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

Felix believed that this parting was more felt than that with all the other eleven; and while Fulbert subsided into his corner, the elder brother felt much oppressed by the sense that it was his duty to give some good advice, together with great perplexity what it should be, how it should be expressed, and whether it would be endured. He would have been thankful for some of Clement's propensity for preaching when he found himself tête-à-tête with Fulbert in a cab; but while he was still considering of the right end by which to take this difficult subject, he was startled by his beginning, 'Felix, I say, I'm glad you are going to get shut of me.'

'I believe it is for your good,' said Felix.

'You'll get on better without me,' repeated Fulbert; then, with an effort, 'Look here. It isn't that I don't know you're a brick and all that, but somehow nothing riles me like your meddling with me.'

'I know it,' answered Felix. 'I wish I could have helped it; but what could be done, when there was nobody else?'

'Ay,' responded Fulbert, 'I know I have been a sulky, nasty brute to you, and I should do it again; and yet I wish I hadn't.'

'I should be as bad myself if I were a junior,' was the moral reflection Felix produced for his brother's benefit. 'Only, Ful, if you try that on with Mr. Audley out there, you'll come to grief.'

'I don't mean to,' said Fulbert.

'And you'll keep in mind what my father meant us to be, Ful—that we have got to live so as to meet him again.'

Fulbert nodded his head emphatically.

'It is his name you have to keep unstained in the new country,' added Felix, the fresh thought rising to his lips; but it was met by a gush of feeling that quite astonished him.

'Ay, and yours, Felix! I do—I do want to be a help, and not a drag to you. I really don't think so much of any of them—not even Lance—as of you. I hope I shouldn't have been better to my father than I have been to you; and when—when I'm out there, I do hope to show—that I do care.'

The boy was fighting with very hard sobs, and for all the frightful faces he made the tears were running down his cheeks. Felix's eyes were overflowing too, but with much of sudden comfort and thankfulness.

'I always knew you were a good fellow, Ful,' he said, with his hand on his brother's knee; 'and I think you'll keep so, with Mr. Audley to keep you up to things, and show you how to be helped.'

All after this was bustle and hurry. Fulbert had to be sent alone to take leave of Alda, while his brother and Mr. Audley transacted their business. Edgar came back with him; and after some hurried rushings out in search of necessaries forgotten, the last farewells were spoken, and Fulbert, with the two Audley brothers, was out of sight; while Felix, after drawing a long, deep sigh, looked at his watch, and spoke of going to see Alda.

'Don't run your head into a hornet's nest,' said Edgar; 'it's all up with me there. Come this way, and I'll tell you all about it.'

'All up with you!'

'There are limits to human endurance, and Tom and I have over-passed each other's. I don't blame him, poor man; he wanted raw material to serve as an importer of hides and tallow, but you, the genuine article, were bespoken, and my father was not in a state for the pleading of personal predilections.'

'What is it now?'

'Only a set of etchings from Atalanta in Caledon. That was the straw that broke the camel's back,' said Edgar, so coolly as to make Felix exclaim—

'How much or how little do you mean?'

'Separated on account of irreconcilable incompatibility.'

'Impossible!'

'Possible, because true.'

'Why did you not tell before Mr. Audley was gone?'

'It would have been bad taste to obtrude one's own little affairs, and leave him with vexatious intelligence to ruminate on his voyage. Nay, who knows but that he might have thought it his duty to wait to compose matters, and so a bright light might have been lost to the Antipodes.'

'You actually mean me to understand that you have broken with Tom Underwood!'

'The etchings were the text of an awful row, in which the old gentleman exposed himself more than I am willing to repeat, and called on me to choose between his hides and tallow and what he was pleased to call my tomfoolery.'

Felix groaned.

'Exactly so. You are conscious that his demand was not only tyrannical but impracticable. One can't change the conditions of one's nature.'

'Are you absolutely dismissed?'

'Nothing can be more so.'

'And what do you mean to do?' demanded Felix, stung, though to a certain degree reassured, by his tranquillity.

'Study art.'

'And live—?'

'On my own two hundred. You will advance it? I only want sixteen months of years of discretion, and then I'll pay it back with more than interest.'

'I must know more first,' said Felix. 'I must understand what terms you are on with Tom Underwood, and whether you have any reasonable or definite plans.'

