A Little World Part 51

But Jared stood it out, telling himself that most likely it was for the last time. Then he tried the church-door to make sure that it was fast, and afterwards slunk off slowly, and apparently believing that people could read the crime of which he was accused branded upon his forehead.

Perhaps that was why he crushed his hat down over his eyes, and bent his head so as to encounter neither scowl of avoidance nor pitying glance.

In Duplex Street at last! and pausing to pull his face three or four different ways so as to get upon it a pleasant expression before inserting his latch-key; and, entering, to stand rubbing his feet upon the worn old mat, which had to be held steady with one foot while the other was cleaned, and had been so affected by time that, hydra-fashion, it was fast turning itself into two mats of a smaller size. Then, it took some time, to take off the old black kid-gloves, which Jared had cut down into mittens in consequence of finger dilapidations, or, as he said, to keep his hands warm when playing in the fireless church.

But there were cheery voices ascending the stairs, so putting away his last sigh, like his umbrella in a corner, he descended to the kitchen, and tried to enter, but the door handle only turned round and round, and would not move the latch. Directly after, though, there came the sound as of some one wriggling it back with a knife-blade.

"There, don't touch me," cried Patty, "or I shall flour you all over."

The warning came too late, for Jared had already taken her in his arms to place a couple of kisses upon her blooming cheeks.

"There, I knew I should," she continued; "and if I touch it I shall make it worse. But, father dear, I'd have that lock mended, or we shall all be fastened in some day."

"Ah!" said Jared. "Now, if it could be repaired with glue, I might manage it myself."

But as that seemed impossible, Jared began to hum a tune, his thoughts the while hanging upon the subject of his dismissal, as he wondered whether they had yet any inkling of the secret which oppressed him.

"Time enough for them to know when all is over, and I've given up the keys," he muttered; "for even yet something may be found out. If not,"

he thought, bitterly, "we must starve."

"Has the vicar been or sent?" he said, in husky tones, but a.s.suming all the indifference possible.

"No," said Mrs Jared; "I've been thinking about him all the morning.

Isn't he late?"

Jared thought he was, and said so. But all the same, he had not expected him, only a cheque for his last quarter's salary--money always heretofore paid to the day, though it was not likely that upon this occasion the vicar would follow out his old pleasant custom and bring the cheque himself. But Jared tried to persuade himself that even that was possible, for drowning men are said to clutch at straws, and Jared was drowning fast. He had kept his head above water a long time, but now all seemed at an end, and the waters of tribulation appeared about to close over him.

Mrs Pellet and her daughter continued to be occupied in domestic affairs, while now, as if Jared's misery were not great enough, the straw seemed to be s.n.a.t.c.hed from the drowning man as there came the terrible thought--Suppose that the vicar should not send at all? suppose that, taking into consideration how he had refrained from prosecuting, he should consider the quarter's salary as forfeited?

Not a heavy sum certainly, but to Jared the want of it would be ruin piled upon ruin, a cruel heel crushing the head already in the dust.

"They told me to clear myself, to prove that they were wrong--and what have I done? But, there! absurd! They could not keep back the money; it would not be legal."

But suppose that, legal or illegal, they kept it back to make up for the missing money, how then? The vicar would not do such a thing, he was too kind-hearted; but Timson might prompt him--Timson, who had always been so ready with his suspicions. He would go and tell him to his face of his cruelty to a wronged man. He dared meet him, though he now shrank from encountering the vicar. But no; he was too hasty; the money was not legally due until he had formally given up the organ-key. But if they did keep it back--that twelve pounds ten--could he not take legal proceedings for its recovery? How, when they had been so lenient to him?

"Lenient!" his brow grew wrinkled as the word flashed over his mind.

Was he not innocent, unless indeed he had committed the theft in his sleep--walked to the church from sheer habit? But absurd! he was innocent. "Prove it, sir--prove it," rang in his ears, and he seemed to see before him the stiff figure of the little churchwarden, with his hands stuck beneath the tails of his coat. "Prove it, sir--prove it,"

and how was he to prove it?

