Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth

by Maria Edgeworth

  Robert ran out to the garden eager to begin digging the rosemount. Robert was always eager to begin but he seldom had patience to finish. Not that he, like his brother, Arthur, was afraid that he could not do anything well enough, but Robert though he was quick enough at work was always impatient to get everything done quicker than it could be well done. At the rosemount he began and pulled up in a few minutes a glorious quantity of groundsel; this was easily done, but presently he came to some dandelions and they had long roots which were deep in the ground: he pulled and tugged and broke several and when he found some which he could not break, he took his knife out of his pocket and cut them.

  The gardener who was at work near him saw this and said: “Master Robert, if you do not dig the roots quite up, the bits which you leave in the ground will grow up again and soon you will have the same work to do over again.”

  Robert was provoked and tired, and he threw down his spade and left the rosemount saying to himself that it was better to make a brush of peacock’s feathers than to dig the rosemount. Away he ran to the gardener’s wife. He knew she had stuck up over her chimney-piece a great number of peacock’s feathers, and he asked her to give them to him, and she gave them to him. She gave him all the peacock’s feathers which she had been collecting for two years. They were a large bundle — more, as she said, than he could possibly want for one brush — but he said he would pick out the longest and prettiest and bring the rest back to her. He carried them home and took them into the drawing-room and was very busy for an hour sorting them and laying them on the carpet in order according to their different lengths and their degrees of beauty. Presently he wanted his knife to cut off the long ends of some of the quills. His knife was not in his pocket, a quarter of an hour was lost emptying his own pockets and persuading everybody in the room “to feel in their pockets whether they had his knife.” At last he recollected that he had had it at the rosemount and there he went to look for it. But there it was not now to be found. The gardener had swept and carried away his heap of groundsel and dandelions and Robert, supposing that his knife had been thrown away with the rubbish, gave up searching for it any more and returned to the drawing-room and begged his mother would lend him her scissors. This she was rather unwilling to do, because as Robert had lost his own knife and was very apt to lose his own things, she had reason to be afraid that he would lose hers. Beside, she did not like that her scissors should be used to cut hard quills. However, upon Robert promising that he would return the scissors carefully and that he would cut with them only the soft feathers, she lent him the scissors. And now he cut and clipped and strewed the carpet with bits of feathers. His mother called to him repeatedly, requesting that he would stand at the hearth, but he still answered, “I’ll pick them all up, Mamma, when I have finished.”

  But it happened before he had finished that he recollected he must have the handle of the old brush to tie the new feathers to, now the old feather brush was not to be found. No, because Robert had last week begun to mend that brush and had as he recollected untied and half unwound the string which fastened the feathers to the handle, but he had gone away to do something else and where he had left the brush he could not now recollect. For some minutes he stood trying to recollect, and he insisted upon his brother Arthur trying to remember for him, but Arthur was drawing and did not like to be interrupted and he would say only, that he did not know anything about the matter, but that he wished Robert would not shake the table so terribly and would leave him in peace.

  Robert however went on asking everybody in the room whether they knew anything of the handle of the brush and he moved everything and disturbed everybody in rummaging for this stick, and everybody said he was very troublesome and he was vexed and tired of looking for this vile stick as he called it; so he gave up the scheme of making a feather brush for his mother. He had a new scheme — to make for his mother the finest, largest sheet of pasteboard that ever was made; for at this instant he heard her say she wanted a sheet of pasteboard to make a screen. Robert knew how to make pasteboard by pasting sheets of paper flatly together. He had a saucerful of paste that had been given to him to make a kite, which he had some days before left half finished. The paste was rather mouldy and had a bad smell, but no matter, it would do. But where was he to find paper? A bundle of old backs of letters had been given to him a great while ago to make into pasteboard but where were they? Perhaps in the garret. Up to the garret Robert ran and there for an hour he groped and rummaged in search of his bundle of paper. This was a garret or loft in which old boxes and lumber of all sorts were kept. It was a great piece of work to move them all, or even to look into them all; but luckily, as he was just giving up this search, he stumbled in a dark corner upon something, and it was his bundle of backs of letters. Joyfully he was going downstairs to begin his pasteboard when he heard the sound of carriage wheels, and looking out of the staircase window he saw a coach coming towards the house and knew that some visitors were coming to see his mother.

  Recollecting now that he had left all his feathers and quills spread over the carpet of the drawing-room, he ran downstairs jumping down three stairs at a time in haste to clear away all these things. He scrambled up the largest feathers in his arms, but it was impossible to clear the room before the visitors walked in. At every step their feet were entangled in the unrolling string of a ball of pack-thread, which he had left on the floor and which he now in vain endeavoured to catch as it unrolled.

  Among the visitors were two remarkably neat, nice elderly ladies. Now the bits of feathers which Robert had clipped and scattered over the carpet and upon all the chairs stuck to these ladies’ gowns, and everybody’s time was taken up in picking off these provoking bits of feathers so that his mother could not enjoy the company or conversation of her friends; and Robert saw that she was not pleased with him — she said that his habit of going from one employment to another and of never putting by the things he had been using was very troublesome to her and that it made him very disagreeable. Robert was sorry and ashamed. He had often intended to cure himself of this fault especially whenever he saw that it was troublesome to his mother, and whenever he felt that she was displeased with him. But though Robert intended and had even sometimes begun to cure himself of this fault, he had never finished curing himself.

