The Pillars of the House; Or, Under Wode, Under Rode, Vol. 1 (of 2)

The steadiness of his manner struck Mr. Underwood, and the reply was not unkind.

'You are a good boy at bottom, Felix, and mean well, and I am only sorry not to be able to hinder you from throwing yourself away for life by trying to do what is morally impossible, in a foolish spirit of independence. Do not interrupt. I warn you that I am not to be appealed to for getting you out of the difficulties you are plunging into; but of course your brother and sister will be mine, as before; and as I promised myself to do the same by your mother as by your father—my near cousins both—here is to cover necessary expenses.'

It was a cheque for £150, the same as he had given on the former occasion; and though Felix had rather not have taken it, he had little choice, and he brought himself to return cold but respectful thanks; and Mr. Underwood did not manifest any more displeasure, but showed himself very kind at the meal that was spread in Mr. Audley's sitting-room, and even invited Wilmet to accompany Alda, when she joined the family in a week's time at Brighton, so as to have sea air for the remainder of her holidays.

Nothing could be more reluctant than was Wilmet at first, but there was a chorus of persuasions and promises; and the thought of being a little longer in Alda's presence made her waver and almost consent.

Ferdinand Travis came in, but had only time for a greeting and a hasty meal, before Mr. Underwood's carriage came round; and, nothing loth, he gave a lift to the Mexican millionaire to the station with him and Edgar. So, for the last time, had all the thirteen been at home together.

CHAPTER X

THE FAMILY COBWEB ON THE MOVE

'Oh! the auld house, the auld house,

What though the rooms were wee;

Oh! kind hearts were dwelling there,

And bairnies full of glee.'

Lady Nairn.

Every one except Edgar would, it was hoped, stay at home till after the Epiphany, that most marked anniversary of birth and death.

Clement at first declared it impossible, for St. Matthew's could not dispense with him on the great day; and Fulbert grinned, and nudged Lance at his crest-fallen looks, when he received full leave of absence for the next three weeks.

But Lance was bursting with reverse troubles. The same post had brought him a note from his organist; and that 'stupid old Dean,' as he irreverently called him, had maliciously demanded 'How beautiful are the feet,' with the chorus following, and nobody in the choir was available to execute the solo but Lance. He had sung it once or twice before; and if he had the music, and would practise at home, he need only come up by the earliest train on the Epiphany morning; if not, he must arrive in time for a practice on the 5th; he would be wanted at both the festival and Sunday services, but might return as early as he pleased on Monday the 9th.

Lance did not receive the summons in an exemplary spirit. It is not certain that he did not bite it. He rolled on the floor, and contorted himself in convulsions of vexation; he 'bothered' the Dean, he 'bothered' the Precentor, he 'bothered' the Organist, he 'bothered' Shapcote's sore throat, he 'bothered' Harewood's wool-gathering wits, he 'bothered' his own voice, and thereby caused Clement to rebuke him for foolish murmurs instead of joy in his gift.

'A fine gift to rejoice in, to make one be whipped off by an old fogey, when one most wants to be at home! I thank my stars I can't sing!' said Fulbert.

'I should thank mine if Bill Harewood had any sense,' said Lance, sitting up in a heap on the floor. 'He can go quite high enough when he pleases; only, unluckily, a goose of a jackdaw must needs get into the cathedral just as Bill had got to sing the solo in "As pants the hart;" and there he stood staring with his mouth wide open—and no wonder, for it was sitting on the old stone-king's head! Wasn't Miles in a rage; and didn't he vow he'd never trust a solo to Harewood again if he knew it! Oh, I say, Wilmet—Fee, I know! Do let me bring Bill back with me on Monday morning; and he could go by the six o'clock train. Oh, jolly!'

'But is he really a nice boy, Lance?' asked Wilmet, doubtfully.

'Oh, isn't he just? You'll see! His father is a Vicar-choral, you know, lives in our precincts; his private door just opposite ours, and 'tis the most delicious house you ever saw! You may make as much row as you please, and nobody minds!'

'I know who Mr. Harewood is. Librarian too, is he not?' said Felix. 'I have heard people laughing about his good-natured wife.'

'Aren't they the people who were so kind to you last year, Lance,' asked Cherry, 'when you could not come home because of the measles?'

