The Pillars of the House, V1

by Шарлотта Мэри Йондж

  'Oh! but the sound of it!' cried Alice Knevett's voice. 'A mere tradesman!'

  'Who is the unfortunate?' asked Felix, coming forward.

  'O Mr. Underwood, how you do steal upon one! Yes, I'm furious! Here's my old friend Florence Spelman-the dearest girl in the world, and so pretty-gone and engaged herself to young Schneider, of Schneider and Co'., on the tailor's advertisements, you know! It is one of the first houses in London, and he's very rich and handsome and all that; but isn't it dreadful? All her friends will have to drop her! And I was so fond of her.'

  'Is it trade itself, or the kind of trade, that outrages your feelings?' asked Felix, in a tone of raillery.

  'Oh, a tailor is too horrible! As if all trade wasn't bad enough,' said Alice, laughing, then recollecting herself she turned, blushing and confused, to Cherry-'At least-I mean-your brother makes one forget. He isn't in the least like that!'

  'I never wish to forget anything he is!' said Cherry, proudly looking up to him.

  'Ah! you don't know what is in my pocket!' said Felix, leaning his back against the mantleshelf.

  'Oh! what!' cried Alice and Geraldine both together; while Wilmet looked at him as if she wished to put him in mind of the presence of a stranger.

  'Guess!' he said.

  'Somebody has left you a fortune! Oh! delightful!' cried Alice, clasping her hands.

  'Mr. Thomas Underwood will take Edgar's art study on himself,' exclaimed the more moderate Geraldine.

  'You burn, Cherry. It comes from that quarter. Here's a letter by the evening's post to offer me, if I have not closed with Mr. Froggatt, to invest in Kedge and Underwood's concern, and begin with 300 pounds a year as clerk.'

  'It can't be possible,' said Wilmet, the only one to speak, as the other two girls looked rather blank.

  'Just so far that the deed of partnership here is not signed.'

  'What is the business?' asked Alice.

  'He is a South American merchant, and deals with Rio for hides and tallow, if you prefer that to books and stationery,' said Felix, in a would-be light tone.

  'Oh, but a South American merchant! That sounds quite delightful!' cried Alice. 'And you'll have to live in dear, dear London! How I envy you!'

  'That must be the effect you had upon him, Felix,' said Cherry, proudly.

  'Well, I thought I had been a specimen of the obstinate,' observed Felix. 'Here is his letter.'

  He gave it as of right to Wilmet, but other eyes remarked the address to F. C. Underwood, Esquire, an unusual thing, since, as Mr. Froggatt had never aspired to the squirehood, Felix made all his brothers and sisters write only the Mister, and thus entirely deprived himself of the pleasure of Alda's correspondence.

  'Where will you live? Oh! you'll let me come and stay with you sometimes!' cried Alice.

  Felix smiled as he answered, 'I'm afraid our house is not built yet.'

  'Miss Pearson's maid for Miss Alice,' said Martha, at the door. 'Oh dear, how tiresome! but you'll tell me all about it tomorrow. How horrid it will be here when you are all gone!'

  'We are not gone yet,' said Wilmet, repressively. 'And if you please, Alice, do not talk of this.'

  'No,' said Felix, 'it must be entirely a family matter. I know we can trust to you.'

  'Thank you. I'm so glad I was there. It is so nice to have a secret of yours-and this is a beauty! Why, you'll be a great man with a house in London, just like Mr. Underwood of Centry.'

  'Pleasing ambition,' Cherry could not help muttering, with an ironical smile, as Alice laughed and nodded herself away.

  'Ready sympathy is a pleasant thing,' returned Felix.

  'You don't mean that you think this feasible?' said Wilmet, with a negative inflection in her voice.

  'I think it ought to be considered before it is absolutely too late.'

  Both were surprised, having always thought that he considered his destiny as fixed; and as Geraldine looked on while the other two discussed pounds, shillings, and pence, it was plain to her that he had an inclination to the change. The probability of rising, the benefit of lodging Edgar, the nearness to Alda, the probable openings for the younger lads, were advantages; but against these Wilmet set the heavy London house-rent, rates and taxes-from which they were free-the expense of living, the loss of her present situation, the dangers of deterioration of health. As to Edgar, his habits must be formed, he was already in a respectable family, and Lance and Bernard ought not to be risked for his sake. In fact Wilmet looked on London with a sage country girl's prudent horror of the great and wicked capital; and when that experienced man of the world, Felix, tried to prove that she did it injustice, he was met with a volley of alarming anecdotes. He hinted that ladies' schools might need teachers there, but was met by the difficulty of forming a new connection; and when he suggested that Cherry's talent might be cultivated, Wilmet hotly exclaimed, 'She could never go about to classes and schools of art!'