  The next day Robert began to make pasteboard. A board had been given to him for pasting upon, that he might not soil and spoil the mahogany tables. But Robert had made use of this board for part of the roof of a house, which he had been building in the wood. It was some time before he could get it out of the roof, and then he found it had been warped by the sun and by the rain, so that he could not make it lie flat upon the table. When he began to paste upon it, one corner or the other as he pressed on it started up or fell down upon the table beneath making such a noise that it disturbed everybody in the room, who were reading, writing, or conversing. It disturbed Arthur the most, who was drawing at the table where Robert was pasting.

  Now Arthur could not bear to be disturbed and he complained so much and so angrily at the noise and shaking that Robert at last put away the board and went on pasting on the table, and he dropped splotches of paste here and there and everywhere: then he had no cloth to wipe them away because he had mislaid the duster which had been lent to him the day when he was making his kite. He had left it out somewhere on the grass and he never could find it afterwards. Therefore, he was now reduced to use his pocket handkerchief instead of a duster, and he used it till it could be used no longer. Then he went for a towel from his bedchamber and he cleaned the table for Arthur as well as he could, but that was very ill, and he went to another table. His mother was out of the room or probably she would have prevented him, but in spite of the remonstrances of Arthur, Robert went on till he had spread his wet sheets of paper over every table in the room, even on his mother’s polished work table. Robert said he would clean them all as soon as he had put his pasteboard into press, that must be done first. But he ha
d lost the screw of the bookbinder’s press which his father had given him for pressing paper. To supply the want of the press he took down from the bookshelves some of the largest and heaviest quartos and folios, and he piled them upon the wet pasteboard. These books were well bound and his hands were not clean when he took them down, and marks of his fingers and of paste appeared upon the gilt bindings.

  Now it happened that as he was piling up the quartos Robert saw the gardener and his little daughter, with baskets full of fruit and flowers on their heads, pass by the window. The window was open but the canvas blind was drawn down. It was a calm bright sunshiny day and Robert was pleased with the pretty appearance of the figures as they passed, like shadows behind the canvas. He left his work unfinished and stood at the window admiring the new figures which continually appeared, haymakers, men, women and children with rakes and pitchforks in their hands, tossing the hay to and fro.

  Suddenly Robert exclaimed, “I have found out the best thing in the world to do for my mother’s birthday! Ombres Chinoises! This is the way papa told me the Ombres Chinoises are made. You hang up a sheet or some canvas or something, and people walk behind it or stand or seem to work in pretty attitudes, and you see their figures through, just as I see these haymakers through this blind. Look up, dear Arthur, for one instant. Oh! I will make some delightful Ombres Chinoises for mamma’s birthday. Better than all the pasteboard upon earth! This moment I will run and ask the housekeeper to lend me a sheet or a curtain or something.”

  Away ran Robert as usual forgetting to put by any of his things — paste-brushes, paste, paper, of all sorts and sizes, wet and dry, books, towels, all were left in disorder. Arthur in vain called after him. He clapped the door to, and did not hear or did not heed.

  His mother went into the drawing-room while Robert was gone; she saw all the tables smeared with paste, the carpet strewed with shreds of paper, dabs of wet paper on the chairs and sofas, and worse than all — marks of dirty fingers on the valuable books. She looked displeased. She sent for Robert and she told him that she was surprised that he had so soon forgotten all that she had said to him yesterday, and all his own resolutions and promises; she said that no more pasting must be done, at present, and that he must take away directly all the litter that he had made. She rang the bell and desired the footman to bring a clean duster for Robert to wipe the books and the tables which she said that Robert should clean that he might know how troublesome it is to do it.

  “But, oh Mamma!” cried Robert, “do not move those books pray, or you will spoil the pasteboard, and it is all for you and your birthday, Ma’am!” His mother told him she would rather never have any pasteboard of his making on her birthday, or on any other day, than that he should spoil these books of which his father was so fond. While she was yet speaking his father came into the room, and he was astonished, and much displeased, when he saw his books used for such a purpose, and soiled in such a manner. To punish Robert for his repeated carelessness and to make him remember not to do so in future his father threw away the half-finished pasteboard and forbade him to attempt making any more, till the screw of the bookbinder’s press should be found, and till a new pasting board should be prepared.

  “And,” added his father, “I will not have a new pasting board made for you, Robert, till I see you have become more careful and orderly, and till you have learned to finish one thing before you begin another.”

  Robert was sorry to lose his pasteboard — very sorry that he should not have the pleasure of giving it to his mother.

