Save for the effects, Wilmet was glad to hear it. 'Well, Alda, it is not always kind.'
'I only don't fuss and coax her; I see through her better than you do. She is the sharp one. As I told Ferdinand, it is I who have reason to complain of his manner to her, only I know it is not his fault. If there were no other objection to this preposterous scheme of Felix's, she would be a reason against it.'
'For shame, Alda! You don't consider what you are saying of your sister.'
'I do!' said Alda. 'I have been more in the world than you, Wilmet, and I know what comes of sticking oneself down close to one's family, especially when there is that sort of spoilt invalid, backed up in all kinds of unreasonable expectations. I advise you to take care, Wilmet; you don't know what goes on in your absence. I should not wonder if it never came to an engagement after all.'
At that moment Felix's step and knock were at the door. Wilmet went to it, and both her hands were clasped in her brother's. 'My Wilmet, my dear, this is well!'
Then Alda turned from her glass and understood. 'What? He has spoken? O Wilmet, and you never told me!'
'I had not time.'
'And what a splendid ring! but it is not a proper engaged-ring. You can't wear it.'
'I must! He wishes it. It was his mother's.—Felix, may I have one of Mamma's for a guard?'
'May you!' said Felix, smiling.
'I should like you to give it to me. Come in.'
He came to inspect the unlocking of the ponderous old inlaid dressing-case, with velvet-lined compartments mostly empty, or only with little labelled papers of first curls, down as far as 'Edward Clement, 1842,' after which stern reality had absorbed sentiment—a sad declension from the blue enamel shrine with a pearl cypher, where Felix's downy flax reposed.
To do Alda justice, there was no greed in her nature, and she even offered Wilmet a turquoise hoop of her own, instead of a little battered ring of three plaited strands of gold, which their mother had worn till her widowhood, and they believed to be the ring of her betrothal. And when Wilmet suggested that the locket would delight Cherry, Alda's ready assent inspired the hope that she felt some compunction for her jealous unkindness.
The locket did prove a soothing charm, coupled with the little consultation as to the ribbon, and the capture of a smooth brown lock of the present to add to the original. And as the manly fingers dealt with the hasp, and the kind smile welcomed her pleasure, Cherry's heart felt that while she had her Felix, Alda need little comprehend her craving for attention from any one.
Yet her greeting to John Harewood was shy, tame, and frightened, compared with Alda's pretty graceful cordiality, as she told him that she was delighted, and envied Lance his powers of diplomacy. In fact, it was Alda who kept up the conversation, and made things pleasant, with the ease of society; while Felix was shy, Wilmet longed for silence, and Ferdinand looked like a picture of Spanish melancholy, such as had almost infected the whole table.
'I believe I must ask you to bestow a little time on me,' he said, as soon as the meal was over; and Alda made it evident that she meant to be in the conclave, which took place in the back drawing-room. It was at once made evident that the Pursuivant proposal was abhorrent to her; not that she behaved to Felix, nor indeed did she ever do so to any of his sex, as she permitted herself to do to Geraldine, but she showed great displeasure at the idea having been started.
'Things are unfortunate enough already,' she said, with something like Wilmet's dignity; 'but I should never forgive such hopeless ruin to dear Ferdinand's prospects.'
'Have I not told you that no prospect is anything to me if you can only be mine?'
'We know all that,' said Alda, drawing herself away rather sharply from the caressing hand, 'and therefore I must think for you, and I will not be the means of lowering your position in life.'
'Alda, dearest!' cried Ferdinand, glancing at Felix in such genuine distress as made him interfere in pity.
'We understand about position, Ferdinand; and you and Alda have been able to observe how far life is enjoyable in this lowered position.'
'Felix,' said Alda, who had evidently wound herself up for this crisis, 'you know very well that you stand quite out of common rules; but I am sure you can see that however valuable your work may be, it would be wrong to draw Ferdinand to the same level.'
'As for that,' said Ferdinand moodily, yet with the air of a banished prince, 'Felix knows what my father was; and if I knew that my grandfather was an honest man, it would be well. A stray wanderer, cast up at your door, has no right to talk of levels.'
'You are not to talk,' said Alda, more affectionately. 'You are too generous to be allowed to think.'
'In plain English, Alda,' said her brother, 'the objection is yours.'
'I cannot see him sacrifice himself for my sake,' said Alda.
'As though it could be a sacrifice!' exclaimed Ferdinand, 'when it opens the way to make you my own at once, my peerless beauty! If you—'
'Come, we have had all this over before,' said Alda, shrinking a little petulantly as he hovered over her, speaking with the fervour of his Mexican nature, and his eyes glowing with eagerness; 'if you will not have common sense, I must.'
'Common sense! It is not common sense I want! It is love!'
'If you doubt my affection—' said Alda, with dignity, drawing back.
'No! no! no! I never was so profane. Only it drives me frantic to hear you so coolly willing to keep us apart for—'
'Because my affection is less selfish and narrow than yours,' said Alda, raising her voice as his became like a roll of distant thunder. 'I tell you, I will not be the means of binding you to a petty provincial paper, that may give an immediate pittance, but will lead to nothing. Would that be love worth having? I appeal to Felix, his scheme though it was.'
Felix was a very uncomfortable third party, especially as Alda's appeal implied a certain accusation of himself. 'I own,' he said, 'that this situation is not likely to lead to promotion, but it would be competence. Ferdinand would be satisfied, but you—'
'I, who know what he is used to, cannot be satisfied for him.'
'As if you—' gasped the lover; but Alda would not let him go on.
'No,' she said, 'we must be patient. For him to remain in the Life-guards would be madness; but a few years at Mr. Brown's, with the interest he already has in the business, will open a career to him.'
'And I can run down every Sunday,' said Ferdinand. 'It is her determination; I suppose she is right, Felix, but I wish— If I could wish her otherwise, she should be less prudent!'
'I cannot see that she has any right to ask it of you,' indignantly exclaimed Felix.
But he found this was putting his head into a hornet's nest. Ferdinand would not have contested her right to send him down among the lions, and would never have given her back her troth, like Knight Des Lorges. No, he hotly contended that Alda had a perfect right to make her own terms, and still more hotly, though most inconsistently, that to work at Peter Brown's was his own free choice.
It was incontestable that a South American merchant's career offered more possibilities of rising into opulence and consideration than the proprietorship of a country paper; and though Felix privately doubted whether desk-work would suit Ferdinand half as well as the work where he himself could have contributed wits, he could say no more. Ferdinand was greatly disappointed; but there was no sacrifice that he would not make, and persist in with his silent Spanish perseverance, for Alda's sake. Indeed, he could not bear not to begin at once. He would return at once to his regiment, send in his papers, and dispose of his horses and equipments, making arrangements with Peter Brown to enter his house. He seemed to be in a fever till the matter was in train, and was entirely past remonstrance. And Felix recognised that the lovers must act for themselves, and could only feel thoroughly vexed with Alda, and equally vexed with himself for the consternation with which he thought of having her at home three years longer!
It was the next evening; and not only had Alda's own lover departed, but Captain Harewood was missing, and with him Lance, and the only explanation was from Bernard, that they were gone to Minsterham. No doubt Wilmet was sensible of a blank when she came home, though she would not allow it, and stoutly defended her Captain's right of going where and when he pleased without notice. She had to fight his battles, till late in the evening he walked in. 'Here we are! It is later than I expected.'
