The Pillars of the House Part 21

Whereby dinners on five days of the week were apt to be something on this fas.h.i.+on. Bell-ringing--Felix helping Geraldine to her seat, Angela trotting after: a large dish of broth, with meat and rice, and another of mashed potato; no sign of the boys; Angela lisping grace; Sibby waiting with a tray.

Felix filled a soup-plate for his mother, and a basin for Bernard.

'We must begin, I suppose,' and he helped his sisters and himself.

'Here, Angel, push over your plate; I'll cut that.--How did you get on to-day?'

'Very well; the only mistake I made I found out before Smith saw it.

I know all the stationery and steel pens apart now, and haven't made a mistake for a week. Yesterday Bartlett junior came in. he stood like a post before Mr. Froggatt till he caught sight of me, and then he shouted out, "O Blunderbore, you know! What is it that Collis wants?"'

'And did you?'

'When he said it was a horrid sum-book all little a's and b's.--What have you been doing, Cherry?'

'I have begun an abstract of the first Punic--'

The door flew open with a bounce, and two hot, wild-locked boys, dust everywhere except in their merry blue eyes, burst in, and tumbled on their chairs. 'I say--isn't it a horrid sell? we ain't to have a holiday for Squire's wedding.--Come, Fee, give us some grub.'

'You have not said grace,' said Cherry.

Lance, abashed, stood up and bowed; Fulbert looked grim, and mumbled something.

'You have not washed your hands,' added Felix.

'What's the good?' said Fulbert.

'They'll be as jolly dirty again directly,' said Lance.

'But you would be more decent company in the meantime,' said Felix.

At that moment there was a splash in his plate, a skip-jack made of the breast-bone of a chicken had alighted there with a leap.

'There's Felix's master come after him,' cried Fulbert, and Lance went off into choking laughter.

'Boys, how can you?' broke out Cherry.

'Look at Blunderbore fis.h.i.+ng out his master!' was Fulbert's answer.

'The frog is in the bog, And Felix is squeamish,'

chanted Lance.

'Bad rhyme, Lance,' said Felix, who could bear these things much better from the younger than the elder. Indeed, he scarcely durst notice them in Fulbert, lest he should be betrayed into violence by letting out his temper.

'I say!' cried Lance, struck by a new idea, 'what prime stuff it is for making a fort!' and he began to sc.r.a.pe the more solid parts of his plateful to one side.

'Oh, I say, isn't it?' echoed Fulbert: 'but I've eaten up the best part of my castle;' and he grasped at the ladle.

'No, I thank you,' said Felix, putting it on the other side. 'While I am here, you don't play tricks with that.'

Fulbert swallowed a spoonful in a pa.s.sion, but a bright thought struck Lance, who always cared much more for fun than for food. 'I _say_, we'll empty it all into one, and eat it down.'

'You horrid boys!' plaintively exclaimed Cherry, almost crying--for this return to savage life was perfect misery to her. 'I can't bear it.'

'I will not have Cherry tormented,' said Felix, beginning to be very irate.

'We ain't doing anything to Cherry,' said Lance, amazed.

'Don't you know it spoils Cherry's appet.i.te to see you so disgusting?'

'Then she'll have the more next time,' said Fulbert. 'Get along, Captain--you've splashed my face!'

'Hurrah! the red-hot shot! The rice is the cannon-b.a.l.l.s! Where's some bread?'

'O Lance!' entreated Cherry; 'no waste--think of Wilmet and the bills.'

'We'll eat it every bit up,' a.s.severated Lance; but Fulbert growled, 'If you bother any more, I shall crumble the whole lot out at window.'

'It is wicked to waste bread,' lisped Angela, and Martha at that moment appeared to fetch the tureen for the kitchen dinner.

'Can't you eat any more, Cherry ?' asked Felix gloomily.

'Not a bit, thank you,' she said.

'We've not done!' shouted the boys, seizing on her scarcely-tasted and half-cold plate.

'You must finish after. Come, Cherry!' Then, as they left the room, and she laid her head on his shoulder--'Little ruffians!' he said under his breath.

'Oh, never mind, Felix. I don't--at least I ought not to mind--they don't mean it.'

'Lance does not, but I think Fulbert does. He'll make me thrash him within two inches of his life before he has done. And then there's no one to take me in hand for it. It is horridly bad for them, too, to live just like young bears.'

But he smoothed his brow as he came into the room where his mother was, and amused her till his time was up.

