'Oh, no, no!' cried Wilmet, fearfully.
'Not very unwell, but only so that I long to put her under our good doctor, who comes to any one in our house, and who is such a fatherly old gentleman, that she would not go through the misery the thought of Mr. Rugg seems to cause her.'
'Dr. Lee?' asked Felix. 'Tom Underwood sent him to see my father once. I remember my father liked him, but called it waste for himself, only longed for his opinion on Cherry. Thank you, I am sure it is the greatest kindness.'
'But, Felix, how can she before the holidays?' cried Wilmet.
'Well, Mamma does not want her before dinner; and as to the kids, why can't you take Angel to school with you? Oh, yes, Miss Pearson will let you. Then Mr. Audley, or Mr. Bevan, is always up in the afternoon, and you come home by four.'
'Perhaps I could earlier on days when the girls go out walking,' said Wilmet. 'If it is to do Cherry good, I don't like to prevent it.'
Wilmet had evidently got all her household into their niches, and the disarrangement puzzled her. A wonderful girl she was to contrive as she did, and carry out her rule; but Sister Constance feared that a little dryness might be growing on her in consequence, and that, like many maidens of fifteen or sixteen, while she was devoted to the little, she was impatient of the intermediate.
So when they went down, and Cherry heard of the scheme, and implored against it in nervous fear of leaving home and dread of new faces, Wilmet, having made up her practical mind that the going was necessary, only made light of that value at home which was Cherry's one comfort, and which made herself feel it so hard to part with her, that this very want of tact was all unselfishness.
Felix was much more comfortable to Cherry when he made playful faces at the bear-garden that the dining-room would become without her, and showed plainly that he at least would miss her dreadfully. Still she nourished a hope that Mamma would say she should not go; but Mamma always submitted to the decrees of authority, and Wilmet and Felix were her authorities now. Sister Constance felt no misgiving lest Wilmet were hardening, when she heard the sweet discretion and cheerful tenderness with which she propounded the arrangement to the sick mother, without giving her the worry of decision, yet still deferentially enough to keep her in her place as the head of the family.
Yet it was with unnecessarily bracing severity that Wilmet observed to Geraldine, 'Now, don't you go crying, and asking questions, and worrying Mamma.'
'I suppose no person can be everything at once, far less a girl of fifteen,' thought Sister Constance, as she drove up to the station in the omnibus with Cherry, who was too miserable and bewildered to cry now; not that she was afraid of either the Sister or the Sisterhood, but only because she had never left home in her life, and felt exactly like a callow nestling shoved out on the ground with a broken wing.
In two months more the omnibus was setting her down again, much nearer plumpness, with a brighter face and stronger spirits. She had been very full of enjoyment at St. Faith's. She had the visitor's room, with delightful sacred prints and photographs, and a window looking out on the sea—a sight enough to fascinate her for hours. She had been out every fine day on the shore; she had sat in the pleasant community-room with the kind Sisters, who talked to her as a woman, not a baby; she had plenty of books; one of the Sisters had given her daily drawing lessons, and another had read Tasso with her; she had been to the lovely oratory constantly, and to the beautiful church on Sunday, and had helped to make the wreaths for the great May holidays; she had made many new friends, and among them the doctor, who, if he had hurt her, had never deceived her, and had really made her more comfortable than she had ever been for the last five years, putting her in the way of such self-management as might very possibly avert some of that dreadful liability to be cross.
But with all this, and all her gratitude, Geraldine's longing had been for home. She was very happy, and it was doing her a great deal of good; but Mamma, and Felix, and Wilmet, and Sibby, and the babies, were tugging at her heart, and would not let it go out from them. She was always dreaming that Felix's heels were coming through his stockings, that Mamma was calling and nobody coming, or that Bernard was cutting off the heads of the twins with the blunt scissors. And when Dr. Lee's course of treatment was over, and Felix had a holiday to come and fetch her home, it is not easy to say which was happiest. For she was so glad to be at home amid the dear faces, troubling and troublous as they often were, and so comfortable in the old wheel-ruts of care and toil, that it really seemed as if a new epoch of joy had begun. Felix openly professed how sorely he had missed her, and she clung to his arm with exulting mutual delight; but it was almost more triumphant pleasure to be embraced by Wilmet with the words: 'Dear, dear Cherry, there you are at last. You can't think how we have all wanted you! I never knew how useful you are.'
'I suppose,' said Felix quaintly, 'the world would rather miss its axis, and yet that does not move.'
'Yes, it does,' said Cherry, 'it wobbles. I suppose Wilmet says rotates, just about as much as I am going to do now I have got back into my own dear sphere again.'
CHAPTER VI.
THE CACIQUE.
'Devouring flames resistless glow,
And blazing rafters downward go,
And never halloo, "Heads below!"
Nor notice give at all.'
Rejected Addresses.
It was a warm night in September, and Wilmet had laid herself down in bed in her nursery with a careful, but not an oppressed heart. About many matters she was happier than before. Her mother had revived in some degree, could walk from her bed-room to the sitting-room, and took more interest in what was passing; and this the hopeful spirits of the children interpreted into signs of recovery. Geraldine's health and spirits had evidently taken a start for the better. Fulbert, too, was off her mind—safe gone to a clergy orphan foundation; and though Lancelot had not yet been elected, owing, Mr. Audley imagined, to Lady Price's talk about their fine friends, Wilmet could not be sorry, he was such a little fellow, and the house would be so dull without his unfailing merriment and oddities. And though there had been sore disappointment that Mrs. Thomas Underwood had chosen to go to Brighton instead of coming home, there was the promise of a visit from Alda before Christmas to feed upon. Little Robina had come home for the summer holidays, well, happy, and improved, and crying only in a satisfactory way on returning to school. Moreover, Wilmet's finances had been pleasantly increased by an unexpected present of five pounds at the end of the half year from Miss Pearson, and the promise of the like for the next; increasing as her usefulness increased; and she was also allowed to bring Angela to school with her. The balance of accounts at Midsummer had been satisfactory, and Felix had proudly pronounced her to be a brick of a housekeeper. And thus altogether Wilmet did not feel that the weight of care was so heavy and hopeless as when it first descended upon her; and she went to bed as usual, feeling how true her father's words of encouragement and hope had been, how kind friends were, how dear a brother Felix was, and above all, how there is verily a Father of the fatherless. And so she fell fast asleep, but was ere long waked by a voice from the inner room where Cherry slept with the door open.
'Wilmet, Wilmet, what is it?'
Then she saw that the room was aglow with red light from the window, and heard a loud distant hubbub. Hurrying out of bed, she flew to the window of Cherry's room, and drew up the blind. 'O Wilmet, is it fire?'
'Yes,' low and awe-struck, said Wilmet. 'Not here. No. There's nothing to be frightened at Cherry. It is out—out there. I think it must be the Fortinbras Arms. Oh, what a sight!'
'It is dreadful!' said Cherry, shrinking trembling to the foot of her little bed, whence she could see the window. 'How plain one can see everything in the room! Oh! the terrible red glow in the windows! I wonder if all the people are safe. Wilmet, do call Felix.'
'I will,' said Wilmet, proceeding in search of her clothes; but her hands shook so that she could hardly put them on. They longed for Felix as a protection, and yet Cherry could hardly bear to let her sister go out of sight.