'Where's Lance?'
'He came in with me. Gone to his room, then.—Here, Geraldine, this little gentleman requests the honour of your leaning on him.'
'Oh, what a beauty! What a dear little ivory monster! Turbaned head, serpent's tail, and such a fascinating face!'
'Is the cane the right length? I measured yours.'
'You don't mean that he is for me? So smooth and so steady! Where does he come from?'
'From Benares—I bought him at the great fair; and from the moment I saw you, it was plain that in the eternal fitness of things he was destined to you.'
'To make a Pagan of her,' said Felix. 'See her worshipping her little idol!'
'Not my idol, but my prop and companion for life.'
'Your Lord Gerald,' laughed Felix, as she walked triumphantly round the room, perhaps her first unnecessary promenade since she was seven years old.
'This is just the time I didn't expect you,' said Wilmet; 'is the seven o'clock train put on again?'
'We didn't come by the train.' And Felix and Cherry smiled at one another as they detected that Wilmet's economical soul was vexed. 'I wanted Lance to see his doctor again, and the railway seems so bad for his head, that I drove.'
'How very kind!' exclaimed Wilmet.
'I am afraid I have not managed it well. I would not make an appointment, lest it should be a glaring day; so Manby was out, and we could only leave a message before going to the precincts. Lance was in wild spirits, and the boys gave him such an uproarious welcome, that old Canon Burley sent in to know what was the matter, and was told it was only little Underwood come back. He dined with us, but I am afraid I was off guard, for I never thought of his going and taking a place in the Cathedral.'
'I should think not!' said Wilmet, 'except that it is in the nature of boys to be provoking, even about Church-going. Then it has knocked him up.'
'He was forced to come out in the Psalms; and Poulter, one of the lay-vicars, got anxious about him, and went after him when the Lesson began, found him with his head down on the table in the sacristy, and thought he had fainted, but he was only crying and entirely done up. Manby came just as Poulter brought him in, and gave him a proper good lecture.'
'A very good thing,' said Wilmet, 'if one could only get him to believe there is any need of care when his head is not actually painful. What did Mr. Manby think of him?'
'He says he is as well as could reasonably be hoped—quite recovered from the fever; but the sun-stroke was as severe as any he has seen in England, and coming on the top of all that overwork, both study and music, it has left an amount of irritability and excitability of brain that must not be trifled with. He made poor Lance confess all the little experiments he has been trying on himself, and ordered him to leave off whatever he is about at the first threatening of dizziness or pain.'
'Then there's not much chance of his going back?'
'Not before Christmas at soonest. One would think the poor little fellow must have been aware of that; but the verdict cut him up very much. I thought he had better be quiet till the heat of the day was past, so he lay on my bed till six o'clock, and then he said he was better; but he hardly spoke all the way home.'
Wilmet went at once to see after him, and found him already in bed; but whether sleepy, suffering, or sorrowful, she could not make out, for he hid his eyes from the candle, and only muttered 'No, thank you,' in reply to whatever she offered, till she yielded to his evident longing for darkness and silence.
He was up and about in the morning; but when at noon Bernard rushed in from school, he was neither in the drawing-room, garden, nor office, and the door of his—or rather Mr. Froggatt's—bed-room was locked. Bernard bounced at it, calling, 'Let me in, I say; I'll not make a row.'
'There aren't any more of you?' parleyed Lance.
'No! Let me in, I say!'—kicking at the panels—'I must speak to you!'
'I'm coming; hold your din!' And Lance revealed himself without coat or boots.
'Holloa—how dark! You were never asleep? I came, because one can never catch you without a string of girls and babies after you.'
'Cut on,' said Lance resignedly, shaking up his horse-hair pillow: while Bernard seated himself on the table, and in the half-light of the shuttered room, began to disentangle some knotted twine.
'Did you come here to do that?' said Lance, wanting to finish his nap, and chiefly restrained by the trouble of the thing from kicking the intruder out.
'Only, I say, Lance, have you any tin?'
'Not the valley of a brass farthing!' (The last pence of the Vale Leston sovereign had gone into Stella's jam.)
'Wouldn't Felix give you some?'
'I don't know.' (Very gruffly.)
'I wish you'd ask.'
'You have as many tongues as I.'
'Well, you see Felix is not half a bad fellow for one's governor, but he doesn't know what's what; and Sims says he'll go to him if I don't come down with something before to-morrow.'
'Sims! Sims in Smoke-jack Alley? Is that your sort?' demanded Lance, in ineffable disgust.
'He's been keeping a dog for me,' said Bernard sulkily.
'A dog!' Lance sat up in astonishment immeasurable.
'Yes. It's the thing, and no mistake,' said Bernard eagerly. 'His name is Stingo; only we are not quite sure whether he is a bull-terrier or a short-haired King Charles.'
Lance dropped back, wriggling in suppressed convulsions, as he demanded, 'Where did you steal this unmistakeable animal?'
'I bought him,' said Bernard, with a certain magnificence intended to be overawing.
'Then where did you steal the money?'
'Travis,' said Bernard, who considered Christian names unworthy of male lips. 'He always used to tip me a sovereign; and Ben Bowyer, the dog-fancier, said Stingo was worth thirty shillings any day, only he let me have him for eight and six, because he wanted to sell off his stock.'
'I thought as much. And Sims keeps him for you?'
'At ninepence a week; but the brute is at me for ever, and says it is twelve weeks.'
'Pray, how were you to raise ninepence a week? By waiting on Providence or turning coach-wheels?'
'I had some then; and Froggy sometimes gives one half-a-crown, but the old beast hasn't lately, just because I wanted it—nor Travis either, bad luck to him!' quoth this grateful young man. 'I put them all off, making sure of him; and now he's cut, and never tipped me at all! It's an abominable sell, and they are all at me.'
'All! what more? Have it out,' grunted Lance, with a sound of bodily pain in his tone such as would have silenced any one above ten years old, and a bored contemptuous manner that would have crushed any attempt at confidence—if he had been the right person to confess to.
Nevertheless, Bernard mumbled, 'Shooting-gallery. And Mother Goldie vowed she would lug me up to Wilmet if I don't fork out!'
'Mother Goldie! You little disgusting ape! You've been tucking in what you owed in pies and tarts!' cried Lance, who was too constitutionally heedless of the palate to have any charity for its temptations.
'It's all Wilmet's fault,' said Bernard. 'She never gives one anything fit to eat. There was that beastly lamp out there went and got broke, and what does she do but crib it out of our grub! Now, Lance, was any living soul served like that before? She gave us only that beastly stir-about at breakfast,' (Bernard worked his single adjective hard,) 'no butter nor sugar at tea, and no pudding, except when there's that beastly mess of rice.'
'I'm sure I've seen pudding.'
'Oh! she came round when Felix came home. She knew he wouldn't stand it. Alda used to buy marmalade and anchovy on her own hook, so I don't see why I shouldn't.'
'Alda didn't go on tick, I suppose.'