'Of course. Do let me bring him, Fee,' entreated Lance; 'he is no end of a chap—captain of our form almost always—and such a brick at cricket! I told him I'd show him the potteries, and your press, and our organ, and everything—and it is such a chance when we are all at home! I shall get the fellows to believe now that my sisters beat all theirs to shivers.'

'Can you withstand that flattering compliment, Wilmet?' said Felix, laughing. 'I can't!'

'He is very welcome,' said Wilmet; 'only, Lance, he must not stay the night, for there really is not room for another mouse.'

The little girls had heard so much about Bill Harewood, that they were much excited; but their sympathy kindly compensated for the lack of that of the elder brothers. Fulbert pronounced that a cathedral chorister could never be any great shakes; and Clement could not forgive one who had been frivolous enough to be distracted by a jackdaw; but Lance, trusting to his friend's personal attractions to overcome all prejudice, trotted blithely off to the organist-schoolmaster, to beg the loan of the music, and received a promise of a practice in church in the evening. Meantime, he begged Clement to play the accompaniment for him on the old piano. Neither boy knew that it had been scarcely opened since their father's hand had last lingered fondly upon it. Music had been found to excite their mother to tears; Geraldine resembled Fulbert in unmusicalness, and Wilmet had depended on school, the brothers on their choir-practice, so that the sound was like a new thing in the house; nor was any one prepared either for the superiority of Clement's playing, or for the exceeding beauty and sweetness of Lance's singing. No one who appreciated the rare quality of his high notes wondered that he was indispensable; Geraldine could hardly believe that the clear exquisite proclamation, that came floating as from an angel voice, could really come from the little, slight, grubby, dusty urchin, who stood with clasped hands and uplifted face; and Clement himself—though deferring the communication till Lance was absent, lest it should make him vain—confided to Wilmet that they had no such voice at St Matthew's, and it was a shame to waste him on Anglicans.

Wilmet hardly entered into this enormity. She had made a discovery which interested her infinitely more. Little Theodore, hitherto so inanimate, had sat up, listened, looked with a dawning of expression in the eyes that had hitherto been clear and meaningless as blue porcelain, and as the music ceased, his inarticulate hummings continued the same tune. Could it be that the key to the dormant senses was found? His eyes turned to the piano, and his finger pointed to it as soon as he found himself in the room with it, and the airs he heard were continually reproduced in his murmuring sounds; that 'How beautiful!' which had first awakened the gleam—his own birth-day anthem—being sure to recur at sight of Lance; while a doleful Irish croon, Sibby's regular lullaby, always served for her, and the 'Hardy Norseman' for Felix, who had sometimes whistled it to him. Wilmet spent every available moment in awaking the smile on the little waxen face that had never responded before; it seemed to be just the cheering hope she needed to revive her spirits, only she was almost ready to renounce her journey with Alda for the sake of cultivating the new-found faculty.

No one would permit this; and indeed, so far from waiting to be exhibited to Lance's friend, the two sisters received their billet de route on the very day he was expected; and there was no appeal, since a housekeeper was to travel from Centry, who would take charge of them to London, whence they would go down with Mr. Underwood. Poor Wilmet was much dismayed at leaving Geraldine to what they both regarded as the unprecedented invasion of a strange boy; indeed, the whole charge made Cherry's heart quail, though she said little of her fears, knowing the importance of Wilmet's having and enjoying her holiday; and Mr. Audley promised extra aid in keeping order among the boys.

But as they came in that evening from the practice at the church, to which Clement had insisted on their coming to hear Lance, Mr. Audley beckoned Felix to his room with the words, 'There's a thing I want to talk over with you.'

Felix recollected those ominous words to Mr. Underwood, and stood warming his hands in dread of what might be coming. It was all he feared.

'I wanted to say—I wanted to tell you—' began Mr. Audley. 'I would not have chosen this time, but that I think it may save Wilmet something to be able to tell her friends that the present arrangement is to cease.'

'Wilmet!' exclaimed Felix; then bethinking himself. 'Was that what Tom Underwood meant? But you will not trouble yourself about such rubbish.'

'Well, you see,' began the Curate, with heightening colour, 'it can't be denied that your sister has grown up, and that things are changed.'

