Amaryllis at the Fair Part 17

And they poured upon her a cross-fire of anger: a careless, wasteful hussy, an idle wretch; what did she do for her living that she could throw away spade-guineas? what would her grandfather say? how did she suppose they were to keep her, and she not earn the value of a bonnet-string? time she was apprenticed to a dressmaker; the quant.i.ty she ate, and never could touch any fat--dear me, so fine--bacon was not good enough for her--she could throw away spade-guineas.

Poor Amaryllis stood by the half-open door, her hat in her hand, her bosom heaving, her lips apart and pouting, not with indignation but sheer misery; her head drooped, her form seemed to lose its firmness and sink till she stooped; she could not face them as she would have done others, because you see she loved them, and she had done her best that day till too sorely tried.

The storm raged on; finally Iden growled "Better get out of sight." Then she went to her bedroom, and sat on the bed; presently she lay down, and sobbed silently on the pillow, after which she fell asleep, quite worn out, dark circles under her eyes. In the silence of the house, the tom-tom and blare of brazen instruments blown at the fair two miles away was audible.

CHAPTER XIX.

So there was tribulation in three houses. Next morning she scarcely dared come in to breakfast, and opened the door timidly, expecting heavy looks, and to be snapped up if she spoke. Instead of which, on taking her place, Iden carefully cut for her the most delicate slice of ham he could find, and removed the superfluous fat before putting it on her plate. Mrs. Iden had a special jug of cream ready for her--Amaryllis was fond of cream--and enriched the tea with it generously.

"And what did you see at the fair?" asked Iden in his kindest voice, lifting up his saucer--from which he always drank--by putting his thumb under it instead of over, so that his thick little finger projected. He always sipped his tea in this way.

"You had plenty of fun, didn't you?" said Mrs. Iden, still more kindly.

"I--I don't know; I did not see much of the fair," said Amaryllis, at a loss to understand the change of manner.

Iden smiled at his wife and nodded; Mrs. Iden picked up a letter from the tea-tray and gave it to her daughter:

"Read."

Amaryllis read--it was from Grandfather Iden, furiously upbraiding Iden for neglecting his daughter's education; she had no reverence, no manners--an undutiful, vulgar girl; she had better not show her face in his house again till she had been taught to know her position; her conduct was not fit for the kitchen; she had not the slightest idea how to behave herself in the presence of persons of quality.

She put it down before she had finished the tirade of abuse; she did not look up, her face was scarlet.

Iden laughed.

"Horrid old wretch! Served him right!" said Mrs. Iden. "So glad you vexed him, dear!"

Amaryllis last night a wretch was this morning a heroine. The grandfather's letter had done this.

Iden never complained--never mentioned his father--but of course in his heart he bitterly felt the harsh neglect shown towards him and his wife and their child. He was a man who said the less the more he was moved; he gossiped freely with the men at the stile, or even with a hamlet old woman. Not a word ever dropped from him of his own difficulties--he kept his mind to himself. His wife knew nothing of his intentions--he was over-secretive, especially about money matters, in which he affected the most profound mystery, as if everyone in Coombe was not perfectly aware they could hardly get a pound of sugar on credit.

All the more bitterly he resented the manner in which Grandfather Iden treated him, giving away half-crowns, crown-pieces, s.h.i.+llings, and fourpenny bits to anyone who would flatter his peculiarities, leaving his own descendants to struggle daily with debt and insult.

Iden was in reality a very proud man, and the insults of his petty creditors fretted him.

He would have been glad if Amaryllis had become her grandfather's favourite; as the grandfather had thrown savage words at the girl, so much the more was added to the score against the grandfather.

Mrs. Iden hated the grandfather with every drop of Flamma blood in her veins--hated him above all for his pseudo-Flamma relations.h.i.+p, for old Iden had in his youth been connected with the Flammas in business--hated him for his veneration of the aristocratic and mediaeval Pamments.

She was always impressing upon Amaryllis the necessity of cultivating her grandfather's goodwill, and always abusing him--contradicting herself in the most natural manner.

This letter had given them such delight, because it showed how deeply Amaryllis had annoyed the old gentleman. Had he been whipped he could hardly have yelled more; he screamed through his scratchy quill. Suppose they did lose his money, he had had _one_ good upset, that was something.

They were eager to hear all about it. Amaryllis was at first very shy to tell, knowing that her father was a thick Tory and an upholder of the Pamments, and fearing his displeasure. But for various reasons both father and mother grew warmer in delight at every fresh incident of her story.

