Amaryllis at the Fair Part 11

All the other chairs were full, but her father's chair was empty.

The vague crowd were so immensely eager to pay their despicable court to the Spade-Guinea Man, not one of them stopped away; the old, the young, the lame, the paralytic, all found means to creep in to Grandfather Iden's annual dinner. His only son and natural heir was alone absent.

How eagerly poor Amaryllis glanced from time to time at that empty chair, hoping against hope that her dear father would come in at the Psalms, or even at the sermon, and disappoint the venomous, avaricious hearts of the enemies around her.

For well she knew how delighted they were to see his chair empty, as a visible sign and token of the gulf between father and son, and well she knew how diligently each laboured to deepen the misunderstanding and set fuel to the flame of the quarrel. If the son were disinherited, consider the enormous profit to the rest of them!

Grandfather Iden made no secret of the fact that he had not signed a will. It was believed that several rough drafts had been sketched out for him, but, in his own words--and he was no teller of falsehoods--he had not decided on his will. If only they could persuade him to make his will they might feel safe of something; but suppose he went off pop, all in a moment, as these extraordinarily healthy old people are said to do, and the most of his estate in land! Consider what a contingency--almost all of it would go to his own son. Awful thing!

Amaryllis was aware how they all stared at her and quizzed her over and over; her hair, her face, her form, but most of all her dress. They were so poor at home she had not had a new dress this twelvemonth past; it was true her dress was decent and comfortable, and she really looked very nice in it to any man's eye; but a girl does not want a comfortable dress, she wants something in the style of the day, and just sufficiently advanced to make the women's eyes turn green with envy. It is not the men's eyes; it is the women's eyes.

Amaryllis sat up very quiet and unconcerned, trying with all her might to make them feel she was the Heiress, not only an only son's only daughter, but the only son's only offspring--doubly the Heiress of Grandfather Iden.

The old folk, curious in such matters, had prophesied so soon as she was born that there would be no more children at Coombe Oaks, and so it fell out. For it had been noticed in the course of generations, that in the direct line of Iden when the first child was a daughter there were none to follow. And further, that there never was but one Miss Iden at a time.

If the Direct Line had a daughter first, they never had any more children; consequently that daughter was the only Miss Iden.

If the Direct Line had a son, they never had a second son, though they might have daughters; but then, in order that there should still be only one Miss Iden, it always happened that the first died, or was married early, before the second came into existence.

Such was the tradition of the Iden family; they had a long pedigree, the Idens, reaching farther back than the genealogies of many a peer, and it had been observed that this was the rule of their descent.

Amaryllis was the only Miss Iden, and the heiress, through her father, of the Spade-Guinea Man. She tried to make them feel that she knew it and felt it; that she was the Iden of the Idens. Her proud face--it was a very proud face naturally--darkened a little, and grew still more disdainful in its utter scorn and loathing of the vague crowd of enemies.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XIII.

TO one, as it were, in the gallery, it was a delight to see her; her sweet cheeks, fresh as the dawn, reddening with suppressed indignation; her young brow bent; her eyes cast down--don't you think for a moment she would deign to look at them--pride in her heart, and resolute determination to fight for her dear father and mother.

But she felt as she sat so unconcerned that there was a crack in her boot unmended, and it seemed as if everyone could see it though under the solid table. She had not had a really sound pair of boots for many, many months; they could not afford her a new pair at home, and the stupid shoemaker, "Established 1697," was such a time repairing her others.

She would not look at them, but she knew that they were all dressed better than she was; there were some of them very poor, and very vulgar, too, but they were all dressed better than her, and without a doubt had sound boots on their feet.

The cottagers in Coombe hamlet always had sound boots; she never had; nor, indeed, her mother. Her father had a pair, being compelled by the character of his work in the fields to take care of himself so far, though he wore a ragged coat. But neither mother nor daughter ever had a whole pair of boots--whole and sound as the very cottagers had.

If Amaryllis had sat there with naked feet she would have been prouder than ever, and that is why I always loved her so; she was not to be put down by circ.u.mstances, she was above external things.

But as time went on, and the dinner was nearly over--she had scarcely eaten anything--and as she glanced from time to time at her father's empty chair, and knew that he would not come, and that his defection would revive the old quarrel which might so easily have been mended, the Flamma blood began to rise and grow hotter and hotter, and the foot with the worn boot on it began to tap the floor.

The Flamma blood would have liked to have swept the whole company over a precipice into the Red Sea as the herd of swine in old time. It was either the Red Sea or somewhere; geography is of no consequence.

Spain's an island near Morocco, betwixt Egypt and Tangier.

The Flamma blood would have liked to have seen them all poisoned and dying on their seats.