'Spoken like an acting partner! Well, come to Renville, he will satisfy you as to my plans. I am to be his pupil; he teaches at the South Kensington Museum, and is respectability itself. In fact, he requires my responsible brother to be presented to him. Come along.'

'Stay, Edgar. I do not think it right by Tom Underwood to see any one before him. I shall go to him before anything else is done.'

'Do not delude yourself with the hope of patching up matters like Audley last winter, losing me five months of time and old Tom of temper.'

'How long ago was this?'

'The crisis was yesterday. I was just packing to come home when Fulbert burst upon the scene.'

Nothing could be worse news, yet Edgar's perfect self-possession greatly disarmed Felix. Never having thought his brother and the work well suited, he was the less disposed to anger, especially as the yoke of patronage was trying to his character; but he persisted in seeing Thomas Underwood before taking any steps for Edgar's future career, feeling that this was only due to the cousin to whom his father had entrusted the lad. So Edgar, with a shrug, piloted him to the Metropolitan Railway, and then to the counting-house where, in the depths of the City, Kedge and Underwood dealt for the produce of the corrals of South America.

Edgar, as he entered the office full of clerks, nodded to their bald-headed middle-aged senior in a half-patronizing manner. 'Don't be afraid, Mr. Spooner; I'm not coming back on your hands, whatever this good brother of mine may intend. Is the Governor in?'

'Mr. Underwood is in his room, Mr. Edgar,' was the very severe answer; 'but after this most serious annoyance, I would not answer for the consequences.'

'Wouldn't you indeed?' said Edgar quietly, in a nonchalant tone that made the younger lads bend down to sniggle behind their desks, while he moved on to the staircase.

Mr. Spooner and he were visibly old foes; but the senior devoured his wrath so far as to come forward and offer a chair to Felix, repeating, however, 'Mr. Underwood is very seriously annoyed.'

Before Felix could attempt an answer, Edgar had re-descended, newspaper in hand. 'Go up, Felix,' he said, threw himself into the chair, and proceeded to read the paper; while Felix obeyed, and found the principal standing at his door, ready to meet him.

'What, Felix Underwood! Glad to see you. This intolerable affair can't have brought you up already, though?'

'No, Sir; I was telegraphed for late last night, to bring up my brother Fulbert to start with Mr. Audley.'

'Oh, ay. Well, I hope he'll have a better bargain of him than I've had in Edgar. You've heard his impudence?'

'I am exceedingly sorry—'

Then Mr. Underwood broke out with his account of Edgar's folly and ingratitude, after all the care and expense of his education. He had taken up with a set of geniuses for friends, was always rehearsing for amateur performances with them, keeping untimely hours; and coming late to the office, to cast up accounts, or copy invoices in his sleep, make caricatures on his blotting-paper, or still worse, become 'besotted' with some design for a drawing or series of drawings, and in the frenzy of execution know no more what was said to him than a post. Finally, 'the ladies' being as mad as himself, as Mr. Underwood said, had asked him to draw for a bazaar, and in his frenzy of genius over the etchings he had entirely forgotten an important message, and then said he could not help it. On being told that if so he was not fit for his profession, he merely replied, 'Exactly so, the experiment had been unsuccessful;' and when his meekness had brought down a furious tempest of wrath, and threats of dismissal, he had responded, 'with his intolerable cool insolence,' that 'this would be best for all parties.'

'This is the offence?' anxiously asked Felix.

'Offence? What greater offence would you have?'

'Certainly nothing can be much worse as to business,' said Felix. 'But when he told me what had happened, I was afraid that he might be running into temptation.'

'Oh! as to that, there's no harm in the lad—Spooner allows that— nothing low about him.'

'And his friends?'

'How should I know? Raffs those fellows always are, sure to bring him to the dogs!'

'Did you ever hear of an artist named Renville?'

'Ay?' meditatively. 'He was the master the girls had at one time, wasn't he?'

'Then he is respectable? I ask because Edgar wants to study under him.'

'Eh! what?' demanded Mr. Underwood, in manifest astonishment. 'Is the lad gone crazy?'

'I thought you had dismissed him, Sir.'

'Well, well,' said Mr. Underwood, taken aback, 'I told him only what he deserved, and he chose to take it as final. I thought you were come to speak for him.'