Mr. Froggatt had explained to his father long ago that Felix's work would not be that of a clerk in a great publis.h.i.+ng house, but veritably that belonging to the country bookseller and printer, and that he must go through all the details, so as to be thoroughly conversant with them. The morning's work was at the printing-house, the afternoon's at the shop. The mechanical drudgery and intense accuracy needed in the first were wearisome enough; and moreover, he had to make his way with a crusty old foreman who was incredulous of any young gentleman's capabilities, and hard of being convinced that he would or could be useful, but old Smith's contempt was far less disagreeable to him than the subdued dislike he met with from Redstone, the a.s.sistant in the shop, a sharp, half-educated young man, who had aspired to the very post of confidence for which Felix was training--and being far less aware of his own utter unfitness for it than was Mr. Froggatt, regarded the lad as an interloper; and though he durst not treat him with incivility, was anxious to expose any deficiency or failure on his part. Having a good deal of quickness and dexterity, he could act as a reporter, draw up articles of a certain description for the newspaper, and had, since the death of Mr. Froggatt's eldest son, been absolutely necessary to him in carrying on the business; and now, it was a matter of delicate discretion on the master's part to avoid hurting the feelings of the a.s.sistant, whom a little more would have made his tyrant, and a dread of the appearance of favouritism made it needful to keep Felix thoroughly in a subordinate post, till real superiority of mind and education should a.s.sert itself over elder years and mere familiarity with detail. This reserved ill-will of Redstone's had much increased the natural discomfort of appearing behind the counter to former acquaintance, and had rendered the learning the duties there doubly troublesome and confusing; though, in recalling the day's doings, there was some amus.e.m.e.nt in contrasting the behaviour of different people, some--of whom Mr. Ryder was the type--speaking to him freely in his own person, others leaving him as an unrecognised shop-boy; and a third favouring him with a horrid little furtive nod, which he liked least of all. But though awkward and embarra.s.sed at first, use soon hardened him, and made the customers indifferent, so that by the spring he had begun to be useful, and to feel no particular excitement about it.

The worst of his business was that it kept him so late, that he had but a very short evening, and no time for exercise. He was on his feet most of the day, but indoors, and his recreation chiefly consisted in choir-practice twice a week. Not that he missed more positive amus.e.m.e.nt; the cares of life and Edgar's departure seemed to have taken the boyish element of frolic out of him; and left him gravely cheerful indeed, but with no greater desire of entertainment than could find vent in home conversation, or playing with the little ones.

Wilmet and the two boys were at liberty full two hours before him.

The latter generally stayed out as long as light and hunger permitted. Mr. Audley continually stumbled on them playing at marbles, racing headlong in teams of pack-thread harness with their fellows, upsetting the nerves of quiet folk--staring contentedly at such shows as required no outlay, or discontentedly at the outside of those that demanded the pennies they never had. They were thorough little street-boys; and all that he could do for them was to enforce their coming in at reasonable hours, and, much to their sister's relief, cause their daily lessons to be prepared in his room.

Otherwise their places in their cla.s.ses would have been much less creditable.

Wilmet's return was always Geraldine's great relief, for the afternoon of trying to amuse her mother, and keep the peace between the children, was almost more than she was equal to; though, on fine days, Sibby always took out the two elder babies, with an alternate twin, for an hour's air, and Mr. Audley daily visited the invalid.

Mr. Bevan did so twice a week, with a gentle sympathising tone and manner that was more beneficial than Lady Price's occasional endeavours to make her 'rouse herself.' Miss Pearson and a few humbler friends now and then looked in, but Mrs. Underwood had been little known. With so large a family, and such straitened means, the part of the active clergyman's wife was impossible to her; she had shrunk from society, and most people knew nothing more of her than that the faded lady-like figure they used to see among her little flock at church, was Mrs. Underwood.

Wilmet's coming home was always a comfort; and though to her it was running from toil to care, the change was life to her. To have been either only the teacher or only the house-wife might have weighed over-heavily on her, but the two tasks together seemed to lighten each other. She had a real taste and talent for teaching, and she and her little cla.s.s were devoted to one another, while the elder girls loved her much better since Alda had been away. The being with them, and sharing their recreation in the middle of the day, was no doubt the best thing to hinder her from becoming worn by the depressing atmosphere around her mother. She always brought home spirits and vigour for whatever lay before her, brightening her mother's face, dispelling squabbles between Angela and Bernard, and taking a load of care from Geraldine.

There was sure to be some anecdote to enliven the home-keepers, or some question to ask Cherry, whose grammar and arithmetic stood on firmer foundations than any at Miss Pearson's, and who was always pleased to help Wilmet. The evening hours were the happiest of the day, only they always ended too soon for Cherry, who was ordered up by Sibby as soon as her mother was put to bed, and had, in consequence, a weary length of wakeful solitude and darkness--only enlivened by the reflection from the gas below--while Felix and Wilmet sat downstairs, she with her mending, and he either reading, or talking to her.