The Flamma blood would have been glad to stick a knife into each of them--only it would not have touched them with the longest hop-pole in Kent, so utter was its loathing of the crew gloating over that empty chair.

And for once Amaryllis did not check it, and did not say to herself, "I _will_ not be a Flamma."

Towards the end of the tedious banquet the word was pa.s.sed round that everyone was to sit still, as Grandfather Iden was coming to look at his descendants.

There was not the least fear of any of them stirring, for they well knew his custom--to walk round, and speak a few words to everyone in turn, and to put a new golden sovereign into their hands. Thirty-two sovereigns it was in all--one for each--but the thirty-third was always a spade-guinea, which was presented to the individual who had best pleased him during the year.

A genial sort of custom, no doubt, but fancy the emulation and the heart-burning over the spade-guinea! For the fortunate winner usually considered himself the nearest to the Will.

Amaryllis' cheeks began to burn at the thought that she should have to take his horrible money. A hideous old monster he was to her at that moment--not that he had done anything to her personally--but he left her dear father to be worried out of his life by petty tradesmen, and her dear mother to go without a pair of decent boots, while he made this pompous distribution among these wretches. The hideous old monster!

Out in the town the boys behind his back gave him endless nicknames: Granfer Iden, Floury Iden, My Lord Lardy-Cake, Marquis Iden, His Greasy Grace; and, indeed, with his whims and humours, and patronage, his caprices and ways of going on, if he had but had a patent of n.o.bility, Grandfather Iden would have made a wonderfully good duke.

By-and-by in comes the old Pacha, still wearing his great grey tottery hat, and proceeds from chair to chair, tapping folk on the shoulder, saying a gracious word or two, and dropping his new golden sovereigns in their eager palms. There was a loud hum of conversation as he went round; they all tried to appear so immensely happy to see him.

Amaryllis did not exactly watch him, but of course knew what he was about, when suddenly there was a dead silence. Thirty-two people suddenly stopped talking as if the pneumatic brake had been applied to their lips by a sixty-ton locomotive.

Dead, ominous silence. You could almost hear the cat licking his paw under the table.

Amaryllis looked, and saw the old man leaning with both hands on the back of his son's empty chair.

He seemed to cling to it as if it was a spar floating on the barren ocean of life and death into which his withered old body was sinking.

Perhaps he really would have clung like that to his son had but his son come to him, and borne a little, and for a little while, with his ways.

A sorrowful thing to see--the old man of ninety clinging to the back of his son's empty chair. His great grey tottery hat seemed about to tumble on the floor--his back bowed a little more--and he groaned deeply, three times.

We can see, being out of the play and spectators merely, that there was a human cry for help in the old man's groan--his heart yearned for his son's strong arm to lean on.

The crowd of relations were in doubt as to whether they should rejoice, whether the groan was a sign of indignation, of anger too deep ever to be forgotten, or whether they should be alarmed at the possibility of reconciliation.

The Flamma blood was up too much in Amaryllis for her to feel pity for him as she would have done in any other mood; she hated him all the more; he was rich, the five-shilling fare was nothing to him, he could hire a fly from the "Lamb Inn," and drive over and make friends with her father in half an hour. Groaning there--the hideous old monster! and her mother without a decent pair of boots.

In a moment or two Grandfather Iden recovered himself, and continued the distribution, and by-and-by Amaryllis felt him approach her chair. She did not even turn to look at him, so he took her hand, and placed two coins in it, saying in his most gracious way that the sovereign was for her father, and the guinea--the spade-guinea--for herself. She muttered something--she knew not what--she could but just restrain herself from throwing the money on the floor.

It was known in a moment that Amaryllis had the guinea. Conceive the horror, the hatred, the dread of the crowd of sycophants! That the Heiress Apparent should be the favourite!

Yet more. Half-an-hour later, just after they had all got upstairs into the great drawing-room, and some were officiously and reverently admiring the peac.o.c.k-feather in the screen, and some looking out of the bow window at the fair, there came a message for Amaryllis to put on her hat and go for a walk with her grandfather.

There was not one among all the crowd in the drawing-room who had ever been invited to accompany Iden Pacha.

Three days ago at home, if anyone had told Amaryllis that she would be singled out in this way, first to receive the Iden medal--the spade-guinea stamp of approval--and then, above all things, to be honoured by walking out with this "almighty" grandfather, how delighted she would have been at the thought of the triumph!

But now it was just the reverse. Triumph over these people--pah! a triumph over rats and flies or some such creatures. She actually felt lowered in her own esteem by being noticed at all among them. Honoured by this old horror--she revolted at it. _He_ honour her with his approval--she hated him.