'You are very kind, Sir, but I doubt whether he would resume his work here, or indeed if it would not be an abuse of your kindness to induce him.'

'Eh! what?' again exclaimed Thomas. 'You give in to his ungrateful folly! Felix Underwood, I thought you at least were reasonable!'

The imperious passionate manner, rather than the actual words, made Felix side the more with the wayward genius, and feel that having sacrificed himself for the good of the family, he might save his brother from the gloomy office and piles of ledgers and bills below-stairs. 'Sir,' he said, 'I am sorry Edgar has not been better fitted to return the timely help you have given us, but I am afraid that such unwilling work as his could never be of service to you.'

'Why on earth should it be unwilling? Better men than he have sat at a desk before now! I've no patience with young men's intolerable conceit. There have I done everything for this young fellow, and he is unwilling, unwilling indeed, to give his mind to the simplest business for six hours a day.'

'It is wrong,' said Felix, 'but his powers lie in such a different line.'

'Fiddling and daubing! Pah! If anything could be more incomprehensible than his not being able to cast up an account or take a message; it is your backing him up!'

'I am afraid he is too old for coercion.'

'No coercion like having not a penny in the world. Pray, how is he to live?'

'His own means will help him through his studies.'

'His own—£200! About as much as he has made ducks and drakes of in a year. Besides, he is not of age.'

'No; but I have something of my own to advance for him.'

Wherewith there began a fresh storm. Thomas Underwood was greatly mortified at the desertion of one brother, and still more at the acquiescence of the other. He would no doubt have been ready to retain the handsome engaging youth, grumbling and enduring, as a sort of expensive luxury; and in his wrath, disappointment, and sense of ingratitude at finding that his restive protégé was not to be driven back to him, he became so abusive, that Felix could hardly keep his tongue or temper in check; but when he declared that if any support were given to Edgar's lunatic project, the whole family except Alda should be left to their own resources for the rest of their lives, it was with quiet determination that the reply was made, with studied, though difficult, respectfulness:—

'Sir, we are much obliged for what you have done for us, but we hope to be able to work for ourselves and for one another without becoming dependent. You cannot suppose that such a consideration would affect my opinion respecting Edgar.' (N.B.—If Mr. Underwood had supposed it, he felt as if it were impossible, as all his cousin Edward's high spirit glowed in that young man's eyes, and strengthened the studiously calm voice.) 'I think,' continued Felix, 'that no one can be doing right whose work is not thorough. If Edgar cannot or will not apply himself in earnest to your business, he will be doing better by studying art with a will than in pretending to work here, and abusing your forbearance. That would be so improper towards you, and so wrong in him, that it would be simply unjustifiable in me to try to persuade you into allowing it.'

Somehow, Mr. Underwood had not at all expected such a reply; and as luckily want of breath had forced him to wait and really hear it, a sensation came over him of old times when Edward Underwood had argued with him; and it was with much less heat that he returned, with an effort at irony, 'And so you take the bread out of the mouths of the others to support my fine gentleman in his absurd nonsense?'

'No, Sir; what I advance is entirely my own.'

'Oh, ay; didn't I hear something about a legacy?'

'Yes, from Admiral Chester. A thousand pounds. It has only just been paid to me.'

'That you may throw it away on this young scamp's fancies?'

'No, Sir, I hope not. Half of it goes into the business at Bexley. We sign the deed of partnership next week. It will make a great difference to me. The rest is ready for emergencies.'

'Tomfooleries,' muttered Mr. Underwood. 'Pray, what are the plans for this making a new Michael Angelo? Am I expected to give him the run of my house? I shall do no such thing!'

'No, Sir, it would not be proper to ask it. This Renville takes pupils for the Royal Academy, and Edgar would board and lodge there; but I hope you will still be good enough to allow him to call on Alda, and not let him be entirely left to himself. He is much to blame, but it is not as if he had run into bad dissipation.'

'That's true,' said Mr. Underwood. 'A terrible disappointment that young dog has been to me, Felix Underwood; but as you put it, there's an honesty in the thing! Where is my fine gentleman?'

'Downstairs, Sir.'

Mr. Underwood breathed through a mysterious tube, and Edgar appeared, with his usual easy grace, and with a sharp glance at Felix as if to inquire whether there were to be any attack on his newly-found liberty.