  (Four pages of original MS. missing here) a kind friend of Robert’s, Mrs. Mary Delaval, who was on a visit at his mother’s house promised to assist him also. She was to be either an old woman spinning, or a shepherdess with her hat on one side, or a haymaker in a short petticoat: it was not yet settled which she was to be. Robert was quite happy contriving all this, but alas! he forgot to put the curtain in the drawer; he was in a hurry before dinner to run out to his garden to gather a nosegay for his good, dear Mrs. Mary Delaval; he just took down the curtain and left it rolled up in one corner of the hall till he should come back again. But when he came back again it was too late to carry it to the drawer, he would put it by after dinner; there was now scarcely time to wash his hands before dinner.

  After dinner the dessert put the curtain quite out of his head. He was just beginning to pick his strawberries when a terrible noise was heard in the hall — loud barking, snarling, and growling of dogs.

  Robert was next to the door and he saw... oh! what did he see? He saw the muslin curtain torn to pieces! The great house dog, Caesar, had one corner of it, with a great bone, in his mouth, the little black dog, Vixen, was dragging and tearing it from him, and the cat was clawing at it with all her might. The servants, it seems, in carrying away dinner, had dropped a bone from some plate, the bone had fallen near the place where the curtain lay. The dogs came into the hall after the servants were gone, flew at the bone, began fighting for it and, as it is supposed, in the scuffle that ensued the bone fell among the folds of the curtain. And Caesar, Vixen and Puss then tore and dragged the muslin to pieces in search of the bone.

  Exactly how it happened nobody knows, though everybody attempted to tell. But this much was certain and too plain to poor Robert: that the curtain was torn to pieces. Robert stood in silent despair, the housekeeper was enraged, everybody blamed Robert and Robert blamed himself. There was an end of his Ombres Chinoises. He was ashamed and vexed, and he did not know what to do with himself this evening. He had nothing to do — Arthur would not come out to play with him, because he wanted to finish his drawing. Robert had nothing to do but to lean his elbows on the table and to look at Arthur drawing, and from time to time he took up the pencils and chalks and touched everything and sighed and yawned till Arthur was quite out of patience. He begged Robert would get something to do, and Robert then began to try to shape a splinter of cedar pencil into a tooth-pick for his friend Mrs. Mary Delaval. But Arthur took away his good knife and would not lend him even his bad knife.

  It must be confessed that Arthur was not this evening in good humour. Robert’s interruptions had provoked him and besides he was vexed with himself, because he had not yet drawn anything well enough to please himself. Arthur was as much too nice as Robert was too careless about his things. He could not endure to have them meddled with, or to have anything put out of its place; he did not like lending pencil or knife to anyone, especially to Robert. Then he was discontented with all he did unless it was perfectly exact and he had not patience enough to make it perfectly exact. When he was drawing, he would rub out whatever he drew over and over again, till at last in a passion he would tear one copy after another to pieces, in spite of all his mother’s advice and exhortations to the contrary.

  This day he had made many copies of a wild ass, still there was some difficulty about this ass’s legs which he could not conquer. He had rubbed them out and put them in till the paper was almost in a hole. He grew hot and hotter, and his hands trembled with impatience, and throwing down the pencil he exclaimed: “No! I cannot! I will not finish this detestable ass! It is impossible to draw this ass’s legs.” He would never attempt to copy them any more, he said, but he would trace them, that would be easy enough. He pinned the drawing from which he was copying at the back of his paper and began to trace the figure of the ass, but when he came to the legs the paper slipped a little and the tracing was worse than any of his former attempts. Robert could not help laughing when he saw how crooked the legs were and how much longer one of them was than all the rest. Arthur, who could not bear to be laughed at, flew into a passion and that instant tore his drawing down the middle, and tore, and tore, nor stopped till it was all in bits and till crumpling up the pieces he felt himself pricked by a pin. Then to his amazement and consternation he found that he had not only torn his own drawing, but that he had also torn that from which he had been tracing, that which he had pinned at the back of his own, and had forgotten in his rage. I
t was a beautiful drawing of which his mother was particularly fond. It had been given to her by a friend, whom she loved — by Mrs. Mary Delaval.

  “Now Arthur, what will become of you?” said Robert. “Now you are worse than I am, Arthur! This is worse than my curtain misfortune a great deal, for Mamma valued that drawing above all the curtains in the house.”

  “At any rate let Mamma’s scissors alone, Robert,” cried Arthur. “You will break the points. You must not use her scissors to cut wood.”

  Then Arthur snatched the scissors angrily from his brother who struggled to hold them crying, “They are my Mother’s, not yours, and you have no right to order me! There, I have thrown them away now, but I would not let you take them from me by force, Arthur.”

  They were both conscious that they were wrong, and both an instant afterwards checked their anger. Arthur then turned his eyes again upon the torn drawing. Robert pitied him, and they set about trying whether it was possible to put it together again, but all in vain.

  “I must go and show it to Mamma and tell her what I have done,” said Arthur, sighing deeply, “and here she comes!”

  Their mother and her friend, Mrs. Delaval, and some other ladies now came into the room. Arthur pointed to the torn drawing which lay on the table and said, “Look, Mamma, at what I did when I was in a passion.” His mother looked and saw what he had done.

  “But he is very, very sorry for it now Mamma!” said Robert.