'Serve Wilmet right if we all did. I don't believe there's a beggar so badly fed. Nares says—'
'You unnatural little sneak, you haven't been and gone and complained to him!'
'No; but all the town is crying out upon her shabbiness. They say it is a perfect shame how little butcher's meat she gets. Nares's mother and sisters do nothing but laugh at it, and Nares says nothing will make us comfortable but a bankruptcy. Hollo!'
For a well-aimed swing of the bolster laid him sprawling on the floor.
'Take that for mentioning such a word!'
'My eyes, Lance, is it swearing?' said Bernard, with a little affectation of innocence. 'How you have been and bumped my knees;' and he sat on the floor, pulling up his trousers to gain a view; 'there'll be a bruise as big as half-a-crown! Well, but Nares says it was a real blessing to them; for before it old Nares was always in a rage, and his mother boohooing; and now it is over they live like fighting-cocks, on champagne, and lobster-salad, and mulli—what's his name?—first chop; and the women dress in silks and velvets and feathers, no end of swells! and they say it is regular stoopid to pinch like that, for no one will believe we ain't going to smash while she is such a screw!'
'If you weren't nothing but a little donkey,' said Lance, sitting coiled up with his head on his knee, grimly contemplating him, 'you'd be a show specimen of precocious depravity.'
'I declare,' persisted Bernard, 'Nares says it is coming as sure as fate; for his governor, and Jackman, and Collis are going to stump up the old Pursuivant with their new Bexley Tribune, and Redstone is to be sub-editor.'
'The black-hearted rascal!' cried Lance, bounding on his feet in a rage. 'He ought to be kicked out of the shop this instant!'
'Now don't, Lance,' entreated Bernard, 'for Nares will pitch into me for telling. He says they've got an opening through the Pur backing up that mean beggar Smith; and Collis and Jackman will find the cash, and Nares's father is to be editor, and they vow Froggatt and Underwood will be beat out of the field.'
'Catch them,' said Lance, and he stood leaning against the solid old carved bed-post in silence, till Bernard returned to the insolvency at present far more pressing.
'Won't you help me about Stingo?' he said.
'Do you want me to send him to the dog-show, ticketted "The Real Animal and no mistake"?'
'Don't, Lance,' said the boy peevishly. 'I thought you were good-natured, and would lend me some tin, or at least stop the blackguard from being such a baboon. He's found out that Travis has cut, and he says he'll come to Felix this very day,' ended he, not far from crying.
'I can't anyhow, to-day, Bear,' said Lance, more kindly. 'My head is very bad, and you've not mended it.'
'It was well enough when you broke my knees,' grumbled Bernard. 'Come, Lance, you used to be a fellow to help one.'
'I can't, I tell you,' said Lance, hastily throwing himself back on the bed, and shutting his eyes. 'It isn't that I won't, but I can't. I couldn't walk straight down the street for giddiness; and if I did, I don't suppose I could talk sense.'
Bernard was startled by the tone as well as the words; but he had not arrived at much pity for any one but himself, and he whined, 'But what shall I do, then?' repeating it dolefully, as Lance lay for some moments silent and with closed eyes.
'Bother!' he broke out angrily at last. 'Look here. Tell the blackguard—let me see—I don't well know what I'm saying. Tell him you've spoken to me—no, to your brother—mind, you needn't say which—and that he'll come and see about it. Now give me that bolster, and take yourself off. Tell them I want no dinner, and don't let any one come! Get along, and shut the door.'
Bernard could extract no more, and departed as the dinner-bell rang, leaving him without energy even to lock the door. Presently Felix was standing anxiously over him; but he reiterated that he could not bear to think of food, and only wanted to be left alone; but just as his brother was leaving him, he said, 'Fee, do you know that Redstone is going over to the enemy?'
'The opposition paper? Nothing more likely. How did you hear?'
'Bear picked it up. I say, wasn't that little beggar to have gone to Stoneborough?'
'Not possible, Lance; I've gone into it with Wilmet. She is in trouble about household expenses, as it is; and with this rival paper on our hands, I can't undertake anything extra. Has he been bothering you? I'm very sorry, but we must keep him here.'
Lance shut his eyes without reply; but no sooner was he left alone than he rolled over, gave vent to a heavy groan from the bottom of his heart, and clenched his hands as he lay. Then followed some heavy sobs, and a few great tears; but gradually a look of purpose and hope came over his face, and he slept. He was lying between sleeping and waking, when a quiet step and cautious knock made him call out, 'Come in, Jack.'
'Your sister wants to know if you are better, and ready for some tea.'
'Thank you, I'm mending. Is Wilmet come home?'
'Yes, but only to become the prey of an ancient female.'
'Mrs. Bisset! Come to inspect you!'
'She won't, then! Shall I get you some tea?'
'No, thank you. But, I say, Jack, do you see my big box that we brought home yesterday? Would you just dig into it for me?'
John Harewood applied himself to disentangle a frightful knot, observing, 'This looks like Bill's handiwork.'
'Ay! Bill put all my traps together when our other fellows came back.'
'Together indeed!' said the Captain, looking at the heterogeneous collection.
'There's nothing to hurt,' said Lance. 'Do you see a green box?'
'A fiddle-case, you boy?'
'A violin-case,' said Lance, with dignity. 'Give it me.' And taking out his purse, he produced its only contents—namely, the key—tried to sit up to unlock his treasure, but was forced by giddiness to lie back again with a gasp, and hold out the key to his friend.
'Come, I should think a fiddle the last thing you could want just now,' said John.
'Just so. I'm afraid it is. Only, just let me see if she is all right. Ay!' and then, after a gaze, a fond touch or two, an irrepressible sigh strangled in the midst, 'lock her up again! You ain't by any chance going home to-morrow?'
'Do you want anything?'
'Why, when I got her at old Spicer's sale for twenty-two and sixpence, Poulter was beside himself at my luck, and said she was worth double that any day, and he would give it me if I got tired of her. Now, if I'd only known yesterday, I could have done it myself; but I can't go, and I can't write—but if you could but send or take it to Poulter, and get the money for me!'
'Do you feel bound to give Poulter the refusal? for if it is really a good instrument, it ought to be worth more than that.'
'Poulter has been very good to me. He taught me to play on it,' said Lance; 'that is, he showed me a little; but Robin made me lock it up and give her the key all last spring, for fear of hindering my mugging; and I can't touch her now, so she has been very little use to me. I promised Poulter, and I think he should have her. Besides, I want the money slick at once. It's no good sticking it in a window to wait for some one to give what it is worth.'
John marvelled what need of money could have come upon the boy in the last twenty-four hours, but he was too discreet a friend to take advantage of necessity to ask questions, and said, 'The fact was, I was thinking of running up to town to get a sewing-machine for your sister, but if I start by the earlier train, I can see Poulter on the way, and if he does not want it himself, he can tell me where to dispose of it to the best advantage.'
'Only it must be ready money,' said Lance; it must be owned with scarcely the alacrity of gratitude John deserved. 'If it didn't make much difference, I wish Poulter could have her, for then I should sometimes see her and handle her again, and I think he would use her well.'
'Very well, I'll tell him.'
'And don't tell any one here,' added Lance. 'You don't go and tell W. W. everything, do you?' he added, wistful and perplexed.