'I only hope Mamma does not hear,' said Wilmet.
'How lucky her room looks out the other way! but, oh! Wilmet, don't fires spread?'
'Felix and Mr. Audley will see about us in time, if there is any fear of that,' said Wilmet, trembling a good deal as she wrapped a shawl round Cherry, who sat in a heap on her bed, gazing fascinated at the red sky and roofs. Felix slept at the back of the house; her knock did not waken him, but her entrance startled both him and Lance.
'Felix, the Fortinbras Arms is on fire.—Hush, Lance; take care; the little ones and Mamma! O Felix, do come to our room.'
They followed her there in a few seconds, but they had only glanced from the window before they simultaneously rushed away, to the increased dismay of their sisters, to whom their manly instinct of rushing into the fray had not occurred.
'I'll go down. I'll try to catch them,' said Wilmet; and she too was gone before Cherry could call to her. She found that Felix and Mr. Audley were in the act of undoing the front door, and this gave her just time to fly down with the entreaty that Felix would not leave them. It was a great deal more to ask of him than she knew.
'To the end of the street I must go, Wilmet,' he said.
'Oh! but Cherry is so frightened! and if Mamma wakes,' she said, gasping.
'It is all quiet in her room,' said Felix.
'Tell Cherry there is no danger at all here now,' said Mr. Audley; 'but if it makes her happier you may dress her. Don't disturb your mother. If needful, we will carry her out in her bed; but I do not think it will be.'
'We can only see out in the street,' added Felix, opening the door as he spoke; and that moment out flew Lance, before anybody had thought of stopping him, and the necessity of pursuing the little fellow into the throng, and keeping him out of danger, made both Felix and Mr. Audley dash after him; while Wilmet, abashed at the men hurrying by, could not even gaze from the door, but fled upstairs in terror lest the two little ones should be awake and crying at the appalling red light and the din, which seemed to her one continuous roar of 'Fire! fire!'
To her great relief, they were still asleep, but Cherry was in a chilled agony of trembling prayer for the 'poor people,' and the sisters crouched up together shivering in each other's arms as they watched the rush of flames streaming up into the sky over the brew-house opposite to them.
Presently Wilmet heard feet again downstairs. 'Cherry dear, I must go down, they may want me. Indeed, I don't think there is real danger as long as that brew-house is safe.'
There was a scuffle of feet that frightened her very much. She remembered it last Michaelmas when her father was brought home from church, and as she stood on the stairs—one choking petition in her heart, 'Let it not be Felix!' she saw that the figure, whatever it was, was carried by Mr. Audley and a strange man. And so great a horror came over her, that, regardless of her toilette, and the hair that had fallen over the jacket on her shoulders, she dropped at once among them as they were bearing the senseless form into Mr. Audley's bed-room, with a low but piteous cry, 'Felix! Felix! oh, what has happened?'
'It is not Felix, my dear,' said Mr. Audley; 'he is safe—he is gone for the doctor. This poor boy has fallen from a window. You can help us, Wilmet; call Martha, and get some water made hot. The fire is getting under.'
Wilmet needed no second hint. She was up, reassuring Cherry at one moment; then breaking into Martha's heavy slumbers, impressing upon her the necessity of not shrieking; then downstairs again, reviving the dying kitchen fire, and finding that, as usual, there was some water not yet cold. For, as she now saw, it was not yet one o'clock. She durst not go to her mother's room, where ready means of heating food were always to be found. As she brought the jug to the door, Felix came in with Mr. Rugg, who, living in a street out of sight, and having ears for no sound but his own night-bell, had been ready at once to obey the call. Felix told his sister the little he knew.
'It was a terrible sight. Just as we got to that one big window—a passage one, I believe, which looks out into this street—we saw this poor boy and a black man up on the sill, with all the glare of light behind them, screaming out for help.'
'But where was everybody?'
'In the High Street, round the corner. Crowds there; and here in our street only ourselves and a few men that hurried up after us. Mr. Audley shouted to them that we would get a ladder, but whether they could not hold on any more, or they thought we were going quite away—O Wilmet! I didn't see; but there was the most horrible thump and crash on the pavement.'
'What! down from that window?'
'Yes,' said Felix, leaning against the wall, and looking very pale. 'And there was that good black man, he had got the boy in his arms, as if he had wound himself round to keep him from harm.'
'Oh! And he?'
'Killed—quite killed. Don't ask me about it, Wilmet. It is much too dreadful to hear of;' and he shuddered all over. 'But this boy's head was safe at least, and as there seemed no one to attend to anything, Mr. Audley said he would bring him here, and I went for Mr. Rugg.'
'And where's Lance? Did he go with you?'
'Lance! Is not he in? I never saw or thought of him, I must go and seek for him,' exclaimed Felix, darting off in haste and alarm at the thought of little nine-year-old Lance alone among the midnight crowd, just as Mr. Audley opened the door to try to find a messenger to Mr. Rugg's surgery. He paused to tell Wilmet that it was a lad about Felix's age, moaning some word that sounded like Diego, and with a broken leg and ribs; and then, as Martha was in attendance, she felt herself obliged to return to Cherry, whom indeed she could not leave again, for though the fire had sunk, and only thick clouds of smoke showed the play of the engines, the effects of the terror were not so quickly over in the tender little frame, which was in a quivering hysterical state, so deadly cold, that Wilmet was frightened, and went once more down to warm some flannel, and get some hot drink for her. She intended tea, but meeting Mr. Audley again, he sent up a glass of wine. Even with this in hot water, Cherry could hardly be warmed again, and Wilmet lay down, clasping her round, and not daring to let her know of her own continued anxiety about the two brothers. At last, however, when the red light had almost faded quite away, the cautious steps were heard coming up the stairs, and Felix called into the room in a low voice—
'All right, Wilmet.'
'Oh! come in,' the sisters called. 'Where did you find him, Fee? Is he safe?'
'O Cherry, you never saw such a lark!' cried Lance in a gusty whisper. 'Wouldn't Fulbert have given his ears to have seen it? To see the engines pouring down, and the great hose twining about like jolly old sea-serpents spouting.'
'Hush, Lance; how can you? How could you! Does Mr. Audley know he is safe?'
'Yes,' said Felix, 'he opened the door, and said he might have known Lance was too much of a gamin to come to grief.'
'What's a gamin?' said Lance.
'A street ragamuffin at Paris,' said Wilmet. 'But really, Lance, it was a terrible thing to do.'
'And where do you think I found him?' said Felix. 'In between little Jacky Brown and that big old coal-heaver who was so impudent about the blanket-club, hanging like a monkey upon the rails of the terrace, and hallooing as loud as they.'
''Twas the coal-heaver that helped me up,' said Lance. 'He's a jolly good fellow, I can tell you. He said, "You be one of Parson Underwood's little chaps, baint you? A rare honest gentleman of the right sort war he—he war!" and he pulled down another boy and put me up instead, and told me all about the great fire at Stubbs's factory. You can't think what fun it was. Roar, roar, up went the flame. Swish, wish, went the water—such a bellowing—such great clouds of smoke!'
'Was everybody saved?' whispered Cherry's tremulous murmur.
There was a silence; then Lance said, 'Weren't they?' and Cherry had another shuddering fit.