Jared Pellet was a good actor, schooled in adversity; but on that day he was about worn out, and a less shrewd person than his wife would have seen that something was wrong. She noted it before he had been in long, and attributed it to the fact that they had not a penny in hand. He tried to laugh and be cheery, but his attempts were of so sorry a nature that Mrs Jared looked hard at him, when he seemed so guilty of aspect, that he was glad to call in the aid of a pocket-handkerchief, and make a feeble attempt at a sneeze.

"You won't mind a makeshift dinner to-day?" said Patty, intent upon her task of preparing the repast.

Needless question to one who had practised the art of making shift for so many years, and to whom a good dinner was an exception to the rule.

"Been wanted while I was out?" said Jared, after declaring that he should enjoy the makeshift above all things. "Been wanted?" for it was a pleasant fiction with Jared that he did a large business in the musical instrument line, and that it was not safe for him to be away for a minute, though it was not once in a hundred absences that he was required; but the question sounded business-like, and he asked it regularly.

The answer was just what he expected--in the negative; but it came in so dreary a tone that Jared stared.

The reason was plain enough: Mrs Jared had caught his despondent complaint, and was rocking the baby over the fire as she counted up the holes that the expected cheque was to stop in connection with unpleasant demands for money, which she would have to answer meekly and with promises. The tears rose to her eyes as she thought of it all--tears reflected the next moment in those of Patty.

"What would they say if they knew all?" groaned Jared to himself as he saw the tears. But he felt that he must stave it off a little longer, as he planted a child on either knee so as to have something to do, and then declared himself to be ravenous for want of food.

Poor Patty finished her preparations. She brought out the sc.r.a.p of cold mutton, and took up the potatoes and plain boiled rice-pudding, but her merry smile was gone. She too had her troubles, and it took but little to upset her. As she caught sight of her mother's sad face, she had hard work to keep her own tears back; for the chill that seemed to have come upon their home had struck to her heart, schooled as it had lately been to trouble.

Volume 3, Chapter IX.

EXPECTANCY.

It was a bitter day without, and now it seemed as cold within. The very fire in the bright little grate appeared to have turned duller, and the air more chill. As to the cold sc.r.a.ps of mutton, they were perfectly icy, and the fat flew off in chips and splinters. A cloud had settled down upon the house, so that there were even great tears round the potato-dish. As to piercing the cloud, all Jared's efforts were in vain, for as fast as he tried to shine in a warm and genial manner to disperse this oppressive mist of adversity, he encountered one of Mrs Jared's looks, which he interpreted to be suspicious--doubtful; and, one way and another, the meal was cold, not merely to a degree, but to many.

There was no work to do that afternoon; no musical cripples to doctor orthopaedically; no cracked instruments to solder, putty, or wax-end; no bellows to mend, hammers to refit, or false notes to tune in accordion or concertina. Trade was at a standstill, and Jared wondered how he should get through the afternoon till the hour when he had appointed Ichabod to meet him at the church for a last long evening practice at the old organ.

But the dinner was hardly over before the postman came by. Jared knew his legs as they pa.s.sed the area grating, and ran up-stairs to see if he were coming there. For a wonder, he was, and as may be supposed, he left a letter.

Strange hand, and yet familiar. It must be from the vicar. But no; it was not his hand, Jared knew that too well to be mistaken, and his fingers involuntarily felt in his breastpocket for the missive which contained the key--a missive that he had of late told himself he ought to have taken to a good solicitor for advice, instead of quietly sitting down beneath the slur.

But perhaps, under the circ.u.mstances, the vicar had felt disposed to let some one else write to him. It must be the cheque; there could not be a doubt about it. No one else would write to him unless--unless--

Jared's brow grew moist, as, in the ignorance of such matters, he stood trembling with the letter in his hand. Might not the vicar have taken legal proceedings, and sent him a summons, now that his time had expired?