'Not other people's secrets,' said John. 'Now I am going to fetch you some food; you are looking quite faint, you have had nothing since yesterday's dinner.'
Poor Lance! when John was gone, he turned with another groan, once more took the violin in his arms, laid it on his shoulder, and made the motions of playing, then kissed it, and whispering, 'Poulter will be good to you, my pretty. It's not for that little beggar of a Bear! It's for Felix, for Felix—' and then at a sound of steps, hastily replaced it, shut the box, and fell back again, dizzy and exhausted.
The next day, he betook himself to a refuge more impregnable to Bernard than even Mr. Froggatt's bed-room, namely the office, which suited his sociable nature, and where he was always welcome. He found employment there, too, in cutting out extracts from newspapers, labelling library books, and packing parcels, and sometimes also, it must be owned, in drawing caricatures of the figures he spied through the chinks of the door.
CHAPTER XXIII.
SMOKE-JACK ALLEY.
Launce. It is no matter if the ty'd were lost, for it is the unkindest ty'd that ever man ty'd.
Panthino. What's the unkindest ty'd?
Launce. Why, he that's ty'd here—Crab, my dog.—Shakespeare.
John Harewood returned, bringing with him what Alda took for a dressing-case, and Cherry for a drawing-box, but which proved to contain a wonderful genie to save the well-worn fingers many a prick. To Lance he first administered the magical words, 'All right,' and then making an opportunity, he put five sovereigns into his hand. Lance's first impulse was, however, not to thank, but to exclaim, 'Then Poulter has not got it?'
No, Poulter's conscience had forbidden him to purchase 'little Underwood's' treasure at what he knew to be so much beneath its value; but he had given Captain Harewood his best advice and recommendations, and by that means the violin had been taken at a London shop, still at a price beneath his estimate, but the utmost that could be expected where ready money was the point. Lance ought to have been delighted, and his native politeness made him repeat, 'Thank you;' but he could not quite keep down his regret—'Now I shall never see or hear her again.'
However, the next day, when Bernard flew upon him at twelve o'clock, asseverating that there was shade all the way, he allowed himself to be persuaded, prudently carrying with him only ten shillings, and trusting to his blue umbrella rather than to Bernard's shade, which could hardly have been obtained by sidling against the walls.
Bernard did not seem to have enjoyed much more of Stingo's society than Lance of his violin's—the produce of the same bounty. He confessed that he had only ventured on taking the dog out three times in a string, and on one of these occasions he had broken loose after a cat, on another had fought with Nares's dog, and on the third had snapped at Angela.
'You didn't take Angel into these places!'
'No, she came to meet me.'
'That's a sign of grace; but, Bear, I can't stand these diggings at all. I've a great mind to turn back.'
'You won't!' cried Bernard. 'You must have been here often when you were a grammar-school fellow.'
'Not we! This is a cut below us! Fulbert would never have been caught here!'
'But you are going to get me out of this fix?'
'Haven't I said I will? only hold your tongue, and let me alone to manage the rascal. If you open your mouth, I've done with it.'
Bernard was forced to acquiesce, though Lance's manner vexed and irritated him. Popular and valuable as Lance had been with the choristers, he was not dealing as well with his brother, perhaps partly because he was more consciously trying to influence him; and likewise because the state of his health and his prospects so far affected his manner, that though never ill-humoured, it had lost some of the easy careless sweetness of high spirits, and assumed an ironical tone, exasperating to a child who could not brook ridicule. He was ashamed and dismayed at the place where Bernard was leading him, so low and disreputable that the boys of his time had never haunted it, and his own gamin propensities had never extended so far. It was a tumble-down quarter; the houses, deplorable hovels, run up hastily for the workmen at the potteries, and every third or fourth a beer-shop; and in the midst dwelt Mr. Sims, a maimed poacher, who kept a large live-stock with which to trade on the sporting tastes of the youth of Bexley.
Probably he was gratified to see that 'my brother' meant nothing more imposing than the chorister; but Lance had so cultivated his opportunities at Dick Graeme's home, as to be more knowing on the subject than Felix would have been. Indeed, it did not take much science to estimate the value of the 'real animal,' whose market price seemed to have fallen considerably. Lance, as he looked at the pied, bandy-legged, long-nosed cur, felt it impossible to set his cost against his keep, nor was he designed by nature for driving bargains; but Sims' expectations were founded on the probable, and the debt was annulled for three-and-sixpence and Stingo himself. Much civility was expended on Lance; dogs, rabbits, and other curiosities were exhibited, and an invitation given to come with the other young gents to admire the favourite terrier's exploits upon a cage of rats shortly expected, admission free.
'You will come, won't you?' cried Bernard eagerly, as they went out.
'What? To all the vilest sports in the place!'
'But Lance, you told me about the rat hunt at Mr. Graeme's.'
'What? Turning out the barn, with Mr. Graeme himself, and Bill, and all the rest? Do you think that's like letting a lot of wretched beasts out of a trap to be snapped up by a cur of a dog, with no end of drinking foul-mouthed blackguards betting on him?'
'You are always so savage, Lance; and now you've gone and paid away all the money.'
'What more?'
'There's the shooting-gallery, you see.'
Lance did see a public-house called the Flying Stag, where Bernard had contrived to incur a debt of a few shillings under Nares's patronage. While inquiring after the amount, he saw Mr. Mowbray Smith coming along the alley, and was more amused than shocked at the amazement his own presence there would cause the Curate; but just then he perceived that men were standing scowling at their doors, and slovenly women thronging out like ants when their hill is disturbed: and asking an explanation from the damsel in ear-rings who attended to him, he heard that 'the chaps are determined that that there Smith shall not have the impudence to show his face here again, for a hypocrite, defrauding of the poor. You'd best be away, young gents, there will be a fracaw!'
'A row!' cried Bernard, between excitement and alarm. 'Shall we stay and see it? Won't Smith spy us?'
Lance deigned no reply, but seeing the rough-looking men gathering as if to obstruct the Curate's way, he shot across the street to shake hands with him.
'You! I am sorry to see you!' said Mr. Smith severely: at which Lance gave what under other circumstances would have been an impudent smile, and asked, 'Have you anywhere here to go?'
'I am just come away from a sick man. But you know how wrong it is to bring your little brother here. Take him away,' he added, trying to prevent them from joining him, and at the same time a voice shouted, 'Let him alone, young gents, he aint your sort;' and a hissing and hooting broke out all round, 'A parson as ought to have his gown pulled over his head!' 'What's gone of the coals?' 'How about the blankets?'
Bernard got a tight grip, out of sight, of Lance's coat; Mr. Smith grew red and bit his lips; but Lance walked close to him, and as they began to be jostled, took his arm, holding the blue sun-shade over both their heads. Unsavoury missiles began to fly; but a woman screeched, 'Bad luck to ye, ye vagabone! ye've ruinated the young gentleman's purty blue umberella!'
'Down with it, young chap,' called another, 'or ye'll be served with the same sauce!'
'Serve un right too!' was the rejoinder. ''Tis they Underwoods, as never stands up for poor men's rights, and is all for the tyrants.' (All this full of abusive epithets.)
'Who said that?' broke out Lance, beginning hastily to close his umbrella, and trying to wrench his arm from Mr. Smith; 'I'm ready for him.'