  'Not alone, certainly, said Cherry,' wistfully.

  'Edgar is as good as nobody, and I should be of no use in places like that,' added Wilmet.

  'I'm afraid you don't look very chaperonish,' said Felix, contemplating the fair exquisitely-moulded face, the more Grecian for the youthful severity that curved the lip and fixed the eye. 'If we could only turn her inside out, Cherry, she would be a dozen duennas in one!'

  'And then the Pursuivant. You would not like to desert poor Pur,' added Cherry.

  'I could do that better in town in some ways.'

  'Mr. Underwood would think that as bad as Edgar's drawing,' said Wilmet. 'No, no, Felix, you have learnt one business thoroughly, and it would be foolish to begin a fresh one now. Besides, how about Mr. Froggatt?'

  'Of course I should do nothing in such haste as to inconvenience Mr. Froggatt,' said Felix;' and no one is more anxious for our real benefit, if this were possible.'

  'But you see it won't do,' reiterated Wilmet.

  'Perhaps not,' he answered, with more of a sigh than his sisters expected.

  Rather nettled, Wilmet set to work with pencil and paper to calculate expenses, Geraldine looked up at Felix, who had taken up a book, and began to whistle, 'For a' that, an' a' that.'

  Presently Wilmet, by way of making assurance sure, went off for her account-book; when he looked up and said,' How should you have liked this, Cherry?'

  'I don't know. I've not thought. Did you?'

  'I hadn't time before our Pallas Athene settled it; and I believe she is right, if she would not lay it in quite so hard. It only seemed a pity to lose our last chance of a lift in life without at least considering it.'

  'I thought you did not care about lifts in life.'

  'I ought not. But when it is brought home that we have slipped down two degrees in the social scale, it is tempting to step up one again! However, it plainly cannot be.'

  Yet when Wilmet mustered her irrefragable figures to prove how much poorer they would be in London than on their present income at Bexley, he would not go into details, saying that he wanted to hear no more about it, in a tone that a little hurt her. He was so uniformly gentle and gracious, that what would have passed unnoticed in most brothers, was noticed anxiously in him; and as Wilmet darned his shirt sleeve, a glistening came between her eyes and her needle, as she felt the requital of her prudence rather hard. Must all men pant to be out in the world, and be angry with women for withholding them?

  Nor was Geraldine devoid of the old prick, when she thought of the degrees in the social scale in connection with the words about tradesmen and merchants.

  Wilmet was not quite happy without knowing that the letter of refusal was written, and was more vexed than she liked to show when Felix laughed at her for supposing he could have made time to write it on a busy Saturday, even if there had been any London post to send it by. Poor Alice Knevett got a considerable snubbing for bursting in to ask the decision, and lamenting over it when she had heard it; but she stood her ground with a certain pertinacity of her own: and so late in the evening, that Wilme
t had gone up to put Stella to bed, Felix came up with the letter in his hand. It was so carefully expressed, that Cherry could not help saying saucily that it was worthy of the editor of the Pursuivant; while Alice, much impressed by the long words, enthusiastically broke out, 'It is a most beautiful letter, only it ought to have said just the other thing!'

  'Why, what would you have done without Cherry?' said Felix.

  'I'd have come to stay with her! And it is such a pity! A merchant is a gentleman, and I am sure you could get to be anything-a member of Parliament, or a baronet, or-' as if her imagination could not go farther; but she looked up at him with a dew of eagerness glistening in her bright hazel eyes. 'I was telling Cherry it does seem such a dreadful horrible pity that you should be nailed down in this little hole of a place for life.'

  Felix smiled-a man's superior, gratified, but half melancholy smile -as he answered, 'At any rate, you won't lose the pleasures of imagination or of pity.'

  'But I want to see you have the spirit to try,' cried Alice, eagerly. 'I know you could.'