'Look here, Edgar,' was the address. 'Your brother—a much better one than you deserve—'

'Thrue for you,' muttered Edgar between his teeth.

'—Says what has some sense in it, that "nothing is so ruinous as doing things by halves," and that you ought to be ashamed of hanging about here doing nothing—'

A quick glance passed between the brothers.

'—So he is for letting you have your way; and if he chooses to support you, and you choose to rob him—for I think it nothing less than robbery—why there—I can't help it. So I put it to you for the last time: will you buckle steadily to your work here like a rational being, or cast yourself loose to live as a beggarly artist on what your brother can give you by pinching the rest?'

'Thank you, Sir; I hope the sooner to help him to feed the rest, by taking the plunge you think so desperate,' said Edgar, with more gravity than usual.

'Oh, indeed!' sneered Mr. Underwood. 'Remember, not a farthing of mine goes to such folly! I don't understand it! I thought once you'd have been as good as a son to me,' he added in a very different tone, as he looked at the fine young man in whom he yearned to take pride.

'I wish I could, Sir,' said Edgar, with real feeling. 'I wish you had hit upon any one of us but my unlucky self. You've been very good to me, but what a man can't do, he can't; and if I gave in now, it would only be the same over again. But we don't part in anger, Uncle,' he continued, with a trembling of voice.

'Anger?! No, my boy. I'm only vexed at the whole thing; but I don't want to lose sight of you altogether. You'll stay with us till you've found decent lodgings, and you'll be welcome to look in on a Sunday.' Mr. Underwood spoke in a tone between asking and granting a favour.

'Thank you, Sir, with all my heart,' said Edgar.

'And you'll come to dine and sleep?' he added to Felix. 'You've not seen your sister.'

'No, thank you, Sir, I cannot to-day; I must be at home tonight.'

They shook hands cordially; but as Edgar crossed the counting-house, he paused to open his own desk and pocket some of the contents, saying lightly as he did so, 'There's promotion in store for some of you youngsters—I congratulate you, Mr. Spooner; you're free of a burthen to your spirit.'

'Indeed, Mr. Edgar, I'm very sorry if—'

'Don't throw away your sorrow, Mr. Spooner; I was foredoomed your soul to cross, and I bear no malice to you for having been crossed. Shake hands, and wish me success as a painter.'

'I wish you success, Mr. Edgar; but it will not be met with in any profession without application and regularity.'

Edgar forbore from any reply but a low and deferential bow, such as to provoke another smothered laugh from the other young clerks, to whom Felix suspected, as he looked round, the favoured kinsman was subject of jealousy, admiration, or imitation, according to character. However, Edgar shook hands with each, with some little word of infinite but gracious superiority, and on coming out exclaimed, 'Ban, ban, Caliban! You who are emancipated from a Redstone, congratulate me!'

Felix neither observed on the vast difference between the excellent confidential Spooner and pettily jealous Redstone, nor on the extremely dissimilar mode of emancipation. He was more occupied with the momentous responsibility of having assisted to cut his brother loose from the protection to which his father had confided him. Mr. Audley's warning that he was inclined to be weak where Edgar was concerned, came before him. Yet the life of luxury and unfulfilled duties was in his eyes such a wrongful course, that he felt justified in having put an end to it; and his heart warmed with hope and exultation as he recollected how Etty's success had been owing to his brother's aid, and felt himself putting Edgar's foot on the first round of the ladder, and freeing his ascent from all that had hitherto trammelled it. Such bright visions haunted him when talking was impossible on the omnibus, outside which Edgar had exalted him—he did not well know why till on descending at Charing Cross, he found he was to have an interview with Mr. Renville, who was copying a picture in the National Gallery, and whom he found, to his great relief, to be no wild Bohemian, but a simple painstaking business-like man, who had married a German hausfrau, and lodged a few art students with unexceptionable references. Knowing Edgar already, he had measured his powers, and assured Felix that his talent was undoubted, though whether that talent amounted to genius could only be decided when the preliminary studies were accomplished; but even if it were not of the very highest order, (a supposition that rather hurt Felix's feelings,) the less aspiring walks of the profession would afford sufficient security of maintenance to justify the expense of the study. He talked with sense and coolness; and his charges, though falling severely on such funds as were at the disposal of the young pillar of the house, were, Edgar declared, and Felix could well believe, very moderate. The time was to be further decided after reference to Mrs. Renville.