'Who?' Wilmet asked.
'Poor Mr. Jones's youngest child and his nursemaid were in an attic room where nobody could get at them,' said Felix in a hurried and awe-struck voice, causing Cherry to renew that agony of trembling and sobbing so convulsive and painful that her elder brother and sister could only devote themselves to soothing her, till at last she lay still again in Wilmet's arms, with only a few long gasps coming quivering up through her frame. Then Wilmet implored Felix to go away and make Lance go to bed, and finding this the only means of reducing the little excited fellow to quiet, he went. And though all were sure they should not sleep, they overslept themselves far into Sunday morning, except Wilmet, who was wakened by the clamours of the undisturbed Angela and Bernard, and succeeded in dressing them without disturbing the other three.
Very tired and stiff, and very anxious she felt, but she was obliged to go down as soon as she was dressed, since she always took charge of her mother before breakfast on Sunday while Sibby went to mass. It was so late that she could only listen in vain at the top of the stairs before she went into the room, where she found Sibby very indignant at having missed all the excitement of the night past. 'As if she could not have been trusted not to have wakened the mistress. She believed they would have let her alone till they all were burnt in their beds!'
It was not till breakfast, which took place unusually late, that Wilmet heard much. Felix and Lance had just come downstairs, rather ashamed of having overslept themselves, and Mr. Audley came in and begged for a cup of tea.
He told them that the father and uncle of the boy had arrived. They were American merchants or speculators of some kind, he thought, named Travis, and they had gone on business to Dearport the day before, meaning to dine there, and return by the mail train in the night, and leaving the boy with the black servant in the unfortunate hotel.
On arriving, at about three o'clock, not long after Felix had brought Lance home, they had telegraphed to Dearport for a doctor and nurse, who were momentarily expected to arrive. The patient was only half conscious, and though he knew his father, continued to murmur for Diego. Martha was sitting with him whenever she could, for his father did not seem to understand nursing, and it would be a great relief when a properly-trained person arrived.
She came, and so did the doctor, but not till close upon church-time, and little but stray reports from the sick-room reached the population upstairs all that day, as Mr. Audley, whenever he was not at church, was obliged to be in attendance on his strange guests. All that reached the anxious and excited young people was the tidings of the patient being not unlikely to do well, though he was in great pain and high fever, and continually calling for the poor negro who had saved his life at the expense of his own.
This was the last bulletin when the household parted to go their several ways on Monday morning, not to be all collected again and free to speak till seven o'clock in the evening, when they met round the table for tea.
'Mamma looks cheery,' said Felix, coming into the little back room where Wilmet was spreading bread and butter.
'Yes,' said Wilmet, 'I think she has cared to hear about the fire. So many people have come in and talked, that it has enlivened her.'
'And how is the boy?'
'A little better, Martha heard; but he keeps on talking of Diego, and seems not to care about any one else.'
'No wonder. His father must be an unmitigated brute,' said Felix. 'He came to the inquest, and talked just as if it had been an old Newfoundland dog; I really think he cared rather less than if it had been.'
'Tell us about the inquest, Felix,' said Lance. 'I wish they'd have wanted me there.'
'I don't see why, Lance,' said Felix gravely; 'it was a terrible thing to see poor Mr. Jones hardly able to speak for grief, and the mother of that poor young nurse went on sobbing as if her heart was breaking.'
'Nobody knows the cause of the fire, do they?' asked Cherry. 'Lady Price said it was the gas.'
'No; no one knows. Way, the waiter, saw a glare under the door of the great assembly-room as he was going up very late to bed, and the instant he opened the door the flame seemed to rush out at him. I suppose a draught was all it wanted. He saw this poor Diego safe downstairs once, but he must have gone back to save his young master, and got cut off in coming back. Poor fellow! he is a Mexican negro, belonging to an estate that came to Mr. Travis's wife, and he has always clung to her and her son just like a faithful dog.'
'But he could not be a slave in England,' said Cherry eagerly.
'No; but as this Travis said, his one instinct was the boy: he did not know how to get rid of him, he said, and I do believe he thinks it a lucky chance.'
'I wish it had been he!' said Lance.
'Sibby has asked leave to go to the burial,' added Wilmet.
'I hope you gave it,' said Felix. 'Mr. Macnamara came and asked if he were not a Roman Catholic, and those two Travises laughed a little offensively, and said they guessed he was so, as much as a nigger was anything; and the Papists were welcome to his black carcase, only they would not be charged for any flummery. "I won't be made a fool of about a nigger," one said. And then, I was so glad, Mr. Audley begged to know when the funeral would be, and said he would go anywhere to do honour to faithfulness unto death.'
'Well done, Mr. Audley!' cried Lance. 'Won't we go too, Fee?'
'It will be at nine to-morrow,' said Felix; at which Lance made a face, since of course he would be in school at the time.
'Maybe I shall have to go,' added Felix; 'for only think, as my good luck would have it, Redstone went on Saturday night to see his mother or somebody, and only came back this morning; and Mr. Froggatt himself was "out at his box," as he calls it, so he told me this morning to write the account of the fire for the paper, and he would pay me for it extra, as he does Redstone.'
'Well, and have you done it?'
'I was pretty much at sea at first, till I recollected the letter I began to Edgar yesterday night, and by following that, I made what I thought was a decent piece of business of it.'
'Oh, did you put in the way they threw the things out at window at Jessop's without looking what they were?' cried Lance; 'and the jolly smash the jugs and basins made, and when their house was never on fire at all: and how the coal-heaver said "Hold hard, frail trade there!"'
'Well,' said Felix quaintly, 'I put it in a different form, you see. I said the inhabitants of the adjacent houses hurled their furniture from the windows with more precipitation than attention to the fragility of the articles. And, after all, that intolerable ass, Redstone, has corrected fire every time into "the devouring element," and made "the faithful black" into "the African of sable integument, but heart of precious ore."'
'Now, Felix!'
'Bald, sir, bald,' he said, with such a face. '"Yes, Mr. Underwood," even good old Froggy said, when he saw me looking rather blue, "you and I may know what good taste and simplicity is, but if we sent out the Pursuivant with no mouth-filling words in it, we should be cut out with some low paper in no time among the farmers and mechanics."'
'Is he so led by Mr. Redstone?' asked Wilmet.
'Not exactly; but I believe there's nothing he dreads more than Redstone's getting offended and saying that I am no use, as he would any day if he could. O, Mr. Audley, are you coming to stay?'
'Will you have a cup of tea?' said Wilmet.
'Thank you, yes; I've got to dine with these fellows at the Railway Hotel at eight, but I wanted to speak to you first, Wilmet,' said Mr. Audley, sitting down as if he were weary of his day.
'How is the boy?'
'Better. He has been quite sensible ever since he woke at twelve o'clock to-day, only he was dreadfully upset about poor Diego—about whom his father told him very abruptly—without the least notion he would feel it so much.'
'I wish I had the kicking of that father,' observed Felix, driving the knife hard into the loaf.
'He is not altogether such a bad fellow,' said Mr. Audley thoughtfully.
'Not for an American, perhaps.'