'Mrs. Froggatt did ask me if you were going on here,' said Felix, still unconvinced; 'but can't we leave people to be stoopid without interfering with us?'

'Felix, you ought to be a better protector to your sisters. You would not like to have my Lady remonstrating—nay, maybe writing to my mother: she is quite capable of it.'

Felix's cheeks were in a flame. 'If people would mind their own business,' he said; 'but if they will have it so—'

'They are right, Felix,' said the Curate quietly; 'appearances must be carefully heeded, and by you almost more than by any one. Your slowness to understand me makes me almost doubtful about my further design.'

'Not going away altogether!'

'Not immediately; but things stand thus—Dr. White, my old tutor, you know, and Fernan's, is nearly sure of the new Bishopric in Australia, and he wants me.'

Felix hardly repressed a groan.

'Any way I should not go immediately; but when your father spoke to me about the guardianship, he made me promise not to let it stand in the way of any other call. I fancied he had mission work in his mind, and it disposes me the more to think I ought not to hold back; but while your dear mother lived, I would not have gone.'

'Yes, you have been very good to us,' was all Felix could say. 'But when?'

'Not for some time; but I am not going this moment. Three months' notice Mr. Bevan must have, and if he requires it, six; I must spend some time at home, and very like shall not be off till you are of age—certainly not if I find there is any difficulty in handing the management of things over to you. How long I remain with you must depend on circumstances. How much notice must you give before leaving this house?'

'I do not know—half a year, I fancy. You think we ought to give it up? I suppose it is too large for us now.'

'And you could take no lodger but one of the old-lady type.'

'Horrid!' said Felix. 'Well, we will see; but it will be a great stroke on poor Cherry—she can remember nothing before this house.'

'It will be very good for her to have no old associations to sit brooding over.'

'My poor little Cherry! If I saw how to cheer up her life; but without your lessons it will be more dreary for her than ever!'

'Give her all you can to do, and do not be over-careful to keep your anxieties from her knowledge. She is very much of a woman, and if you leave her too much to herself, she will grow more introspective.'

'Wilmet and I have always wanted to shelter her; she never seems fit for trouble, and she is so young!'

'Compared with you two venerable people!' said Mr. Audley, smiling. 'But her mind is not young, and to treat her as a child is the way to make her prey upon herself. I wish her talent could be more cultivated; but meantime nothing is better for her than the care of Bernard and Stella. I hope you will not be in a hurry to promote them out of her hands.'

'Very well; but she will miss you sorely.'

'I hope to see her brightened before I am really gone, and I am not going to decamp from this house till some natural break comes. To do that would be absurd!'

There was a silence; and then Felix said with a sigh, 'Yes, a smaller house, and one servant. I will speak to Wilmet.'

'Perhaps you had better, so that she may have an answer in case she is attacked.'

Wilmet was aghast at first, but a hint from Alda made her acquiesce, not with blushing consciousness, but with the perception that the way of the world was against the retention of the lodger; and sorry as she was to lose Mr. Audley, her housewifely mind was not consoled, but distracted, by calculations on the difference of expenditure. Again she tried to beg herself off from her visit, in the dread that Felix would go and take some impracticable house in her absence—some place with thin walls, no cupboards, and no coal-hole; and she was only pacified by his solemn promise to decide on no house without her. She went away in an avalanche of kisses and tears, leaving Geraldine with a basketful of written instructions for every possible contingency, at which the anxious maiden sat gazing anxiously, trying to store her mind with its onerous directions.

'Shall I give you a piece of advice, Cherry?' said the Curate, as he saw the dark eye-brows drawn together.

'Oh, do!' she earnestly said.

'Put all that in the fire!'

'Mr. Audley!'

'And go by the light of nature! You have just as many senses as Wilmet, and almost as much experience; and as to oppressing yourself with the determination to do the very thing she would have done under all circumstances, it is a delusion. People must act according to their own nature, not some one else's.'

'Certainly,' said Geraldine, smiling. 'I could never walk stately in and say, "Now, boys!"—and much they would care for it if I did.'

'It seems to be a case for "Now, boys!" at this moment,' said Mr. Audley; 'what can all that row be?'

