly oath to himself; but he was obliged to put up with the annoyance—a feeling modified, however, by his curiosity being excited.
“I’ve just come from your brother Dick’s,” said Hopper, winking to himself.
Max was mollified directly, for reasons of his own; for, though over two years had passed, Dick had kept his own counsel so well that not a soul, even in his own family, knew the full secret of his success. Hopper was as ignorant as the rest; but he assumed a knowledge in Max’s presence that he did not possess.
“Is—is he doing well?” said Max, in an indifferent tone. “Hey?”
“I say, is he doing well?” shouted Max.
“Wonderfully! Keeps his brougham, and a carriage besides, for his wife and daughter.”
“Ah!” said Max. “Is he civil to you? No music now, I suppose?”
“Only three nights a week,” said Hopper, winking to himself. “Fine princely fellow, Dick. Ah! here we are. Very glad—I’m hungry. He wanted me to stay, but I would not.”
Max opened the front door with his latchkey, and drew back for Hopper to enter which that worthy did, and began to wipe his feat upon the mat, which said in scarlet letters, “Friend, do not swear,” etc.
“Damn that mat!” exclaimed Hopper loudly, as he caught one toe in the long pile, and nearly fell headlong, while Max gazed at him in horror.
“Couldn’t help it,” said Hopper apologetically. “Didn’t swear, did I?”
“Indeed, sir, you did.”
“Hey? What say?”
“You did, sir,” shouted Max.
“Did what?”
“Swore—at the mat.”
“Hey?” said Hopper, who had grown wonderfully deaf since he had been in the hall.
“I say you—swore—at—the—mat.”
“I swore at the mat? Did I? Tut, tut, tut! How hard it is to break oneself of bad habits! Now, I’ll be bound to say you never did such a thing as that, Max?”
Max shook his head.
“No, of course you would not. Ah, Max, I wish I was as good a man as you. It’s wonderful how some men’s minds are constituted.”
Hopper took off an unpleasant-looking respirator that he had been wearing more or less—more when he was speaking, less when he was not; and when it was in its place it seemed to have the effect of sticking his grey moustache up into his nostrils, like a fierce chevaux de frise. Then he put his hat on his hooked stick, and his great-coat on a chair, so as not to confront the moral aphorisms that were waiting to catch his eye, and followed Max up into the drawing-room, where the ladies looked horror-stricken at the sight of the guest.
But there was no help for it; and Mrs Max, at a sign from her lord, put on her most agreeable air, though Violante gave him, uncompromisingly, an ugly look with one eye, which seemed to pierce him, while she clinched the shaft with the other, Hopper replying with his lowest bow.
The brothers Tom and Fred came in directly after,—Tom to offer his hand, while Fred gave a supercilious nod and went up to his mother.
Hopper nodded, and as soon as the dinner was announced, offered his arm to Mrs Max, and they went down to the dining-room.
A well-ordered house had Max Shingle, and his dinners were nicely served; and since he was obliged to receive the visits of Hopper, he made a virtue of necessity, trying all the dinner-time to lay little traps for him to fall into about his brother Richard. But as Hopper saw Tom lean eagerly forward, and Fred turn sharply to listen to his answers, while a frown passed between the two brothers, he misunderstood every word said to him as the dinner went on.
“So Richard is doing uncommonly well, is he?” said Max.
“Hey? You’re not doing uncommonly well? So I heard in the City. Some one told me your house was quite shaky.”
“Who told you that?” cried Fred fiercely.
“Hey?”
“I say who told you that?” cried Fred, more loudly.
“I can’t hear a word you say, young man,” replied Hopper; “you must come round. This, is a bad room of yours for sound, Maximilian—I’d have it altered.”
There were several little encounters of this kind during the repast; for Hopper, as soon as he saw the object of his host, strove religiously to frustrate his efforts, and with such success that Max gave up in disgust, and tried another tack, after making up his mind to call on his brother and become reconciled. This he was the more eager for, since it was a fact that he had lost very heavily of late, and his house was tottering to its fall.
“Ah!” said Max at last, as the dinner progressed slowly, “it’s a pity, Hopper, that you have no money to invest.”
“Hey? Money to invest? No, thank you. But don’t talk shop, man. I wonder so good a creature thinks so much of money. But you keep a carriage?”
