Fated to Be Free Part 52

"Why, George Crayshaw," said Cray (that being his manner of designating his brother when he was not pleased with him)--"George Crayshaw is only come down here for one day, and Mr. Brandon had fully arranged that I should go to Mr. Tikey till we two return to Harrow, and now he's going to Germany, and wants me to start with him this very day--says the dry continental air may do me good. Why, I am perfectly well--perfectly."

"So it appears," said Emily.

"Look how he's grown, then," exclaimed Johnnie, who had almost left off lisping, "he hardly ever has a touch of asthma now. His brother hates trouble, so if he cannot find him he may go off by himself."

"I was just writing out my verses," Crayshaw whispered, "when I overheard Mr. Brandon saying in the garden that he expected George."

"Were you alone?" asked Gladys, hoping he had not been seen to run off.

"Was I alone? Well, there was n.o.body present but myself, if you call that being alone--I don't. That fellow argues so; he's, so intrusive, and often makes such a noise that I can get no retirement for writing my poetry."

"What a goose you are, Cray!" said Barbara. "I wish, though, you would speak lower."

"Besides," continued Crayshaw, excusing himself to Mrs. Walker; "it's so dull being with George, he's always collecting things. The last time I saw him he was on his knees cleaning up a dingy old picture he'd just bought. f.a.n.n.y stood beside him with a soapy flannel. She looked quite religious; she was so grave. I saw a red cabbage in the picture and a pot of porter, the froth extremely fine. 'I hope,' said George, very hot after his exertions, 'that when you are of age you will follow in my steps, and endow our common country with some of these priceless----'

'Common,' interrupted Mrs. Jannaway. 'Common country, do I hear aright, George Crayshaw?' (I don't love that old lady _much_.) 'George,' I said, for I pitied him for having a mother-in-law, 'when I get my money I shall pay a man to paint another old picture for you, as a companion to that. There shall be three mackerel in it, very dead indeed; they shall lie on a willow-pattern plate, while two c.o.c.k-roaches that have climbed up it squint over the edge at them. There shall also be a pork-pie in it, and a brigand's hat. The composition will be splendid.' I took out my pocket-book and said, 'I'll make a mem. of it now.' So I did, and added, 'Mem.: Never to have a mother-in-law, unless her daughter is as pretty as f.a.n.n.y Crayshaw.'"

The little boys were now allowed to have tools and go on with their carving, still seated on the ground. The girls took out their tatting, and talk went on.

"Mrs. Walker has just been saying that she cannot bear carving, and pictures of dead things," observed Barbara. "So, Cray, she will think you right to despise those your brother buys. And, Johnnie, she wishes to know about our pictures."

"And those great sentences too," added Emily. "What do they mean?"

"The big picture is Dover," said little Jamie, "and that Britannia sitting on the cliff, they cut out of _Punch_ and stuck on. You see she has a boot in her hand. It belongs to our Sham memory that father made for us."

"It's nearly the same as what Feinangle invented," Johnnie explained.

"The vowels do not count, but all the consonants stand for figures. Miss Crampton used to make the kids so miserable. She would have them learn dates, and they could not remember them."

"Even Barbara used to cry over the dates," whispered Janie.

"You needn't have told that," said Barbara sharply.

"But at first we altered the letters so many times, that father said he would not help us, unless we made a decree that they should stay as they were for ever," said Gladys. "Johnnie had stolen the letter I, and made it stand for one. So it does still, though it is a vowel. Janie has a form of our plan. Hand it up, Janie."

Janie accordingly produced a little bag, and unfolded a paper of which this is a copy:--

JANIE MORTIMER Fecit This.

1 2 3 I.T. N.B. M.Y.

4 5 6 R.Q. C.J.V. D.S.

7 8 9 K.G. H.P. F.L.

Ought W.X.Z.

A & E & O & U dont count. You're to make up the sentence with them.

"The rule is," said Gladys, "that you make a sentence of words beginning with anyone of those letters that stand for the figures you want to remember. Miss Crampton wanted us to know the dates of all Wellington's battles; of course we couldn't; we do now, though. You see Britannia's scroll has on it, 'I'll put _on_ Wellington boots,' that means 1802. So we know, to begin with, that till after she put on Wellington boots, we need not trouble ourselves to remember anything particular about him."

"There's a portrait of Lord Palmerston," whispered Crayshaw, "he has a map of Belgium pasted on his breast. He says, 'I, Pam, managed this."'

"Yes, that means the date of the independence of Belgium," said Gladys. "Johnnie made it, but father says it is not quite fair."

"The best ones," Johnnie explained, "ought not to have any extra word, and should tell you what they mean themselves. 'I hear navvies coming,'

is good--it means the making of the first railway. Here are four not so good:--Magna Charta--'The Barons _extorted_ this Charter,' 1215. The Reformation--'They came _out of_ you, Rome,' 1534. Discovery of America--'In re _a_ famous navigator,' 1492. And Waterloo--Bonaparte says it--'Isle perfide tu _as_ vaincu,' 1815."