'He is not an American at all. He was born and bred in my own country, and took me by surprise by calculating that I was one of the Audleys of Wrightstone Court, and wanting to know whether my father were Sir Robert or Sir Robert's son. Then he guessed that I might have heard of his father, if I was not too young, and by-and-by it dawned on me that whenever there is any complication about business matters, or any one is in bad circumstances, my father always vituperates one Travis, who, it seems, was a solicitor greatly trusted by all the country round, till he died, some twenty years ago, and it appeared that he had ruined everybody, himself included. These men are his sons. They went out to America, and got up in the world. They told me the whole story of how they had knocked about everywhere, last evening, but I was too sleepy to enter into it much, though I daresay it was curious enough; successful speculations and hair's-breadth escapes seemed to come very thick one upon another, but all I am clear about is that this poor boy, Fernando's mother was a Mexican heiress, they—one of them, I mean—managed to marry; her father English, but her mother old Spanish blood allied to the old Caciques, he says; whether it is a boast I don't know, but the boy looks like it—such a handsome fellow; delicate straight profile, slender limbs, beautifully made, inky-black hair and brows, pure olive skin—the two doctors were both in raptures. Well, they thought affairs in Mexico insecure, so they sold the poor woman's estate and carried her off to Texas. No; was it? I really can't remember where; but, at any rate, Diego stuck to her wherever she went, and when she died, to her child; nursed him like an old woman, and— In short, it was that touching negro love that one sometimes hears of. Now they seem to have grown very rich—the American Vice-Consul, who came over this morning from Dearport, knew all about them—and they came home partly on business, and partly to leave Fernando to be made into an English gentleman, who, Mr. Travis says, if he has money to spend, does whip creation. He's English enough for that still. Well, they have got a telegram that makes them both want to sail by the next steamer.'
'That's a blessing. But the boy?'
'He cannot be moved for weeks. It is not only the fractures, but the jar of the fall. He may get quite over it, but must lie quite still on his back. So here he is, a fixture, by your leave, my lady housekeeper.'
'It is your room, Mr. Audley,' said Wilmet. 'But can his father really mean to leave him alone so very ill, poor boy?'
'Well, as his father truly says, he is no good to him, but rather the reverse; and as the Travis mind seems rather impressed by finding an Audley here, I am to be left in charge of him now, and to find a tutor for him when he gets better. So we are in for that!'
'But what is to become of you?' asked Wilmet. 'The nurse has got the little back study.'
'I have got a room at Bolland's to sleep in, thank you,' he answered; 'and I have been representing the inconvenience to the house of this long illness, so that the Travises, who are liberal enough—'
'I thought them horrid misers,' said Felix.
'That was only the American conscience as to negroes. In other matters they are ready to throw money about with both hands; so I hope I have made a good bargain for you, Wilmet. You are to have five guineas a week, and provide for boy and nurse, all but wine and beer, ice and fruit.'
'Five guineas!' murmured Wilmet, quite overpowered at the munificent sum.
'I am afraid you will not find it go as far as you expect, for he will want a good deal of dainty catering.'
'And your room should be deducted,' said Wilmet.
'Not at all. Mrs. Bolland said she did not take lodgers, but should esteem it a favour if I would sleep there while her son is away. It is all safe, I think. He has given me orders on his London banker, and they say here at the bank that they are all right. It is a strange charge,' he added thoughtfully; 'we little thought what we were taking on ourselves when we picked up that poor fellow, Felix; and I cannot help thinking it will turn out well, there was something so noble about the poor lad's face as he lay insensible.'
It was about three weeks later, that one Sunday evening, when Mr. Audley came in from church, Felix followed him to his sitting-room, and began with unusual formality. 'I think I ought to speak to you, sir.'
'What's the matter?'
'About Lance, and him in there. I have had such a queer talk with him!'
'As how?'
'Why he wanted us to stop from church, asked me to let off the poor little coon; and when I said we couldn't, because we were in the choir, wanted to know what we were paid, then why we did it at all; and so it turned out that he thinks churches only meant for women and psalm-singing niggers and Methodists, and has never been inside one in his life, never saw the sense of it, wanted to know why I went.'
'What did you tell him?'
'I don't know; I was so taken aback. I said something about our duty to God, and it's being all we had to get us through life; but I know I made a dreadful mess of it, and the bell rang, and I got away. But he seems a sheer heathen, and there's Lance in and out all day.'
'Yes, Felix, I am afraid it is true that the poor lad has been brought up with no religion at all—a blank sheet, as his father called him.'
'Wasn't his father English?'
'Yes; but he had lived a roving, godless life. I began, when I found the boy must stay here, by asking whether he were of his father's or his mother's communion, and in return heard a burst of exultation that he had never let a priest into his house. His father-in-law had warned him against it, and he had carried his wife out of their reach long before the child's birth; he has not even been baptized, but you see, Felix, I could not act like Abraham to the idolater in the Talmud.'
Felix did not speak, but knocked one foot against the other in vexation, feeling that it was his house after all, and that Mr. Audley should not have turned this young heathen loose into it to corrupt his brother, without consulting him.
'I told Travis,' continued the Curate, 'that if I undertook the charge as he wished, it must be as a priest myself, and I must try to put some religion into him. And, to my surprise, he said he left it to me. Fernando was old enough to judge, and if he were to be an English squire, he must conform to old-country ways; besides, I was another sort of parson from Yankee Methodists and Shakers or Popish priests—he knew the English clergy well enough, of the right sort.'
'So he is to learn religion to make him a squire?'
'I was thankful enough to find no obstruction.'
'And have you begun?' asked Felix moodily.
'Why—no. He has been too ill and too reserved. I have attempted nothing but daily saying a short prayer for him in his hearing, hoping he would remark on it. But you know the pain is still very absorbing at times, and it leaves him exhausted; and besides, I fancy he has a good deal of tropical languor about him, and does not notice much. Nothing but Lance has roused him at all.'
'I would never have let Lance in there by himself, if I had known,' said Felix. 'He is quite bewitched.'
'It would have been difficult to prevent it. Nor do I think that much harm can be done. I believe I ought to have told you, Felix; but I did not like denouncing my poor sick guest among the children, or its getting round all the town and to my Lady. After all, Lance is a very little fellow; it is not as if Edgar or Clem were at home.'
'I suppose it cannot be helped,' sighed Felix; 'but my father—' and as he recollected the desire to take his brothers away from Mr. Ryder, he felt as if his chosen guardian had been false to his trust, out of pity and enthusiasm.
'Your father would have known how to treat him,' sighed Mr. Audley. 'At any rate, Felix, we must not forget the duties of hospitality and kindness; and I hope you will not roughly forbid Lance to go near him, without seeing whether the poor fellow is not really inoffensive.'
'I'll see about it,' was all that Felix could get himself to say; for much as he loved Mr. Audley, he could not easily brook interference with his brothers, and little Lance, so loyal to himself, and so droll without a grain of malice, was very near to his heart. 'A young Pagan,' as he thought to himself, 'teaching him all the blackguard tricks and words he has learnt at all the low schools in north or south!' and all the most objectionable scenes he had met with in American stories, from 'Uncle Tom' onwards, began to rise before his eyes. 'A pretty thing to do in a fit of beneficence! I'll order Lance to keep away, and if he dares disobey, I'll lick him well to show him who is master.'