Mrs. Flamma Iden--revolutionary Flamma--detested the Pamments enthusiastically, on principle first, and next, because the grandfather paid them such court.

Iden was indeed an extra thick Tory, quite opaque, and had voted in the Pamment interest these thirty years, yet he had his secret reasons for disliking them personally.

Both Mr. and Mrs. Iden agreed in their scorn of the grandfather's pottering about the grounds and in and out the conservatories, as if that was the highest honour on earth. Yet Mrs. Iden used often to accuse her husband of a desire to do the very same thing: "You're just as stupid," she would say; "you'd think it wonderful to have a private key--you're every bit as silly really, only you haven't got the chance."

However, from a variety of causes they agreed in looking on Amaryllis'

disgrace as a high triumph and glory.

So she was petted all the morning by both parties--a rare thing--and in the afternoon Iden gave her the sovereign she had brought home, to buy her some new boots, and to spend the rest as she chose on herself.

Away went Amaryllis to the town, happy and yet not without regret that she had increased the disagreement between her father and grandfather.

She met the vans and gipsies slowly leaving the site of the fair, the children running along with bare brown feet. She went under the archaeologically interesting gateway, and knocked at the door of Tiras Wise, shoemaker, "established 200 years."

Tiras Wise of the present generation was thin and nervous, weary of the centuries, worn out, and miserable-looking. Amaryllis, strong in the possession of a golden sovereign, attacked him sharply for his perfidious promises; her boots promised at Christmas were not mended yet.

Tiras, twiddling a lady's boot in one hand, and his foot measure in the other, very humbly and deprecatingly excused himself; there had been so much trouble with the workmen, some were so tipsy, and some would not work; they were always demanding higher wages, and just as he had a job in hand going off and leaving it half finished--shoemaker's tricks these. Sometimes, indeed, he could not get a workman, and then there was the compet.i.tion of the ready-made boot from Northampton; really, it was most trying--it really was.

"Well, and when am I going to have the boots?" said Amaryllis, amused at the poor fellow's distress. "When _are_ they going to be finished?"

"You see, Miss Iden," said the shoemaker's mother, coming to help her son, "the fact is, he's just worried out of his life with his men--and really--"

"You don't seem to get on very well with your shoemaking, Mr. Wise,"

said the customer, smiling.

"The fact is," said poor Wise, in his most melancholy manner, with a deep sigh, "the fact is, the men don't know their work as they used to, they spoil the leather and cut it wrong, and leave jobs half done, and they're always drinking; the leather isn't so good as it used to be; the fact is," with a still deeper sigh, "_we can't make a boot_."

At which Amaryllis laughed outright, to think that people should have been in business two hundred years as shoemakers, and yet could not make a boot!

Her experience of life as yet was short, and she saw things in their first aspect; it is not till much later we observe that the longer people do one thing, the worse they do it, till in the end they cannot do it at all.

She presently selected a pair for herself, 9_s._, and another pair for her mother, 10_s._ 6_d._, leaving sixpence over; add sixpence discount for ready-money, and she was still rich with a s.h.i.+lling. Carrying the parcel, she went up the street and pa.s.sed old Iden's door on elate instep, happy that she had not got to cross his threshold that day, happy to think she had the boots for her mother. Looking in at two or three dingy little shops, she fixed at last on one, and bought half-a-dozen of the very finest mild bloaters, of which Mrs. Iden was so fond. This finished the savings, and she turned quickly for home. The bloaters being merely bound round with one thin sheet of newspaper, soon imparted their odour to her hand.

A lady whose hand smells of bloaters is not, I hope, too ideal; I hope you will see now that I am not imaginative, or given to the heroinesque.

Amaryllis, I can tell you, was quite absorbed in the bloaters and the boots; a very sweet, true, and loving hand it was, in spite of the bloaters--one to kiss fervently.

They soon had the bloaters on over a clear fire of wood-coals, and while they cooked the mother tried her new boots, naturally not a little pleased with the thoughtful present. The Flamma blood surged with grat.i.tude; she would have given her girl the world at that moment. That she should have remembered her mother showed such a good disposition; there was no one like Amaryllis.

"Pah!" said Iden, just then entering, "pah!" with a gasp; and holding his handkerchief to his nose, he rushed out faster than he came in, for the smell of bloaters was the pestilence to him.

They only laughed all the merrier over their supper.

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