But Mr. Smith, with an angry 'Are you mad?' held him fast; and his struggles provoked a good-humoured laugh at the little champion, still so white and slight.
'No, no,' said a big powerful man, collaring a great lad who had been thrusting forward at Lance's defiance, 'we don't have no mills with natomies like you! Go home and mind yer own business. Your father was another guess sort of parson, and I'll not see a finger laid on you. Be off, till we've given that other bad lot a bit of our mind.'
'Not I!' growled Lance. 'I'll have it out with that rascal there.—Nonsense, Mr. Smith; I can, I say—and I will!'
But the big man and Mr. Smith were perfectly in accordance this time; and without a word between them, the impulse of the coal-heaver's weight somehow opened a path, where, shoved by the one, and dragged by the other, Lance was at the corner—then round it—the crowd followed no farther.
'A plucky little chap that!' quoth the coal-heaver to Mr. Smith. 'You may thank your stars that he's his father's son, or it would have been the worse for you! And if ever you show the face of you here again, you know what to expect.'
'I expect nothing but what I am willing to receive in my Master's service,' said Mr. Smith, firmly meeting his eyes. 'Meantime, thank you for the help you have given me with these boys. Good morning. You will judge me more fairly another time.'
The man added another contemptuous oath to those with which he had freely laden his discourse; but Lance paused a moment to say, 'Thank you too, you meant it well; but I wish you'd have let me have it out with that foul-mouthed cad.'
'Wait till ye're a match for him, and welcome,' said the man. 'Bless ye! what could that fist do with Black Bill?'
'For shame, boys! come away,' said the infinitely disgusted Curate; and not a word was spoken down the first street; Bernard was still trembling with excitement, and Lance, conscious perhaps that though his interference had answered his purpose, he had been betrayed into what he now saw to have been absurd.
At last the Curate spoke, his naturally harsh voice wavering a little between reproach and acknowledgment. 'I am very sorry for all this, Lancelot Underwood. I believe you joined me out of a kind and generous feeling, of which I am sensible; otherwise, I should feel it my duty to report to your brother where I met you.'
'You are quite welcome,' said Lance, coolly.
'And I must say,' continued Mr. Smith, 'that if your whole training, as well as your recent severe illness, do not withhold you from such associations, at least I entreat you to pause before leading your little brother into them.'
Lance made no answer, except to halt at a public drinking fountain, to wash away the damage his umbrella had sustained; and there, with a serious 'Take care!' the Curate left the brothers.
'Catch me going to his help again!' exclaimed Bernard, entirely unconscious that his own gratitude to Lance was on a par with Mr. Smith's. 'He may get out of the next row as he can!'
'Ah! Bear! You see how you are corrupting my innocent youth!'
'A meddling donkey! I wish he had a rotten egg in each eye! Now it will all come out.'
'What will?'
'Where we have been.'
'That's the best thing that could happen.'
'You don't mean that you mean to let it out?'
'If you expect me to tell lies for you, you are out there.'
'But, Lance, Lance,' in an agony, 'you wouldn't be such a sneak, when I trusted you?'
Lance laughed. The bare idea of betrayal seemed so absurd, that he scarcely thought it worth removing.
The two were slackening their pace as they saw Felix at the carriage-door of a lady customer; and Lance said gravely, 'I'll see to Mother Goldie; but now, Bear, that you are out of this scrape, I give you fair warning, that if I find you grubbing your nose into that sort of thing again, I'll put a stop to it, one way or another.'
'I'm not a bit worse than the rest. All the other fellows do it.'
'Oh, I suppose, if you think Stingo the right thing in dogs, you think Nares the right thing in fellows!'
At that moment the customer drove off, and Felix having spied the blue sun-shade, tarried at the door to administer a remonstrance to Lance on being so foolish as to venture into the noon-day sun. He was not able to come in to dinner till it was half over, and then it was with a merry look and question, 'What's this, boys, about Mowbray Smith being mobbed in Smoke-jack Alley and your making in to the rescue?'
'Oh,' said Lance, 'there was an attempt at getting up a shindy, but it was of the meanest description. No one knew how to set about it. There was only one Irishman there, and he was a woman.' (This with a wink to Sibby.)
'And you didn't offer to fight big Ben Blake?'
'Ben Blake, on the contrary, elbowed us all safe out, because my father was another guess sort of parson!'
'And there was a horrible little cad making faces,' exclaimed Bernard, unable to resist claiming part of the glory, 'and I was just going to have pitched into him——'
'What—you saw the row getting up, and went to stand by Smith?' said Felix.
'Yes,' said Bernard boldly; 'and nobody durst lay a finger on him when we were on each side of him!'
At which everybody burst out laughing, including Mr. Froggatt, and Lance most of all. 'Who was it, then,' he struggled to say gravely, 'that pulled so hard at the back of my coat? I suppose it must have been some little cad. I thought it had been you.'
'Well, it was time to hold you back, when you were going to fight that great lout!'
'For my part,' said Lance, 'I think it must have been Smith and I that were holding the Great Bear back by his tail from fighting big Ben Blake. Eh?'
Bernard, never able to bear being laughed at, looked intensely sulky; and a true description of the affair being asked by Mr. Froggatt, Lance gave it, exactly enough, but with so much of the comic side that every one was in fits of merriment, all of which, in his present mood, the younger boy imagined to be aimed at him. He was too full of angry self-consequence really to attend, so as to see how entirely disconnected with himself the laughter was; all he cared for was that Lance should not betray him; and to assure himself on this head, it must be confessed that he hovered on the upper stairs out of sight, while Felix was lingering on the lower to say to Lance, 'Of course it was only Smith's affair that took you into Smoke-jack Alley?'
'Not exactly,' said Lance.
Bernard trembled with resentment and alarm.
'I don't want to ask questions, but you know it is not a nice place for yourself or for Bernard.'
'My dear governor, I know that as well or better than you do, and it won't be my fault if I go there again.'
'Don't let it be anybody's fault,' returned Felix, and vanished through the office door; while Lance, sighing wearily, was heard repairing to his refuge in his own room, and Bernard grimly and moodily swung himself down-stairs, on his way to afternoon school, believing himself a much aggrieved party. Here was Lance, whom he had believed a fellow-inhabitant of the Alsatia of boyhood, turned into one of those natural enemies, moral police, who wanted to do him good! True, Lance had helped him out of his scrape, and guarded his secret; but Bernard could not forgive either his own alarm, or the 'not exactly;' and the terms of confidence so evident between him and Felix seemed to place them in the same hateful category. Worse than all, Lance had laughed at him, and Bernard was far too proud and self-important not to feel every joke like so many nettle-stings. He had expected an easy careless helper; he had found what he could not comprehend, whether boy or man, but at any rate a thing with that intolerable possession, a conscience, and a strong purpose of keeping him out of mischief.