  'It would not be right,' said Felix, sitting down by her, and in full earnest gentleness and gravity setting before her the reasons that Cherry had hardly thought it worth while really to explain-namely, the impossibility of their being able to pay their way and meet the needful expenses, and the evils of the young, inexperienced household residing in London, resigning security for dependence.

  Alice, flattered by being treated as a sensible person, said, 'Yes,' and 'I see,' at all the proper places; then drew a sigh, saying, 'It is very good in you.'

  'I knew you would see it in the right light,' replied Felix.

  'Oh!' but the sigh recurred. 'I can't help being sorry, you know.'

  'There is nothing to be sorry for,' he said gratefully. 'I was disappointed at first myself; but for sheer usefulness to one's neighbour, I believe that this present position, if I have sense to make use of it rightly, is as good as any; and the mere desire of station and promotion is-when one comes to look at it properly- nonsense after all.'

  She opened her eyes in amazement, and made a little exclamation.

  'They may be well when they come,' said Felix in answer: 'but I have thought it over well to-night, and I see that to do anything doubtfully right for their sake would be a risk for all that I have no right to run.'

  Alice hung her head, overcome by the pure air of the region where he was lifting her; and in a sort of shyness at the serious tone in which he had spoken, he added, smiling,

  'Then you'll forgive the "sound of it."'

  'O Mr. Underwood,' she said, in the simplest and most earnest voice that Cherry had ever heard from her, 'I'm ashamed to recollect that nonsense!'

  CHAPTER XIV. WHAT IT MAY LEAD TO

  'I never was so berhymed since I was an Irish rat,

  which I can scarcely remember.'-As You Like It.

  'Dim memories haunt the child,

  Of lives in other beings led-

  Other, and yet the same.'

  KEBLE.

  In the autumn Alda made a visit at home. She had, as usual, gone with Mr. and Mrs. Underwood to their German baths, and had there fallen in with a merry set of her intimates in London, who had persuaded her to join them in an expedition to the Tyrol, which lasted till the end of September. On her return, she was dropped at Bexley, where her sisters were greatly edified by her sketch-book, a perfect journal in clever scenes and groups, like the 'Voyage en zig-zag.' Two of the gentlemen seemed always in waiting on the graceful outline that did duty for Alda; and indeed, she gave Wilmet to understand that only the skill that played them off one against the other had averted an offer from each, hundreds of miles from home, when it would have been so very inconvenient! Every morning Wilmet considered how her dinner would appear if one or both should suddenly drop in to pursue his courtship.

  Even Felix, though he had pooh-poohed the mysterious whisper from his sisters, was startled at the apparition of a picturesque figure; in Tyrolese hat, green knickerbockers, belt, knapsack, loose velvet coat, and fair moustache, marching full into the shop; and while the customers who were making it a rendezvous gazed in doubt between gamekeepers and stage banditti, holding out a hand too fair and dainty for either character, and exclaiming, 'How are you, Mr. Froggatt! Hollo, Felix!'

  Mr. Froggatt was amazed beyond measure, and it was only on hearing the ring of the mirthful laugh that he exclaimed, 'Mr. Edgar This is an alteration. You will find the young ladies up-stairs.'

  Felix was disengaged at the moment, and could take him through the parlour, too glad to have him there at all to utter the faintest wish that he would have rung at the private door; and he ushered him into the drawing-room with the words, 'Here's the artist who has begun with himself;' and then retreated.

  'Edgar! oh, you wonderful boy!' cried happy Geraldine, as he threw his arms round her; while Alda asked: 'Is that the thing now, Edgar?'

  'Quite comifo,' he answered. 'Ha, little ones, have you forgotten me?'

  'Stella says you're the clarionet in the brass band,' said Bernard. 'What have you got in that pack?'

  'Munitions of war!' he answered, unstrapping his bag, and producing packets of French bon-bons, bought on his way home, from the sketching tour Mr. Renville always made with sundry of his pupils in early autumn. 'Gobble them up, little mice, before the cat comes home.'

  Stella paused with a dutiful 'May I?' and Cherry had to interfere between the little maiden's scruples, Bernard's omnivorous inclination, and Theodore's terror at any new article of food; while Alda and Edgar exchanged eager question and answer:

  'You've been at home. You've seen them all?'