'Oh, it must be that dreadful strange boy, Lance's friend,' sighed Geraldine, almost turning pale. Then, trying to cheer up, 'But it is only for the day, and Lance wished it so much.'

As she spoke, the shout of 'Cherry, here's Bill!' came nearer, and the whole of the younger half of the family tumbled promiscuously into the room, introducing the visitor in the midst of them. To the elders, 'no end of a chap' appeared, as Mr. Audley said, to mean all ends of shock hair, and freckles up to the eyes; but when Fulbert and Lance had whirled him out again to see the lions of Bexley, Robina and Angela were overheard respectfully pronouncing that he was nice and spotty like the dear little frogs in the strawberry-beds at Catsacre, and that his hair was just the colour Cherry painted that of all the very best people in her 'holy pictures.'

The object of their admiration was seen no more till the middle of dinner, when all three appeared, immoderately dusty; and no wonder, for the organist had employed them to climb, sweep fashion, into the biggest organ-pipe to investigate the cause of a bronchial affection of long standing, which turned out to be a dead bat caught in a tenacious cobweb.

Shortly after, the guest was found assisting Angela in a tableau, where a pen-wiper doll in nun's costume was enacting the exorcism of the said bat, in a cave built of wooden bricks.

Clement was undecided whether to condemn or admire; and Geraldine, to whom Edgar had lent some volumes of Ruskin, meditated on the grotesque.

Before there had been time for the fanciful sport to become rough comedy, Lance had called off his friend to see the potteries; and to poor Cherry's horror, she found that Robina had been swept off in the torrent of boyhood. Clement, pitying her despair and self-reproach, magnanimously offered to follow, and either bring the little maid back, or keep her out of harm's way; and for some time Cherry reposed in the conviction that 'Tina was as good as a girl any day.'

But at about a quarter to six, a little tap came to Mr. Audley's door, and Angela stood there, saying, with a most serious face, 'Please, Mr. Audley, Cherry wants to know whether you don't think something must have happened.' And going upstairs, he found the poor young deputy in a nervous agony of despair at the non-return of any of the party, quite certain that some catastrophe had befallen them, and divided between self-reproach and dread of the consequences.

'The very first day Wilmet had gone!' as she said.

It was almost time for Harewood's train, which made it all the more strange. Mr. Audley tried to reassure her by the probability that the whole party were convoying him to the station, and would appear when he was gone; but time confuted this pleasing hypothesis, and Cherry's misery was renewed. She even almost hinted a wish that Mr. Audley would go out and look for them.

'And then,' he said, smiling, 'in an hour's time you would be sending Felix to look for me. No, no, Cherry, these waiting times are often hard, no doubt; but, as I fear you are one of those destined to "abide by the tents" instead of going out to battle, you had better learn to do your watching composedly.'

'O Mr. Audley! how can I? I know it must be very wrong, but how can I not care?' And verily the nervous sensitive girl was quivering with suspense.

'"He will not be afraid of any evil tidings, for his heart standeth fast and believeth in the Lord,"' answered Mr. Audley. 'I see that does not tell you how not to be afraid; but I imagine that a few trusting ejaculations in the heart, and then resolute attention to something else, may be found a help.'

Cherry would have sighed that attention was the most impossible thing in the world; but before she had time to do so, Mr. Audley had begun to expound to her his Australian scheme. It excited her extremely; and as a year and a half seemed an immense period of time to her imagination, the dread of losing him was not so immediate as to damp her enthusiasm. They had discussed his plans for nearly an hour before Cherry started at the sound of the door, and then it was only Felix who entered. He was irate, but not at all alarmed; and presently the welcome clatter of steps approached, and in dashed the whole crew, mired up to the eyes, but in as towering spirits as ever.