To detect which purpose was to be resolved on thwarting it. Nor, it must be allowed, was Lance's management perfect. He wanted to make himself a companion such as would content the boy instead of the Nareses; but to cross the interval of amusement between sixteen and ten required condescension, that could not but be perceived and rejected, nor did he perceive that ridicule was an engine most fatal in dealing with Bernard. Of course nothing like all this passed through the boy's mind. Lance simply saw that his little brother was getting into mischief, and tried to play with him to keep him out of it, but was neither well nor happy enough to do so naturally, and therefore did not succeed. Yet if he had abstained from showing Bernard a picture in the style of Punch, of the real animal and no mistake, and Bernard himself pointing to Felix and observing that the governor didn't know what's what, he might have prevailed to prevent the boy from eluding him and going to Mr. Sims' rat-hunt.
Of all this Felix knew nothing. He still had much lee-way to make up, in consequence of his absence, and the excitement in the town told upon the business.
Mr. Bevan's reply had been a timid endeavour at peace-making which foes called shuffling, and friends could only call weakness, so that it added to the general exasperation. Then came the Archdeacon's investigation, which elucidated the Curate's moral integrity, but showed how money subscribed for charity had gone in the church expenses, that ought to have been otherwise provided for. It was allowed that the Rector had been only to blame in leaving the whole administration to the Curate under his wife's dominion, and as the lady could not be put forward, Mr. Smith was left to bear the whole brunt of the storm.
His obsequiousness to Lady Price had alienated his brother clergy, and his fellow-curate allowed himself to be kept aloof by his mother, in a manner that became ungenerous. Half petulant, and wholly ungracious, as Mr. Smith's manner was in receiving assistance, only strong principle could lead any one to befriend him; and his few advisers found it difficult to hinder him from making a public exposure of 'my Lady,' or from throwing up his work suddenly and leaving the town, which would of course have been fatal to his prospects.
The Pursuivant had a difficult course to steer. Mr. Froggatt would fain have ignored the strife altogether, but the original note of defiance having been sounded by his trumpet, this was not possible, and the border line between justice and partizanship was not easy to keep. Whether the young editor did keep it was a question. To Mr. Smith, he seemed a tame, lukewarm supporter; to Mr. Froggatt, a dangerously conscientious and incautious champion; and the vociferous public despised the dull propriety, and narrow partizanship, of the old country paper. Finally, on the first Saturday in October, there appeared the first sheet of the Bexley Tribune, with a cutting article on bloated dignitaries and blood-sucking parasites, and an equally personal review of all the Proudie literature. On the Monday morning one hundred and twenty-nine Pursuivants remained on hand. Redstone took the trouble to count them, and to look into the office to ask Mr. Underwood where they should be stowed away.
'I wish he was smothered in them, the malicious brute!' said Lance, grinding his teeth, when Felix had given a summary answer. 'What a blessing to see the ugly back of him on the 1st of November!'
'I'm not so sure of that,' said Felix, as he sorted the letters of the Sunday post.
'Do you think he can do us any harm?'
'No; but he seems a specimen of an article hard to supply at the same price.'
'Are those answers to your advertisement?'
'Yes, and very unpromising.'
Lance came to look them over with him, and to put aside those worth showing to Mr. Froggatt; but it seemed that an assistant suitable in appearance and intelligence was so costly as to alarm their old-fashioned notions. He must be efficient, for Mr. Froggatt was equal to little exertion, and never came in on bad days; and to give an increased salary when the paper was struggling with a rival was serious; yet the only moderate proposal was from a father at Dearport, who wanted his son boarded, lodged, and treated as one of the family.
'That is impossible,' said Felix, 'unless the Froggatts would do it.'
'Eighteen!' said Lance. 'I'm sixteen, and up to the ways of the place! Why don't you set me to work before I have eaten my head off?'
'It would not do for you afterwards,' said Felix; 'I don't like your rushing out to serve.'
'But really, Felix, I mean it. I can do all Redstone does, except lifting some of the weights; and I am as old as you when you began.'
'No, no, Lance; your line is cut out for you.'
'It was,' said Lance, 'but I'm off it, and no good as I am; and if you could save Redstone's salary, you might send Bear to Stoneborough, instead of letting him stay here and go to the dogs.'
'Ah!' groaned Felix, 'it is hard that all this should come to upset his chances!'
'Are you really afraid those rascals can do us much harm?'
'We have a sound county circulation beyond their reach, but every copy they sell is so much out of our pockets; and there are so many people possessed with a love of the low and scurrilous, as well as so many who differ in politics, that it must thrive unless they stultify themselves. Don't look so appalled, Lancey boy; we aint coming to grief, only it will be a close shave at home this winter.'
'Then, Felix, let me help! You don't know the comfort it would be.'
'Not so loud,' said Felix, stepping into the shop. Lance stood thoughtful, then hearing more footsteps, ran out, and found two or three boys come for school materials, and some maids waiting to change volumes for their ladies. He gave his ready help; and there ensued a lull, for it was a wet day, such as to make Mr. Froggatt's coming doubtful. Felix took a second survey of the applications.
'Now, Fee, do think about this; I am in earnest.'
'So am I, Lance; I am very thankful to you, but it is not to be thought of.'
'Why not? Am I too small? For that's mending. There's one good thing in being ill, it sets one growing. My thick go-to-meeting trousers that I left at Minsterham, are gone up to my ankles; I must ask Wilmet if Clem hasn't left a pair that have got too seedy for Cambridge.'
'It is not that, Lance, but the disadvantage it might be to you in after-life.'
'If I took to it for good?'
'No, no, Lance; one is enough.'
'Stay. Don't shut me up that way. Recollect what this horrid donothingness is doing for me. I am losing all chance of the exhibition, and they can't keep me on at the Cathedral without, for my voice has got like an old crow's; and besides, if I can't read, what's the good of standing for scholarships?'
'You will feel very differently when your head is stronger. Besides, if there should be anything in what we were told at Ewmouth, it would be a pity to get more involved with trade.'
'I thought that was never to be spoken of.'
'And this is my first time. Don't take it as a licence.'
'I could see the sense of that, if it were you,' said Lance, 'but not for No. 5.'
'No. 1 would have his place and work found for him, but No. 5 might not find it easy to turn to something else.'
'Well!' said Lance, considering, 'you said that possibility was not to make any difference to us. Wouldn't it be making the wrong sort of difference to let it keep a great lout like me in idleness while Bernard is going to the bad?'
'What do you mean about Bernard?' said Felix, now thoroughly roused. 'Is it worse than you and Fulbert were in your gamin days?'
'I am afraid so,' said Lance. 'Ful took better care of himself than he seemed to do, and his friends were decent fellows, not like the lot that have hooked in poor little Bear.'
'I suppose it was some scrape of his that took you into Smoke-jack Alley. I thought you would get him out best without me.'
'The little dog, he was always after me when I didn't want him, but now I can't get at him. In short, there's nothing for it but cutting the connection between him and Jem Nares.'
'Just tell me how far it goes. What has he been doing with him?'
'Taking him to see rat-killing at Sims' in Smoke-jack Alley.'
'You couldn't hinder it?'
'No. Indeed, Felix, I did my best,' and the tears sprang into the boy's eyes; 'I did all but go after him, for I knew that would be worse than no good.'
'You need not apologize to me,' said Felix, laying down his pen; 'I have been very wrong. Between this business of Smith's and all the rest of it, I have hardly known which way to turn. I knew that I had not taken the right line with Fulbert, and interference made him worse, and I thought you had taken Bear in hand. Why, Lancey, I never meant to upset you. You have done all you could.'