So he felt, as he swung himself upstairs, and halted with some intention of pouring out his vexed spirit to Wilmet, because Mr. Audley had no business to make it a secret; but Wilmet was putting her mother to bed, and he went on upstairs. There he found all the doors open, and heard a murmuring sound of voices in Geraldine's room. In a mood to be glad of any excuse for finding fault, he strode across the nursery, where Angela and Bernard slept, and saw that Lance, who ought to have gone at once to bed on coming in, was standing in his sister's window, trying to read in the ray of gas-light that came up from a lamp at the brewhouse door.
'Go to bed, Lance,' he said; 'if you have not learnt your lessons in proper time, you must wake early, or take the consequences. I won't have it done on Sunday night.'
Lance started round angrily, and Cherry cried, 'O Felix, it is no such thing! Only would you tell us where to find about the king and his priests that defeated the enemy by singing the "mercy endureth for ever" psalm?'
'In the Bible!' said Felix, as if sure it was a blunder. 'There's no such story.'
'Indeed there is,' cried Lance, 'for Papa (the word low and reverently) took out his blue poly-something Bible and read it out in the sermon. Don't you remember, Fee, a hot day in the summer, when he preached all about those wild robbers—horrid fellows with long spears—coming up in the desert to make a regular smash of the Jews?'
'Lance!' cried Cherry.
'Well, he did not say that, of course, but they wanted to; and how the king sent out the priests without a fighting man, only all in white, praising God in the beauty of holiness, and singing, "His mercy endureth for ever." I saw him read that, though he told us all the rest without book; how all the enemy began to quarrel, and all killed one another, and the Jews had nothing to do but to pick up the spoil, and sing another psalm coming back.'
'I remember now,' said Felix, in a very different tone. 'It was Jehoshaphat, Lancey boy. I'll find it for you in the book of Chronicles. Did you want it for anything?'
Lance made an uneasy movement.
'It was to show poor Fernando Travis, wasn't it?' said Cherry; and as Lance wriggled again, she added, 'He seems to have been taught nothing good.'
'Now, Cherry,' broke out Lance, 'I told you to say not a word.'
'I know a little about it, Lance,' said Felix, sitting down on the window-seat and lifting Lance on his knee, as he said, in a tone very unlike his intended expostulation, 'You must not let him do you harm, Lance.'
'He wouldn't; but he does not know anything about anything,' said the little boy. 'They never taught him to say his prayers, nor sing hymns, nor chant, and he thinks it is only good for niggers. So I told him that singing psalms once beat an army, and he laughed; and I thought Cherry was sure to know where it was—but girls will always tell.'
'Indeed you never told me not,' said Cherry, humbly.
'She has done no harm,' said Felix. 'Mr. Audley has just been talking to me about that poor boy. He really is as untaught as that little scamp at the potteries that we tried to teach.'
'He's a stunning good fellow,' broke in Lance; 'he has seen an alligator, and ridden mustangs.'
'Never mind that now, Lance; I dare say he is very amusing, but—'
'Don't hinder me from going to him,' broke in the younger boy vehemently.
'If,' said Felix gravely, 'you can be quite sure my father would not mind it.'
Lance was nestling close up to him in the dark, and he was surprised to find that round face wet with tears. 'Papa would not let him lie dull and moped all day long,' he said. 'O Fee, I can't keep away; I am so sorry for him. When that terrible cramp comes, it is of no use to say those sort of things to him.'
'What sort of things?'
'Oh, you know; verses such as Papa used to have said to him. They weren't a bit of good. No, not though I did get the book Papa marked for Cherry.'
'You did!' gasped Cherry, who little thought that sacred possession of hers was even known to Master Lance.
'You'd have done it yourself, Cherry,' said the little boy, 'if you had only seen how bad he was; he got quite white, and had great drops on his forehead, and panted so, and would not let out a bit of a cry, only now and then a groan; and so I ran to get the verse Papa used to say over and over to you when your foot was bad. And I'm sure it was the right one, but—but—it did him no good, for, oh! he didn't know who our Saviour is;' and the little fellow clung to his brother in a passion of tears, while Felix felt a pang at the contrast.
'Have you been telling him, Lancey?' he asked.
'I wanted him to ask Mr. Audley, but he said he was a parson, and his father said that there would be no parsons if men were not fools. Now, Fee, I've told you, but don't keep me away.'
'It would be hard on a poor sick fellow,' said Felix, thoroughly softened. 'Only, Lance, you know I can't be with you; will you promise to go away if ever you think Papa would wish it?'
'Oh yes; one has to do that, you know, when our own fellows get blackguardly,' said little Lance, freely; whereat Cherry shuddered somewhat. 'And, Fee,' he added, 'if you would only come and make him understand about things.'
'Mr. Audley must do that,' said Felix; 'I can't.'
'You teach the boys in the Sunday-school,' said Lance. 'And he'd mind you, Blunderbore. He says you are the grandest and most splendiferous fellow he ever did set eyes on, and that he feels something like, when you've just looked in and spoken to him.'
'You little ass, he was chaffing you.'
'No, no, indeed he wasn't. I told him all about it, because he liked your face so much. And he does care so very much when you look in. Oh! do, do, Fee; he is so jolly, and it is so lonely and horrid for him, and I do so want Papa for him;' and the child cried silently, but Felix felt the long deep sobs, and as Geraldine, much moved, said, 'Dear little Lancey,' he carried him over to her as she sat up in bed, and she kissed and fondled him, and murmured in his ear, 'Dear Lance, I'm sure he'll get good. We will get Mr. Audley to talk to him, you know, and we will say a prayer every day for him.'
Lance, beginning to recover, put his arms round Cherry's neck, gave her a tremendous hug, released himself from his brother's arms, and ran off to bed. Felix remained a few moments, while Cherry exclaimed, 'Oh! the dear good little fellow!'
'Better than any of us,' said Felix. 'I was quite savage with Mr. Audley when I found out about it. I must go down and tell him. I never thought all that was in the little chap! I'm glad he came to you, Cherry. Good-night.'
'And you will try to teach this poor boy, Felix?'
'I don't say that. I don't in the least know how; but I shall not dare to hinder Lance, now I see how he goes on.'
On his way down he heard voices in the sitting-room, where, in fact, Mr. Audley had joined Wilmet, to explain to her how vexed he was to have so much annoyed Felix, and perhaps also something of his own annoyance at the manner in which Felix took it. Wilmet, partly from her 'growing on the sunny side of the wall,' partly from her early authority, was in some ways older than her brother, and could see that there was in him a shade of boyish jealousy of his prerogative; and as she sat, in her pretty modest gravity, with her fair hair and her Sunday frock, she was softly but earnestly telling Mr. Audley that she was sure Felix would not mind long, and that he was very sorry for the poor boy really, only he was so anxious about Lance, and he did like to be consulted. Both looked up, startled, as Felix opened the door, and they saw that his eyes were full of tears. He came up to Mr. Audley, and said, 'I beg your pardon, sir; I'd no business to grumble, and that little fellow has been—'
'Beforehand with us?' asked Mr. Audley, as Felix broke down. 'The nurse has been just telling me how he sat on his bed saying bits of psalms and verses to him when he had that bad fit of cramp, "so pretty," she said; but I was afraid it must have been rather like a spell.'