Their delay had, it appeared, been caused by a long walk that ensued upon the visit to the potteries, and a wild venture of Will Harewood upon impracticable ice, which had made him acquainted with the depths of a horse-pond. There was none of the dignity of danger, for the depths were shallows and the water only rose to his waist; but the mud was above his ankles, and he had floundered out with some difficulty. He wanted to walk back with no more ceremony than a water-dog; but the Underwoods had made common cause against him, and had dragged him to a cottage, where he had the pleasing alternative of an old woman's blankets and petticoats while his garments were drying. He was as nearly angry as a Harewood could be, Lance observed, declaring that they should never have got him into the cottage without fighting him, if Tina had not been so tall, and if Robin had not nearly cried; while he, throwing off all responsibility, ascribed all his lateness to his friend's 'maggots.' No more trains stopped at Bexley till after midnight; but as to his absence causing any uneasiness at home, he laughed at the notion, and was corroborated by Lance in averring that they had too much sense; listening with undisguised amazement to the elaborate explanations and apologies about Robina, which Clement was scrupulously pouring forth to his brother and sister, saying that he would have brought her home at once, but that he really did not like to trust those boys alone.

Whereat Lance held up his hands with a dumb show of amazement that convulsed Fulbert, Bill Harewood, and Robina herself, with agonies of half-suppressed merriment. The boy had come in, prepared to be grave and quiet, as knowing how lately affliction had come to the family, and having been warned by Lance, that 'as to going on as we do in the precincts, why it would make Cherry jump out of her skin.'

But by some extraordinary influence—whether it were the oddity of William Harewood's face, or the novelty of his perfect insouciance in the household whither care had come only too early—some infection seized on the young Underwoods, and before the end of the evening meal, if the 'goings on' were not equal to those in the precincts, they were, at any rate, not far short of it.

Lance presently incited his friend to show 'how he had mesmerized Lucy.' Clement made a horrified protest; and Geraldine looked alarmed at her eldest brother, who began, 'Indeed, Lance, we can have nothing of that sort here.'

'But, Felix, I do assure you there is no harm.'

'Upon my word and honour, there's not a spice of anything the Archbishop of Canterbury could stick at,' added Will Harewood.

'It is impossible there should not be harm,' interposed Clement; but the boys, including Fulbert, were in such fits of laughter, that Felix began to suspect the seriousness of the performance; and when Lance sprang at him, exclaiming, 'I'll go to Mr. Audley! Fee—Cherry—will you be satisfied if Mr. Audley says we may?' Felix and Cherry both consented; and Lance rushed off to make the appeal, and returned not only with full sanction, but with Mr. Audley himself, come to see the operation. This perfectly satisfied Felix, who even consented, on the entreaty of his brothers, to become the first subject; and Cherry knew that where the Curate and Felix had no scruples, she need have none; but, for all that, she was more than half frightened and uncomfortable—above all, when Clement, amid shouts of mirth from the three schoolboys, indignantly marched away to shut himself up in his cold bedroom.

By-and-by, after some unseen preparation—all the more mystifying because carried on in the kitchen, where Sibby always used to keep Theodore in a cradle till Felix was ready for him—Will Harewood caused Felix to stand exactly opposite to him and to the spectators, with a dinner-plate in his hand, and under injunctions to imitate the operator exactly. Armed with another plate, William rubbed his own finger first on the under side of the plate, and then, after some passes and flourishes, on his own forehead, entirely without effect so far as he himself was concerned; but his victim, standing meekly good-natured and unconscious, was seen by the ecstatic audience to be, at each pass, painting his own face with the soot from a flame over which his plate had been previously held. The shrieks of amusement redoubled at the perplexity they occasioned him, till they penetrated the upper rooms; and suddenly a cry of horror made all turn to the door and see a little white bare-footed figure standing there, transfixed with fright, which increased tenfold when Felix hurried towards it, not yet aware of the condition of his visage, until a universal shout warned him of it; while Lance, darting in pursuit, picked up Bernard, and by his wonderful caressing arts, and partly by his special gift of coaxing, partly as the object of the little fellow's most fervent adoration, made the scattered senses take in that it was 'all play,' and even carried back the little white bundle, heart throbbing and eyes staring, but still secure in his arms, to admire Felix all black, and then to be further relieved by beholding the restoration of the natural hue at the pump below stairs.

Then amid Sibby's scoldings and assurances that the child would catch his death of cold, Bernard was borne upstairs again by Felix, who found Clement in the nursery comforting the little girls, and preventing them from following the example of their valiant pioneer. Felix, now thoroughly entering into the spirit of the joke, entertained for a moment the hope of entrapping Clement; but of course Bernard could not be silenced from his bold and rather doubtful proclamation, that 'The funny boy made Felix black his own face, and I wasn't afraid.'