'I did think I was good for that,' said Lance ruefully, 'after all our old swells at Minsterham said about influence on the choir and bosh. That when it comes to one's own brother—'
The tears were almost girl-like, and Felix's comfort was in the tone that suited them. 'Indeed, Lance, you may be doing him more good than you know. I thank you with all my heart; you are a much more real help and comfort to us all than you guess.'
'That's what you say to Cherry!' said Lance, impatiently. 'Now I can be real help, if you would only let me, and then Bernard could go out of the way of these fellows.'
'That he shall do, if I have to dip into the Chester legacy again.'
'Better take my way,' said Lance, reviving; 'a young man with good references only wants board and lodging.'
'It is not possible, Lance. It would not be respectful to the Bishop or the Dean, who have strained a point to keep you. There—I hear Mr. Kenyon's voice in the shop. I must go.'
'Only one thing, Felix. Will you hear what Jack Harewood says to it?'
To this Felix readily assented. He was hurried and harassed nearly to the extent of his time and capacity; he could not pause to give full consideration to his young brother's project, and was glad that the ungracious task of silencing it should be imposed on one less immediately interested.
John Harewood was always at Wilmet's side after four o'clock. Before that time he sometimes went to his home; he often spent the afternoon with Geraldine, but he was not usually about the house in the morning. So Lance, in a fever of impatience, wandered till he hunted him down writing letters in the coffee-room at the Fortinbras Arms.
'Jack, I say, come and have a walk.'
'Pleasant weather!'
'You want to be watered, after all that parching in India. It isn't raining now, and such a jolly cool day!'
'Jollier for you than a finer day, mayhap,' said the good-natured soldier, who greatly commiserated Lance's enforced idleness, and only wondered at his not making it a greater misery to every one else. He also understood what the inured ears of the family never guessed, since Lance never complained, the distress of Theodore's constant hum and concertina to sensitive ears and excited nerves; and had observed that Lance had flagged ever since the journey to Minsterham, with less of vigour and more of sharpness. Sure that something was preying on the boy, he deferred his least important letters, to splash away with him in mud and mist, and hear him explain his views, with the fullness often more possible towards friend than family.
John was greatly surprised, but did not make any crushing objection, and listened with thorough sympathy. He doubted, however, whether Lance would be doing any real good, and not only throwing more, instead of less work upon Felix. Sensibly enough the boy went into the matter. He said that when Felix began, the staff had also consisted of Mr. Froggatt, Redstone, a lad called Stubbs, and a boy. Now Felix did much more than Mr. Froggatt had then done, and Stubbs was a useful piece of mechanism without a head, and Lance believed himself quite able to fill the place Felix had taken at the same age; indeed, he had far less either to learn or to overcome, and though his arithmetical powers were still in abeyance, he had rather excelled in that line at the Cathedral school.
'I know, of course,' said Lance, 'that a man from a London house would be of more use; but there's this awful salary, and he would never care to look after Felix.'
'I allow that; but even if you can be of much present use, is it not at the expense of greater usefulness by-and-by?'
'I am sick of that! Edgar and Clem both mean to be of use by-and-by, and what comes of it? Edgar has spent Felix's two hundred pounds that he borrowed, and now has got his own, all to repay when he is a great painter. And he is six years older than I am! Now if I earned my guinea a week, as Felix did, it would be real good now, and I should be learning the trade for the future.'
'That's the question. First, would the guinea a week make so much appreciable difference?'
'Is that all you know about it, Jack? First, I should be earning my keep, not eating my head off; and then Bernard might be sent safe off to school.'
'You don't mean to say that otherwise he could not?'
'It has been a terribly costly year. There's Edgar. Then Clem couldn't settle in at Cambridge for nothing; there's been Alda turned back on Felix's hands; there's been illness, and goodness knows what the doctors may charge; and there's Felix's outing and mine!'
John answered by opening his pocket-book and showing Dr. Manby's account receipted.
'O Jack! You don't mean—'
'Considering that Will was the sole cause of the doctor being wanted at all, we could only wish to bear the damages.'
'I hope you have told Wilmet. It would be a ton weight off her mind.'
'I hope she would think the Chapter did it; but if you think she is anxious, let her know that it is all right.'
'You are a brick, John! But Felix himself said it would be a close shave. I wish I could throttle that Bexley Tribune, and all its dirty supporters!'
'Do you know, Lance, I am very much struck with your brother's—ay, and old Froggatt's conduct in this matter.'
Lance flushed with pleasure. 'Go ahead, Jack!'
'Of course, for a paper to keep its politics is nothing; but to take up the cause of an unpopular man, whose slights have been marked—'
'Who has been a malicious little cad,' chimed in the chorister.
'To take up his cause, simply as a matter of justice, and therewith of the Church, without truckling to public opinion, at absolute risk and loss, seems to me generosity and principle quite out of the common way.'
'You're about right there,' said Lance, intensely gratified; 'and doesn't it make one burn to help the old fellow?'
'Quite true. The question is, which way to help him; and while I grant you that the being idle at home just now is a terrible trial, whether it might not be better to be patient under it, than to disqualify yourself for a line in which you might do more—that is if it does disqualify you.'
'What line do you mean?' said Lance.
'Scholarship, the University.'
'That wasn't what I wanted most,' said Lance; 'and as for that, I'm disqualified enough by all this waste of time.'
'What was your wish, then?'
'I'll tell you,' said Lance, with lowered voice. 'When I used to lie catching notes of the chanting, and knowing that the organ was quiet for me, I used to feel that if I got well, I must give up my life to it, and study music in full earnest, so as to be a real lift to people's praise, perhaps in our own Cathedral. I thought maybe I could get in as a lay-vicar when my year is up, and work at harmony under Miles, and take a musical degree. But then came that day when the organ seemed to be crushing and grinding my head to bits—and of all Psalms in the world it was the forty-second! and Manby telling me on my life not to try to do anything for I can't tell how long.'
'Was that the reason you sold your violin?'
'No, of course not; except that it was a sin and a shame to keep it for no good, when I thought a pound might pull that little ape Bernard out of the mire. And I've been asking questions, and find it would take huge time and cost to study music so as to be worth anything; and here am I, a great lout, not doing that or any other good on the face of the earth—as much worse than Theodore as I am bigger. So if I can help Felix, when he is fighting the fight in the Pursuivant for God's honour and good and right, wouldn't that be a sort of service?'
'So undertaken,' said John, with a huskiness in his voice. 'Well, Lance, I will talk it over with Felix, if you like.'
For John Harewood, not having any strong musical bias, did not greatly appreciate the career that Lance had chalked out for himself; and while thrilled by the boy's devotional feeling, thought it tinged by enthusiasm, and had seen enough of Cathedral singing-men to have no wish to see him among them. If the loss of time was to prevent a University career, he thought book-selling under Felix's eye the preferable occupation.
Discussion was, however, deferred by the arrival of a home friend, who had sought him out at the hotel; and Lance had to go home without him, and wear through the day between dawdling, drawing, and playing with Stella, as best he might, till after school-hours; when, eager to turn to the account of his wardrobe these moments when Wilmet was free from her Captain, he drew her into his room.