Felix told his story, feeling it too much not to make it lame, and with the tearfulness trembling in his voice and eyes all the time.
'Our little gamin has the most of the good Samaritan in him,' said Mr. Audley. ''Tis not quite the end I should have begun at, but perhaps it may work the better.'
'Dear little boy, that he should have remembered that sermon!' exclaimed Wilmet.
'I am afraid it is more than I do,' said Felix; 'all last summer the more I tried to listen, the more I saw how he was changing. Do you remember it, Wilmet?'
'Yes; the text was, "The joy of the Lord is your strength," and he said how praising God, and going on thinking about His goodness and thankfulness, was the way to make our adversaries dissolve before us, and never trouble us at all, just like the bands of the Moabites and Ammonites before Jehoshaphat.'
'I recollect it well, and how I thought it such a likeness of himself,' said Mr. Audley; 'he was walking over his troubles, scarcely seeing them, as if they could not dim the shine of his armour while he went on looking up and being thankful. I fancy little Lance has a good deal of that kind of bright fearless way.'
'He has,' said Felix in a grave thoughtful tone that made the Curate look at him and sigh to think how early care and grief had come to make that joyous buoyancy scarce possible to the elder boy, little more than seventeen though he was.
'He is very idle, though,' added Wilmet; 'such caricatures as there are all over his books! Edgar's were bad enough, but Lance puts pig-tails and cocked hats to all Edgar's.'
So Lance's visits to the sick stranger remained unobstructed. He had no notion of teaching him; but the foreign boy in his languor and helplessness curiously fascinated him, perhaps from the very contrast of the passive, indolent, tropical nature with his own mercurial temperament. The Spaniard, or perhaps the old Mexican, seemed to predominate in Fernando, as far as could be guessed in one so weak and helpless. He seemed very quiet and inanimate, seldom wanting or seeking diversion, but content to lie still, with half-closed eyes; his manner was reserved, and with something of courteous dignity, especially when Lady Price came to visit him; and the Yankeeisms that sometimes dropped from his tongue did not agree with the polish of the tone, and still less with the imperious manner in which he sometimes addressed the nurse. He seemed, though not clever, to be tolerably well cultivated; he had been at the schools of whatever cities his father had resided in, and his knowledge of languages was of course extensive.
However, he never talked freely to Mr. Audley. He had bitterly resented that gentleman's interference, one day when he was peremptorily commanding the nurse to place him in a position that had been forbidden, and the endeavour to control him had made him fearfully angry. There was a stormy outbreak of violent language, only checked by a severe rebuke, for which he did not forgive the Curate; he was coldly civil, and accepted the attentions he could not dispense with in a grave formal manner that would have been sulky in an English lad, but had something of the dreary grandeur of the Spanish Don from that dark lordly visage, and made Mr. Audley half provoked, half pitying, speak of him always as his Cacique. He only expanded a little even to Lance, though the little boy waited on him assiduously, chattering about school doings, illustrating them on a slate, singing to him, acting Blondin, exhibiting whatever he could lay his hands on, including the twins, whom he bore down one after the other, to the great wrath of Sibby, not to say of little Stella herself, while Theodore took the exhibition with perfect serenity.
As to Felix, he was, as Lance said, the subject of the sick lad's fervent admiration. Perhaps the open, fair, cheerful, though grave countenance, fresh complexion, and strong, steadfast, upright bearing had something to do with the strange adoration that in his silent way Fernando paid to the youth, who looked in from time to time, bringing a sort of air of refreshment with his good-natured shy smile, even when he least knew what to say. Or else it was little Lance's fervent affection for Felix which had conduced to the erection of the elder brother into the idol of Fernando's fancy; and his briefest visit was the event of the long autumnal days spent in the uncurtained iron bed in the corner of the low room. The worship, silent though it was, was manifest enough to become embarrassing and ridiculous to the subject of it, whose sense of duty and compassion was always at war with his reluctance to expose himself to it. Not another word passed on any religious subject. Mr. Audley was not forgiven enough to venture on the attempt; the Rector was shy and frightened about it, and could make no beginning; and Mr. Mowbray Smith, who found great fault with them for their neglect, had been fairly stared down by the great black eyes, which, when the heavy lids were uplifted, proved to be of an immense size and force; and Felix was so sure that it could not be his business while three clergymen were going in and out that he had never done more than describe the weather, or retail any fresh bit of London news that had come down to the office.
At last, however, one November day, he found Fernando sitting up in bed, and Lance, perched on the table, talking so earnestly as not to perceive his entrance, until Fernando broke upon his words: 'There! it's no use!'
'Yes, it is,' cried Lance, jumping down. 'O Fee, I am glad you are come; I want you to tell him the rights of it.'
'The rights of what, Lance?'
'Tell him that it is all the devil's doing, and the men he has got on his side; and that it was the very thing our Saviour came for to set us free, only everybody won't,' said Lance clinging to his brother's hand, and looking up in his face.
'That's about right, Lance,' said Felix; 'but I don't quite know what you are talking about.'
'Just this,' said Fernando. 'Lance goes on about God being merciful and good and powerful—Almighty, as he says; but whatever women may tell a little chap like that, nobody can think so that has seen the things I have, down in the West, with my own eyes.'
'Felix!' cried Lance, 'say it. You know and believe just as I do, as everybody good does, men and all.'
'Yes, indeed!' said Felix with all his heart.
'Then tell me how it can be,' said Fernando.
Felix stood startled and perplexed, feeling the awful magnitude and importance of the question, but also feeling his own incompetence to deal with it; and likewise that Wilmet was keeping the tea waiting for him. He much wished to say, 'Keep it for Mr. Audley,' but he feared to choke the dawning of faith, and he likewise feared the appearance of hesitation.
'Nobody can really explain it,' he said, 'but that's no wonder. One cannot explain a thunderstorm, but one knows that it is.'
'That's electricity,' said Fernando.
'And what's electricity?'
'A fluid that—'
'Yes; that's another word. But you can't get any further. God made electricity, or whatever it is, and when you talk about explaining it, you only get to something that is. You know it is, and you can't get any further,' he repeated.
'Well, that's true; though science goes beyond you in America.'
'But no searching finds out all about God!' said Felix reverently. 'All we know is that He is so infinitely great and wise, that of course we cannot understand why all He does is right, any more than a private soldier understands his general's orders.'
'And you—you,' said Fernando, 'are content to say you don't understand.'
'Why not?' said Felix.
There was a silence. Fernando seemed to be thinking; Lance gazed from one to the other, as if disappointed that his brother was not more explicit.
'And how do you know it is true?' added Fernando. 'I mean, what Lance has been telling me! What makes you sure of it, if you are?'
'If I am?' cried Felix, startled into indignation. 'To be sure I am!'
'But how?'
'I know it!' said Felix.
'How?'
'The Bible!' gasped Lance impatiently.
'Ay; so you have said for ever,' broke in Fernando; 'but what authenticates that?'
'The whole course of history,' said Felix. 'There is a great chain of evidence, I know, but I never got it up. I can't tell it you, Fernando; I never wanted it, never even tried to think about the proofs. It is all too sure.'
'But wouldn't a Mahometan say that?' said Fernando.
'If he did, look at the Life of our Lord and of Mahomet together, and see which must be the true Prophet—the Way, the Life, the Truth.'