“Oh yes,” said Max, smiling good-humouredly at his wife, as if to say, “You see, he will have his joke!”
“And horses?”
“Of course,” said Max, smiling.
“There, don’t put on that imbecile smile,” cried Hopper. “There’s only been one decent dish on the table yet, and I’ve got some of it now. You don’t send your horses out to work in their nosebags? so don’t make me work when I’ve got on mine. I’m hard of hearing, but I’m fond of my digestion. Don’t treat your guest worse than your horses.”
“You always did like a joke, Hopper,” said Max.
“Joke!—it’s no joke,” cried Hopper, pointing at a pie before him. “Look at that—there’s a thing to eat! Look at the crust: just like the top of a brown skull, with all the sutures marked, ready to thrust a knife in and open it,—only it’s apple inside instead of brains.”
Mrs Max gave a horrified glance at Violante.
At last the dessert was placed on the table, and in due time the ladies rose, Tom following them shortly, and Fred, with a sneering look at his brother, rising, and saying he should go and have a cigar.
“You don’t smoke, I suppose, old Hopper?”
“Hey? Not smoke? Yes, I do; but I shall have a pipe.” Left alone, the visitor condescended to talk about Richard, and gave Max a full account of his handsomely furnished house; growing so confidential that, when he took his cup of coffee, he drew nearer and nearer, gesticulating as he described the rich Turkey carpets.
“He must be very rich,” said Max at last, as he tapped the mahogany table with his fingers.
“Not saved much, I should say,” replied Hopper; “but he’s making money fast. So are you.”
“Um—no. I’m very heavily insured, though.”
“Not in the Oldwives’ Friendly?” said Hopper, with a curious look, though he knew the fact well.
“Well—er—er—yes, I am,” said Max.
“They’ll go to smash,” said Hopper eagerly. “Haven’t you heard the rumours?”
“Ye-es,” faltered Max.
“The scoundrels! And you such a good man, too, who has saved up and toiled for his family. I tell you what I’d do,” he said earnestly.
“What?” cried Max, turning to him with the eagerness of one in peril.
“They must last another twelvemonth, and pay up liabilities till then.”
“Yes, they must do that, I should say,” said Max.
“Then die at once, and let your people draw the money!” cried Hopper, slapping him in the breast, and gazing at him with the most serious of aspects. “So good and self-denying! You all over.”
Max started back, with horror in his countenance, and glared at Hopper, whose countenance, however, never for a moment changed; and he hastily poured himself out a glass of port and tossed it off.
“Very hard upon you, Max. I wish I was rich, and could help you. For you have been hit hard, of course. Never mind: you’ve that violent girl’s money in hand—six thousand. Make one of your boys marry her, and that’ll be all right.”
Max winced visibly.
“Haven’t spent it, have you?” continued Hopper, watching him from the corners of his eyes. “No, you’re too good a man for that? and it would be ugly.”
“Shall we go up to the drawing-room?” said Max, rising.
“Hey? Go upstairs? No, not to-night, thankye. Say good-bye to the ladies. I’ll be off now. Thankye for a bad dinner. More wine? No, I’m going to my lodging, for a quiet pipe and a glass of toddy before bed. Wretched weather, ain’t it? All right: I can get my coat on. Thankye, Max, thankye. I sha’n’t die yet, you know; your secret’s all right. Stop till I put on my respirator, so as to keep my lungs all right for your sake. Now my hat and stick. Thankye.”
He buttoned his coat tightly, looped the elastic of his respirator over his ears, and then stumbled to the door, gave the mat an ugly stab with his stick, nodded, did not shake hands, and went stumping down the street, talking to himself the while.
“I wonder whether that Tom is a trump at bottom?” he said. “I don’t know yet, but there’s a bit of a mystery over it all; and about Fred and that girl Jessie. She’s a puzzle, too. I wouldn’t have thought it of her; but I never did understand women. And so old Max is hit hard. Well, it’s the old saying, ‘Money got over old What’s-his-name’s back’s spent under his chest;’ and I’m sure of it. I’d swear it. He’s spent every penny of that violent girl’s fortune, as sure as my name’s Hopper, which it really is.”