Presently after, Felix heard the most amazing noises to which his family had ever treated him, and thankful that the wet day had reduced the denizens of the reading-room to one deaf old gentleman, he hurried upstairs, and beheld through the open door of Mr. Froggatt's room, Bernard raving, roaring, dancing, and stamping, in an over-mastering passion, and tearing some paper up with teeth and hands. Just then Lance grasped his collar, and tried in vain to rescue the paper; but he fought with fists, bites, and kicks, like something frantic, until Felix, with a bound forward, suddenly captured him, and dragged him back, still tearing and crunching the paper.
'For shame! Be quiet! You are heard all over the place.—Shut the door.'
The door was shut by Wilmet, while Bernard stood quailing under the stern face, strong hand, and tone of displeasure in which Felix demanded, 'What is the meaning of this?'
'That Bernard refuses to wear Lance's outgrown clothes,' said Wilmet.
'Do you mean that this is the cause of this disgraceful outbreak?'
'I—I don't see why—' growled Bernard, 'why I should wear everybody's beastly old things.'
'It is right you should hear the whole, Felix,' said Wilmet. 'When I showed him that Lance would have some still shabbier clothes of Clement's altered for him, he said if Lance chose to be a snob, he would not. Lance answered that it was a choice between that and petticoats; and then he fell into this extraordinary state, when I can only hope he did not know what he was saying or doing.'
'He was drawing me,' bellowed Bernard, 'drawing me in his brute of a book!' and he was so infuriated, that words never before heard by his sister followed, as he quivered and stamped even under Felix's grasp, which at length forced him into desisting; but the command, 'Go up to your room this instant,' could only be carried out by main force, amid tremendous kicking and struggling, Felix carrying him, and Wilmet following to unfasten the hands that clutched at the rail; while Lance stood aghast at one door, and Cherry in an agony at another, and Stella crept into a corner, and hid her face in terror.
'Well, we never had the like of this before!' said Felix, coming down, having locked him in, and heard him begin to bounce about the barrack, like prisoners in the breaking-out frenzy. 'Can it be all about the clothes?'
'I don't think you know what a grievance the having to take to old ones has always been to him, poor little boy!' said Cherry, very nearly crying, for Bernard was so much her own child, that in spite of his having cast her off, she was in full instinct of defence; 'and he dislikes Lance's most of all, because of the Cathedral peculiarities.'
'Ah! you have always humoured him by taking off that chorister's frill,' said Wilmet; 'but there could be no objection to those trousers. They were almost new when Fulbert left them, and Lance has only had them for best one winter.'
Felix could not help laughing. 'Long had she worn, and now Belinda wears,' he quoted. 'My dear Mettie, the effect is better than the detail. You should spare us the pedigree, however respectable.'
'Well, I said nothing about it,' said Wilmet. 'Was it what you said about petticoats, Lance?'
'Lance does tease and aggravate that child unbearably!' exclaimed Cherry, too much vexed not to be relieved to turn her blame upon somebody; 'and it is very unkind of him, for he knows Bernard cannot bear to be laughed at.'
'Hush! Cherry,' said Wilmet; 'if Lance did, he didn't mean it. It has been quite too much—'
'Indeed it has, said Felix. 'You had better lie down at once, Lance.'
A good deal more than Bernard's outbreak had gone to the pain and dizziness that prevented Lance from even attempting to reply to Cherry's accusation, but made him turn quietly back into his room; while Felix was obliged to hurry downstairs again; and Alda made her frequent remark that 'those boys were really unbearable.'
'Poor Lance! it was not his fault,' said Wilmet.
'You don't know, Wilmet!' said Cherry indignantly. 'I did hope that when he came home, my poor little Bernard might get better managed—he used to be so fond of him; but he has done nothing but worry and laugh at him, and I don't at all wonder it has come to this. I shall go up and see about the poor little fellow.'
'Do you mean to let her go and pet him after such outrageous naughtiness?' asked Alda, as Cherry moved to begin the difficult ascent.
'I should not do it myself,' said Wilmet; 'but I daresay she will do him good.'
Alda held up her hands in wonder. How many quarrels might have been going on at that moment, if three of the family at least had not exercised the forbearance she so little understood.
Cherry and her Lord Gerald mounted the attic stairs. It was for the first time in her life, and she was so imperfect in the geography of the upper floor, that she had to open one or two doors before she found 'the barrack,' with Bernard lying kicking his heels fiercely at the beam across the low room. The amazing presence of Geraldine suspended this occupation. 'How did you come here?' he gasped.
'I came to see you, Bear. My poor Bear! I am so sorry!' said Cherry, sitting down on one of the beds; 'how could you go on so?'
There was rebuke and pain in her voice, and Bernard resented it. 'They've no business to bait me,' he said. 'I've no peace in my life!'
'But that doesn't make it right to fly into such dreadful passions.'
'I wouldn't do it if they'd let me alone. I don't see why I should be the one to wear every one's nasty old clothes.'
'Why, Felix and Clement couldn't well wear yours!'
'It was all Lance's doing. Lance has bothered me out of existence ever since he came home.'
'But you should try to bear it, if he is a little cross and tiresome. You know he is not at all well yet, and all this has quite knocked him up.'
'I'm glad of it!' said Bernard viciously. 'Served him right for setting Wilmet on, and then drawing his abominable pictures; as if it wasn't enough to have spoilt all my pleasure, and sold Stingo!'
'What was Stingo?'
'Oh, just a dog—'
'A dog!'
'Yes, my dog; and Lance went and sold him, and then drew a beastly picture of him and me.'
'But, Bernard, how could you have a dog?'
'Oh, I bought him with some money Travis gave me, and a cad down in the town kept him for me; but then Travis didn't give me any more—'
'But, Bernard, you must have known you ought not. Did you get into debt?'
'Ay, just for a few shillings; and the brute threatened me so that I just asked Lance—'
'Was he such a dangerous dog? O Bear!'
'No, no—the man that kept him. I thought Lance would tackle him without making a row.'
'And did he?'
'Ay. He said he hadn't got a penny, and he kept me waiting ever so long; but I fancy he got it from Harewood. He might as well have let me keep Stingo!'
Cherry's views of the relations between Lance and Bernard had begun to adjust themselves, and she began to reason on the impropriety of keeping the dog; but she soon perceived that this was only ranging herself on the side of the enemy, and exciting the obduracy of her favourite, who was determined to be a victim. In truth, Bernard was not repentant enough to treat her with confidence, and his world was so entirely beyond her knowledge, that she did not possess the threads that would have led to it. All that she did perceive was, that much of Bernard's irritation was at the endeavour to keep him out of mischief, and that her own gentle persuasions were almost as distasteful as Lance's jests. She sat on, arguing, talking, entreating, till it had long been quite dark; and Wilmet at last came up to say that she must not stay any longer in the cold, and to ask Bernard whether he would say he was sorry.
'I didn't want her to come here bothering,' was Bernard's grateful remark.
'Well, I advise you to take care you are in a better mood before Felix comes,' said Wilmet.—'Come, Cherry, it is not safe for you to go down alone.'
Cherry could only entreat, 'Do, Bear, do,' and try to kiss the averted cheek.