"I have thought of one for the Reform Bill," said Emily: "get a portrait of Lord Russell, and let his scroll say, 'They've pa.s.sed my bill.'"

"That is a good one, but they must not be too simple and easy, or they are forgotten," said one of the girls; "but we make them for many things besides historical events. Those are portraits, and show when people were born. There is dear Grand; 'I _owe_ Grand love _and_ duty,' That next one is Tennyson; 'I have won laurels.' There's Swan; Swan said he did not know whether he was born in 1813 or 1814; so Johnnie did them both. 'The princ.i.p.al thing's muck _as_ these here _airly_ tates require.' You see the first Napoleon, looking across the Channel at Britannia with the boot: he says, 'I hate white cliffs,' which means Trafalgar; and 'I cry, Jam satis,' father has just invented for Charles, that King of Spain who was Emperor of Germany too. You can see by it that he abdicated in 1556. Miss Crampton used to wonder at our having become so clever with our dates all on a sudden. And there's one that Mr. Brandon made. You see those s.h.i.+ps? That is a picture of Boston harbour (Cray's Boston). If you were nearer, you could see them pouring something over their sides into the water, using the harbour for a teapot. On their pennons is written, 'Tea _of_ King George's _own_ making.' Oh, Cray! what is that noise?" Silence, a crunching of decided step coming on fast and firmly; the faces of the party fell.

"It's all up!" sighed Crayshaw.

Somebody shook the door at the foot of the stairs; then a voice rang through the place like a silver trumpet, "Johnnie."

"Yes, father," answered Johnnie in the loud, melancholy tone not unfrequently used by a boy when he succ.u.mbs to lawful authority.

"What are you about, sir? What are you thinking of? Come down this moment, and open the door."

One of the little boys had been already dispatched down-stairs, and was turning the key. In another instant John Mortimer, coming quickly up beheld the party seated on the floor, looking very foolish, and Mrs.

Walker in his throne laughing. Crayshaw got up to present himself, and take the blame on his own shoulders, and John was so much surprised to find Emily present, and perhaps aiding, that he stopped short in his inquiry how they had dared to bring him home when he was so busy, and observing the ridiculous side of the question, sat down at once, and laughed also, while she said something by way of excuse for them, and they made the best defence they could.

Emily had the little Anastasia in her arms; the child, tired of inaction, had fallen asleep, with her delicate rosy cheek leaning against Emily's fair throat.

John felt the beauty of the att.i.tude, and perceived how Emily's presence gave completeness to the group.

Much too young to be the mother of the elder children, there was still something essentially mother-like in all her ways. His children, excepting the one asleep in her arms, were all grouped on the floor at her feet. "Just so Janie would have sat, if she had lived," he thought.

"I should often have seen something like this here, as the children grew older." And while he listened to the account given by the two boys of their doings, he could not help looking at Emily, and thinking, as he had sometimes done before, that she bore, in some slight degree, a resemblance to his wife--his wife whom he had idealised a good deal lately--and who generally, in his thought, presented herself to him as she had done when, as a mere lad, he first saw her. A dark-haired and grey-eyed young woman, older than himself, as a very young man's first admiration frequently is. He felt that Emily was more graceful, had a charm of manner and a sweetness of nature that Janie had never possessed. He seldom allowed himself to admit even to his own mind that his wife had been endowed with very slight powers of loving. On that occasion, however, the fact was certainly present to his thought; "But,"

he cogitated, "we had no quarrels. A man may sometimes do with but little love from his wife, if he is quite sure she loves no other man more."

He started from his reverie as Crayshaw ceased to speak. "I thought you had more sense," he said, with the smile still on his mouth that had come while he mused on Emily. "And now don't flatter yourself that you are to be torn from your friends and hurled on the Continent against your will. Nothing of the sort, my boy! You have a more difficult part to play; you are to do as you please."

Crayshaw's countenance fell a little.

"Is George really angry, sir?" he asked.

"He did not seem so. He remarked that you were nearly seventeen, and that he did not specially care about this journey."

Something very like disappointment stole over Cray's face then--something of that feeling which now and then shows us that it is rather a blow to us to have, all on a sudden, what we wanted. What would we have, then? We cannot exactly tell; but it seems _that_ was not it.

"Your brother thought you and Johnnie might be with me, and came to ask.

I, of course, felt sure you were here. If you decide to go with him, you are to be back by six o'clock; if not, you go to Mr. Tikey on Monday.

Now, my boy, I am not going to turn you out-of-doors. So adieu."

Thus saying, because Emily's little charge was awake, and she had risen and was taking leave of the girls, he brought her down-stairs, and, wis.h.i.+ng her good-bye' at his gate, went back to Wigfield, while she returned home.