That was a dreadful thought, and embraced innumerable horrors--the felon's dock, police-van, cells, convicts, servitude, and worse, infinitely worse than all--a starving wife and children. Jared had a hard fight to recover his composure before going down again to the kitchen, where he tore open the letter.

Mr McBriar, the landlord, had sent his compliments, and a reminder, that though the rent for the quarter ending at Christmas would be due in a few days, that for the quarter ending at Michaelmas had not yet been paid.

Jared doubled the letter again very carefully, so as to hit the right folds, replaced it in the envelope, and handed it to his wife, who had the pleasure of taking it out and reading it, when Jared saw a tear fall upon the paper, and make a huge blot, turning the sheet of a darker colour as it soaked in.

Tears breed tears, and two bright drops sprang to Patty's eyes as she thought of her own sorrows, of the troubles overhanging the Brownjohn Street house, and the way in which poor Janet was suffering. Then came thoughts of Harry Clayton; at times soft tender thoughts, at times those of indignation; and she told herself that he could not love her, or he would never have been ashamed to own her before his friends.

Did she love him? She asked herself the question, and replied to it with burning cheeks that she thought she did;--no, she was sure that she loved him very, very much. Oh I how gladly would the poor girl have gone up-stairs, and thrown herself upon her bed, to have a long, long, girlish cry.

"Would not Richard lend you a few sovereigns?" said Mrs Jared to her husband in a whisper.

"No, no; don't, please," cried Jared, in a supplicating voice.

"Anything but that." For in an instant he had conjured up the figure of his angry brother, and his disgrace. That brother calling him villain, thief, and scoundrel; upbraiding him once more for bringing disgrace upon the name so honoured amongst the money-changers of the great temple of commerce. "You know how I have asked him before, and what has been his reply. I can't do it again. But there!" he said, in as cheerful a tone as he could command, "don't fidget; things will come right. They always do, if you give them time enough; only we are such a hurried race of beings, and we get worse now there are steam-engines and telegraphs to work for us."

To have seen Jared then, it might have been supposed that he was in the best of spirits, for he began to hum sc.r.a.ps of airs, beginning with "Pergolesi," and ending with "Jim Crow."

Having no work of his own, he attended to the fire, to clear away its dulness; but he never well succeeded, for the coals were small, and the stock very low.

Then he nursed the baby for ten minutes; in short, he tried every possible plan to raise the bitter temperature of the place. "Let it come in its own good time," he muttered; "there's no occasion for them to meet the trouble half-way."

Six different times, though, was Jared at that window, watching, with beating heart, figures dimly seen through the grating bars--figures which had slackened pace, or stopped, as if about to call. Once Jared turned with a deceptive smile, declaring that an old gentleman had pa.s.sed, so like the vicar that he was not even sure that it was not he gone by in mistake.

"Nonsense!" said Mrs Jared, sadly, rejecting the comfort intended for her. And no one called at Jared's house, while he felt that it would be impossible for him to ask for the money. Had he been differently circ.u.mstanced, he would have refused it altogether; but with a wife and large family, debts, and no regular income, it would have been madness.

Once he had decided that he would tell all, and be out of his miserable state of suspense; but the next minute, with a shiver, he had again put off the disclosure, and moodily began to think over the treatment he had received where he had asked counsel and advice, the hot blood rising to his cheeks as he recalled the manner in which the behaviour of his child had been interpreted.

Five o'clock, and no vicar, no money; and Jared to some extent rejoiced, for he dreaded the vicar's coming, lest the reason of his leaving should be mentioned. And now he brightened up with the thought that it might be possible to conceal the true cause of his leaving the church from those at home, for, instead of looking there for advice and comfort, he shivered with dread lest it should come to their ears. As to Purkis, and the Ruggleses, he would move--go somewhere where he was not known, and where his friends could not find him, making what excuse he could.