  'I dined there on Sunday-might do so any day; they can't do without me, that's a fact.'

  'Nor me, I imagine,' said Alda. 'I suppose I am to go back with you?'

  'So Madam proposed; but the fact is, that Molly has done uncommonly well without you this time.'

  'What do you mean ?' asked Alda, sharply.

  'What think you of a friend of Cherry?'

  'I haven't got any friends.'

  'Think again! Not the great convert, the Cacique of all the Mexicos?'

  'Ferdinand Travis! You don't mean it?'

  'I don't; but the elders mean it, and the youngers will do it.'

  'Do tell me! I can't understand,' cried Alda, much excited. 'We have never met him.'

  'The uncle or father-which?

  'The uncle.'

  'Well, the uncle has been in England, and fraternised with our governor at Peter Brown's; there was a banqueting all round, and his nephew was carried at his chariot wheels. If I am not much mistaken, gold and timber jingled to silver and bullock-hide, and concluded a prospective union in the persons of my nephew and my daughter. I'm sorry. I have long been persuaded that a very small effort on the part of our respected Blunderbore might have redeemed the family fortunes in the person of Polly.'

  'How could you think of anything so absurd?' said Alda.

  'As if my uncle would consent!'

  'If Tom has any sentiment, it is for my father and the name of Underwood,' said Edgar. 'You remember he was sorely disappointed that Felix would not step into my shoes.'

  'And very angry and hurt,' said Alda, 'as well he might be.'

  'Yes; but that anger proved the vastness of his good intentions. Besides there's something about our old giant-steadiness and breeding, I believe-that uniformly makes Tom knock under to him; and there's a peculiar affinity of good sense between him and Marilda, that ought to have ripened under favourable circumstances.'

  'And is he really cut out!' said Alda. 'I don't know how to believe this! How far has it gone?'

  'Hanger on and oyster in love,' promptly answered Edgar.

  'Honest Polly has the most comical look of anxious coyness on her jolly face, and holds her elbows squarer than ever; and a few paces off stands Montezuma, magnificent and melancholic; and Edgar assumed the posture.

  'Melancholy, no wonder,' said the conscious beauty; '
Edgar he must be over head and ears in debt.'

  'So it struck me; but he must have managed it uncommon quietly, for they call him the Mexican Muff, he's hand and glove with all their holinesses up at Clement's shop, and the wildest orgie he has been detected at was their magic-lantern.'

  'Then it is real goodness that draws them together!' exclaimed Cherry, looking up from her presidency over the comfits.

  'Goodness and a balance,' said Edgar.

  'Did you know,' said Cherry, 'that as soon as he came of age, he paid the Insurance all the money for the Fortinbras Arms? The agents were quite overwhelmed, and wanted to put it in the Pursuivant.'

  She was cut short by the return of Wilmet and Angela, accompanied by Miss Knevett. The effect of Edgar's appearance was startling. Alice gave a little scream of surprise, Angela crept behind her sisters, and Wilmet stood for a moment like a stag at gaze; then, as he said, 'Well, Mettie, are you going to send for the police?' exclaimed, 'You, Edgar! What a figure you have made of yourself!'

  'See how our eldest crushes me!' said Edgar. 'Such a face as yours, Mettie, ought not to be wedded to the commonplace.'

  'I suppose it is like German artists,' said Wilmet, trying to resign herself.

  'It is such a beautiful becoming dress,' whispered Alice to Geraldine; while Edgar rattled on-'No wonder there is a deterioration in taste from living in the very tents of the Philistines. Why, Cherry, how do you bear existence surrounded by such colours as these?'

  'The paper?' asked Wilmet, surprised. 'It is rather a large pattern, to be sure.'

  'I call it cruelty to animals to shut Cherry up among the eternal abortive efforts of that gilded trellis to close upon those blue dahlias, crimson lilacs, and laburnums growing upwards, tied with huge ragged magenta ribbons. They would wear out my brain.'

  'Well, I think when you remember our old paper, you might be thankful!' said Wilmet.

  'Precisely what I do, and am not thankful. What our paper may have been in its earlier stages of existence, I am not prepared to say, but since I can remember, that hateful thing, the pattern, could only be traced by curious researches in dark corners, and the wall presented every nuance of purplish salmon or warm apricot.'