'That one could do,' said Fernando thoughtfully. 'I say,' as Felix made a movement as if he thought the subject concluded, 'I want to know one thing more. Lance says it is believing all this that makes you—any one I mean—good.'
'I don't know what else should,' said Felix, smiling a little; the question seemed to him so absurd.
'Is it really what makes you go and slave away at that old boss's of yours?'
'Why, that's necessity and my duty,' said Felix.
'And is it what makes this little coon come and spend all his play-hours on a poor fellow with a broken leg? I've been at many schools, and never saw the fellow who would do that.'
'Oh! you are such fun!' cried Lance.
'All that is right comes from God first and last,' said Felix gravely.
'And you—you that are no child—you believe all that Lance tells me you do, and think it makes you what you are!'
'I believe it; yes, of course. And believing it should make me much better than I am! I hope it will in time.'
'Ah!' sighed Fernando. 'I never heard anything like it since my father said he'd take the cow-hide to poor old Diego, if he caught him teaching me nigger-cant.'
They left him.
'Poor fellow!' sighed Felix; 'what have you been telling him, Lance?'
'Oh, I don't know; only why things were good and bad,' was Lance's lucid answer; and he was then intent on detailing the stories he had heard from Fernando. He had been in the worst days of Southern slavery ere its extinction, on the skirts of the deadly warfare with the Red Indians; and the poor lad had really known of horrors that curdled the blood of Wilmet and Geraldine, and made the latter lie awake or dream dreadful dreams all night.
But the next day, Mr. Audley was startled to hear the two friends in the midst of an altercation. When Lance had come in for his mid-day recreation, Fernando had produced five shillings, desiring him to go and purchase a Bible for him; but Lance, who had conceived the idea that the Scriptures ought not to be touched by an unchristened hand, flatly refused, offering, however, to read from his own. Now Lance's reading was at that peculiar school-boy stage which seems calculated to combine the utmost possible noise with the least possible distinctness; and though he had good gifts of ear and voice, and his reciting and singing were both above the average, the moment a book was before him, he roared his sentences between his teeth in horrible monotony. And as he began with the first chapter of St. Matthew, and was not perfectly able to cope with all the names, Fernando could bear it no longer, and insisted on having the book itself. Lance shook his head and refused; and matters were in this stage when Mr. Audley, not liking the echoes of the voices, opened the door. 'What is it?' he asked anxiously.
'Nothing,' replied Fernando, proudly trying to swallow his vexation.
'Lance!' said Mr. Audley rather severely; but just then, seeing what book the child was holding tight under his arm, he decided to follow him out of the room and interrogate.
'What was it, Lance?'
'He ought not to touch a Bible—he sha'n't have mine,' said Lance resentfully.
'Was he doing anything wrong with it?'
'Oh no! But he ought not to have it before he is christened, and I would have read to him.'
Mr. Audley knew what Lance's reading was, and smiled. 'Was that all, Lance? I like your guardianship of the Bible, my boy; but it was not given only to those who are Christians already, or how could any one learn?'
'He sha'n't touch mine, though,' said Lance, with an odd sturdiness; stumping upstairs with his treasure, a little brown sixpenny S. P. C. K. book, but in which his father had written his name on his last birth-day but one.
Mr. Audley only waited to take down a New Testament, and present himself at Fernando's bedside, observing gladly that there was much more wistfulness than offence about his expression.
'It was a scruple on the young man's part,' said Mr. Audley, smiling, though full of anxiety; 'he meant no unkindness.'
'I know he did not,' said Fernando quietly, but gazing at the purple book in the clergyman's hands.
'Did you want this?' said Mr. Audley; 'or can I find anything in it for you?'
'Thank you;' and there was a pause. The offended manner towards Mr. Audley had been subsiding of late into friendliness under his constant attentions, and Fernando's desire for an answer prevailed at last. 'Felix told me to read the Life of Christ,' he said, not irreverently, 'and that it would show me He must be True.'
'I hope and trust that so it may be,' said Mr. Audley, more moved than he could bear to show, but with fervour in his voice far beyond his words.
'Felix,' said Fernando, resting on the name, 'Felix does seem as if he must be right, Mr. Audley; can it be really as he says—and Lance—that their belief makes them like what they are?'
'Most assuredly.'
'And you don't say so only because you are a minister?' asked the boy distrustfully.
'I say so because I know it. I knew that it is the Christian faith that makes all goodness, long before I was a minister.'
'But I have seen plenty of Christians that were not in the least like Felix Underwood.'
'So have I; but in proportion as they live up to their faith, they have what is best in him.'
'I should like to be like him,' mused Fernando; 'I never saw such a fellow. He, and little Lance too, seem to belong to something bright and strong, that seems inside and outside, and I can't lay hold of what it is.'
'One day you will, my dear boy,' said Mr. Audley. 'Let me try to help you.'
Fernando scarcely answered, save by half a smile, and a long sigh of relief: but when Mr. Audley put his hand over the long brown fingers, they closed upon it.
CHAPTER VII.
THE CHESS-PLAYER'S BATTLE.
'Dost thou believe, he said, that Grace
Itself can reach this grief?
With a feeble voice and a woeful eye—
"Lord, I believe," was the sinner's reply,
"Help Thou mine unbelief."'
Southey.
By the beginning of the Christmas holidays, Fernando Travis was able to lie on a couch in Mr. Audley's sitting-room. His recovery was even tardier than had been expected, partly from the shock, and partly from the want of vigour of the tropical constitution: and he still seemed to be a great way from walking, though there was no reason to fear that the power would not return. His father wrote, preparing for a journey to Oregon, and seemed perfectly satisfied, and he was becoming very much at home with his host.
He was much interested in that which he was learning from Mr. Audley, and imbibing from the young Underwoods. The wandering life he had hitherto led, without any tenderness save from the poor old negro, without time to make friends, and often exposed to the perception of some of the darkest sides of human life, in the terrible lawlessness of the Mexican frontier, had hitherto made him dull, dreary, and indifferent, with little perception that there could be anything better; but first the kindness and then the faith he saw at Bexley, had awakened new perceptions and sensations. His whole soul was opening to perceive what the love of God and man might be; and the sense of a great void, and longing to have it satisfied, seemed to fill him with a constant craving for the revelation of that inner world, whose existence had just dawned upon him.
After a little hesitation, Mr. Audley decided on reading with Geraldine in his presence after he had come into the sitting-room, explaining to her how he thought it might be helpful. She did not much like it, but acquiesced: she used to hop in with her sweet smile, shy greeting, and hand extended to the invalid, who used to lie looking at her through his long eyelashes, and listening to her low voice reading or answering, as if she were no earthly creature; but the two were far too much in awe of one another to go any further; and he got on much better with Wilmet, when she looked in on him now and then with cheery voice and good-natured care.
Then Fulbert and Robina came home; and the former was half suspicious, half jealous, of Lance's preoccupation with what he chose to denominate 'a black Yankee nigger.' He avoided the room himself, and kept Lance from it as much as was in his power; and one day Lance appeared with a black eye, of which he concealed the cause so entirely, that Felix, always afraid of his gamin tendencies, entreated Fulbert, as a friend, to ease his mind by telling him it was not given in a street row.