'Will you not come home first?' asked Felix, as they descended the steps.

'Not in the character of the discarded! Who knows the effect it might have on old Froggy? By-the-by, I hope this advance does not make any difference to the terms of your bondage.'

'Nothing important.'

'Draw bills to any amount on the R.A. of the future!'

The light hopeful tone contrasted with Clement's grave thankfulness, and sorrow at being an expense; but Felix really preferred it, as far less embarrassing.

'Could you come down in a month's time?' he continued. 'Lance is to be confirmed at the Cathedral, and it might be an opportunity for you.'

'I cannot lose this month's work at the Academy, it is the most important in the year.'

'It might be arranged for you to come down for the day. You could see any one you pleased here.'

'Has Tina excited you to consign me to the Whittingtonian Fathers?'

'No.' Felix had almost rested there, but presently added, gravely, 'I constantly feel the impossibility of getting through this world and keeping straight without help—the help that is provided for us,' he added, lamely enough.

'Dear old Blunderbore,' said Edgar, affectionately; 'what comes naturally to you, No. 1, letter A, in a flock of girls and boys, can't be the same when one has got out into this wicked world. Go on in your own groove, and leave me to my aberrations. Don't vex yourself, old fellow. A popular journalist must have got far enough to know that men don't concern themselves about these little affairs in one another.'

'Brothers do.'

'Not unless they partake of the sister. Come! You have had no sustenance since breakfast at six o'clock, have you? Come in here, and learn what soup means.'

'There's no time. The train is at five.'

'Time! You don't mean to walk?'

'I do; and get something to eat at the station.'

'I declare, Fee, your unsophistication would be refreshing if it were not a disgrace to your profession. Why are you not reporter to the "Teetotal Times?" No wonder if the Pursuivant has a flavour of weak tea!'

Felix smiled rather sadly, aware that this was meant to lead him away from the last subject. He perceived that the door between his favourite brother's soul and his own was closed, and that knocking would only cause it to be bolted and barred. It might be true, as Mr. Audley had told him, that Edgar's was not so much real scepticism as the talk of the day, and the regarding the doubts of deeper thinkers as a dispensation from all irksome claims; but this was poor solace, while his brother rattled on: 'My dear Blunderbore, the hasty-pudding on which you characteristically breakfast is a delusion as to economy. Renville's little Frau will keep us better and at less expense than ever Wilmet conceived. You wrap yourself in your virtue, and refuse to spend a couple of shillings, as deeming it robbery of the fry at home. You wear out at least a shilling's worth of boot leather, pay twopence for a roll and fourpence for a more villainous compound called coffee; come home in a state of inanition, cram down a quartern loaf and a quarter of a pound of rancid butter, washed down with weak tea; and if self-satisfaction and exhaustion combined are soporific, it is only to leave you a prey to night-mare. Then, to say nothing of poorness of blood producing paucity of ideas, it is fearful to think of the doctor's bill you are laying up!'

'Nonsense, Edgar; I am in perfect health.'

Edgar went off into a learned dissertation on the qualities of food and liquor, and the expedience of enriching the blood, and giving substance to the constitution. He was, in fact, much more robust and athletic, as well as much taller, than his brother, who looked like one who led an indoor life without cultivating his strength, but had no token of lack of health or activity. Always of small appetite, he did not care how long he fasted, and was so much used to be on his feet, that the long walk through the streets seemed to fatigue him less than Edgar, who nevertheless kept with him, as finding real pleasure in his company.

The only pauses were at the sight of an accordion in a shop window labelled at so low a price, that Felix ventured on it for Theodore; and again when Edgar insisted on stuffing his pockets with bon-bons for the babes, as antidotes, he said, to the Blunderbore diet.

'I beg to observe, it was not Blunderbore that lived on hasty-pudding. That was the Welsh giant,' said Felix.

'Ay! Blunderbore had three heads, and was buried up to the neck, completing the resemblance! Well, some day I'll give you all a hoist, old fellow, and then you'll be immortalized for having developed the President of the Royal Academy out of his slough of hides and tallow.'