'I did it,' said Fulbert; 'he was so cocky about his Yankee that I could not stand it.'
'Why shouldn't he be kind to a poor sick fellow?'
'He has no business to be always bothering about Fernando here—Fernando there—Fernando for ever. I shall have him coming up to school a regular spoon, and just not know what to do with him.'
'Well, Fulbert, I think if you had a broken leg you'd wish some one to speak to you. At any rate, I can't have Lance bullied for his good nature; I was very near doing it myself once, but I was shamed out of it.'
'Were you—were you, indeed?' cried Fulbert, delighted at this confession of human nature; and Felix could not help laughing. And that laugh did much to bring him down from the don to the brother. At any rate, Fulbert ceased his persecution in aught but word.
Robina, always Lance's companion, followed him devotedly, and only hung about the stairs forlorn when he went to Fernando without her; or if admitted, she was quite content to sit serenely happy in her beloved Lance's presence, expecting neither notice nor amusement, only watching their occupation of playing at draughts. Sometimes, however, Lance would fall to playing with her, and they would roll on the floor, a tumbling mass of legs, arms, and laughter, to the intense diversion of Fernando, to whom little girls were beings of an unknown order.
So came on Christmas, with the anniversaries so sweet and so sad, and the eve of holly-dressing, when a bundle of bright sprays was left by some kind friend at No. 8, and Lance and Bobbie were vehement to introduce Fernando to English holly and English decking.
Geraldine suggested that they had better wait for either Mr. Audley or Wilmet to come in, but for this they had no patience, and ran down with their arms full of the branches, and their tongues going with the description of the night's carols, singing them with their sweet young voices as they moved about the room. Fernando knew now what Christmas meant, but the joy and exhilaration of the two children seemed to him strange for such a bygone event. He asked them if they would have any treat.
'Oh no! except, perhaps, Mr. Audley said he should drink tea one day,' said Robina. And then she broke out again, 'Hark! the herald angels,' like a little silver bell.
Suddenly there was a cry of dismay. She had been standing on a chair over the mantelpiece, sticking holly into the ornaments, behind and under which, in true man's fashion, a good many papers and letters had accumulated. One of these papers—by some unlucky movement—fell, and by a sudden waft of air floated irrevocably into the hottest place in the fire.
'O dear! oh dear!' wailed Robina.
'That's a pretty go,' cried Lancelot.
'That comes of your open fires,' observed Fernando.
'What was it?' asked Lance.
'I don't know. I think it was a list of names! Oh! how vexed he'll be, and Wilmet; for she told me never to get on a chair over the fender, and I forgot.' Bobbie's round face was puckering for a cry.
'No, no, don't cry, Bob; I told you to get up, and I'll say so,' said Lance, smothering her in his arms after the wont of consoling brothers.
'I dare say he'll not miss it,' said Fernando good-naturedly; 'he very seldom meddles with those things.'
Bobbie's great round grey eyes came out over Lance's shoulder, and flashed amazement and wrath at him. 'I'm not going to tell stories,' she said stoutly.
'No,' said Lance, equally scandalized; 'I thought you had learnt better, Fernando.'
Robina, be it observed, was ignorant of Fernando's untaught state.
'I only said you could hold your tongue,' was of course Fernando's rejoinder.
'That's just as bad,' was the little girl's response.
'But, Lance, you held your tongue about your black eye.'
'That's my affair, and nobody else's,' said Lance, flushing up and looking cross at the allusion.
'And Fulbert told!' added Robina.
'Will they punish you?' asked Fernando.
'I think Wilmet will, because it was disobedience! I don't think she'll let me have any butter at tea,' Bobbie nearly sobbed. 'Mr. Audley won't punish! But he'll look—' and she quite cried now.
'And do you like that better than not telling?' said Fernando, still curious.
She looked up, amazed again. 'I must! I don't like it! But I couldn't ever have a happy Christmas if I didn't tell! I wish they would come that I might have it over.'
The street door opened at the moment, and Mr. Audley and Wilmet came in together from Lady Price's convocation of the parish staff. Fernando heard the sobbing confession in the passage, and Lance's assurance that he had been art and part in the disobedience, and Wilmet gravely blaming the child, and Mr. Audley telling her not to think so much about the loss as the transgression; and then the door was shut, and he heard no more, till Mr. Audley came in, examined the chimney-piece, and performed the elegy of the list in a long low whistle.
'Is much harm done?' Fernando asked.
'Not much; only I must go and get another list made out, and I am afraid I shall not be able to come in again before church.'
'I hope they have not punished her.'
'Wilmet recommended not taking the prize prayer-book to church, and she acquiesced with tears in her eyes. A good child's repentance is a beautiful thing—
"O happy in repentance' school
So early taught and tried."'
These last words were said to himself as he picked up his various goods, and added, 'I must get some tea at the Rectory. I am sorry to leave you, but I hope one of them will come down.'
They did not, except that they peeped in for a moment to wish him good-night, and regretted that they had not known him to be alone.
As Felix was going out to begin the Christmas Feast in the darkness of morning, he looked in as he usually did, since Mr. Audley, sleeping out of the house, never came in till after early church. The nurse, who still slept in the room, was gone to dress; there was only a flickering night-light, and the room looked very desolate and forlorn, still more so the voice that called out to him, 'Felix! oh, Felix! is that you?'
'Yes. A happy Christmas to you,' said Felix.
'Happy—!' there was a sort of groan.
'Why, what's the matter? have you had a bad night? Aren't you so well?'
'I don't know. Come here; I must speak to you.'
Felix was, as usual, in a great haste, but the tone startled him.
'Felix, I can't stand this any longer. I must let you know what a frightful, intolerable wretch I've been. I tried to teach Lance to bet.'
'Fernando!' He was so choked with indignation, he could not say more.
'He wouldn't do it. Not after he understood it. It seems he tried it with another little boy at school, and one of the bigger ones boxed his ears and rowed him.'
'Ay; Bruce promised me to look after him.'
'So he refused. He told me he was on his honour to you not to stay if I did anything your father would have disapproved. He did leave me once, when I would not leave off.'
'But how could you?'
'I was so bored—so intolerably dull—and it is the only thing on earth that one cares to do.'
'But Lance had nothing to stake.'
'I could lend him! Ah! you don't know what betting is; why, we all do it—women, boys and all!' His voice became excited, and Felix in consternation broke in—
'When did you do this?'
'Oh! weeks ago. Before I was out of bed. When I found my dice in my purse; but I have not tried it since, with him!'
'With whom, then?'
'Why—don't fall on him—with Fulbert. He knew what it meant. Now, Felix, don't come on him for it. Come on me as much as you please. I've been a traitor to you. I see it now.'
'Anything but that!' sighed Felix, too much appalled for immediate forgiving, dejected as was the voice that spoke to him.
'Yes, yes, I know! I see. The worst thing I could do,' said Fernando, turning his face in on the pillow, in so broken-hearted a manner that Felix's kindness and generosity were roused.
'Stay, don't be so downcast,' he said. 'There's no harm done with Lance, and you being so sorry will undo it with Fulbert! I do thank you for telling me, really, only it upset me at first.'
'Upset! Yes, you'll be more so when you hear the rest,' said Fernando, raising his head again. 'Do you know who set that inn on fire?'