The New Mistress Part 50

"And he has humiliated me by this letter that I received by post."

"Don't call it humiliation, my dear," cried Miss Burge; "it was only sent out of civility to you as one of our neighbours whom we like, and that's what it means."

Hazel hesitated for a few moments, and then, in her loneliness and isolation, she clung to the hands outstretched to help her.

"Mr Burge--Miss Burge, I am so lonely and helpless here. You have heard about the school pence, but I cannot tell you why the amount was wanting. Give me your help and counsel."

"Then will you let me help you?"

"I shall be most grateful if you will," cried Hazel.

"Hullo!" shouted Burge, staring up at the part.i.tion. "What are you a-doing there?"

"The shutter slipped down a little, sir," said Mr Chute loudly.

"Trying to close it, sir. That's it!" and the shutter closed with a snap.

"Oh, that's it, is it?" said Mr William Forth Burge angrily. "I don't know as that is it, Mr Chute." But Mr Chute had by this time fastened the shutter, and had descended from his coign of vantage, looking very red and feeling terribly mortified at having been detected. "He was listening; that's about what he was doing."

There was a buzz of excitement amongst the children, but it subsided directly, and Hazel placed at a venture the envelope which she believed to have come from her visitor in his hands.

"You sent that to me, Mr Burge," said Hazel firmly.

"Well, it was me, as you know, Miss Thorne; and you won't hurt our feelings by refusing it, will you?"

"I could not take it, sir; but I do appreciate your goodness all the same. Now help me to decide who sent me these letters."

Hazel's visitors looked at each other, then at the envelopes, and then back at Hazel.

"Do you want me to say who sent those two letters?" said Mr William Forth Burge gloomily.

"I should be very grateful if you could, sir."

"This one's from Mr Canninge, at Ardley, I should say; and the other's the parson's writing, I feel sure. If they've sent you money, Miss Thorne, of course you won't want mine--ours."

It was an endors.e.m.e.nt of her own opinion, and for the moment Hazel did not notice the dull, heavy look on her visitor's face as she exclaimed--

"I have no doubt these gentlemen had kindly intentions, but I cannot take their help, and I want to see whether I might risk a mistake in returning the notes."

"Oh, I think I'd return 'em," said Mr William Forth Burge eagerly.

"I'd risk its being a mistake. Even if it _was_, your conduct would be right."

Hazel looked at him intently, and then bowed her head in acquiescence.

"Yes," she said thoughtfully, "I will risk its being a mistake. Or no: Mr Burge, will you be my friend in my present helpless state? I ask you to return the notes on my behalf."

"That's just what I will do," he cried excitedly, for it seemed to him that he had won the day.

CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT.

MR WILLIAM FORTH BURGE IS INDIGNANT.

You may make money, and you may turn philanthropist giving right and left, letting not either hand know what the other doeth; but if you think you are going to make innumerable friends by so doing, you are mistaken, for you will most likely make enemies.

You will excite jealousy amongst your equals, because you have pa.s.sed them in the race; your superiors, as they call themselves, will condemn you, and hold you in contempt for trying, as they say, to climb to their level; and even the recipients of your bounty will be offended.

Mrs Dilly will think that Miss Bolly's half-pound of tea was better than hers, and old Tom Dibley will be sure to consider the piece of beef his neighbour, Joe Stocks, received "a better cut" than his own.

It was so with Mr William Forth Burge, who gave a great deal of beef to the poor--it was in his way--and who was constantly giving offence by presenting one poor family with better "cuts" than others; and he knew it, too.

"I tell you what, Betsey," he said, rubbing his ear with vexation, one day, "it's my full belief that nature made a regular mistake in bullocks. There ought to be no legs and shins, or clods or stickings, my dear, but every beast ought to be all sirloin; though it's my belief, old girl, that if it was, and you let 'em have it full of gravy, and sprinkled with nice white sc.r.a.ped horse-radish on the top, they wouldn't be satisfied, but would say the quality was bad."

"There, never mind, Bill dear," said his comforter; "some people always would be ungrateful. Old Granny Jinkins is just as bad. She said yesterday that the nice, warm, soft, new flannel jacket I made for her myself was not half so nice and warm as one I gave to Nancy Dean."

"Yes, that's just the way," said Mr William Forth Burge. "The more you help people, the more they turns again' you. I often wish I'd never made a penny; for what's the good of it all but to help other people, and be grumbled at afterwards for not helping 'em more?"

"Oh, but all people ain't the same, dear."

"There ain't much difference, Betsey. Here's old Mrs Thorne quite hates me; that boy thinks I'm a reg'lar cad; and Miss Thorne's turning the same way."

"That I'm sure she's not!" cried little Miss Burge, starting up and speaking angrily, with her face flushed, "Miss Hazel Thorne's as good as gold, and she thinks you the best of men; and I declare, Bill, that you ought to be ashamed of yourself, and I don't know what you don't deserve. It's too bad. There!"

"Thanky, Betsey, my dear. That seems to do me good. I like to hear you speak out like that. But do you really think she likes me?"

"I'm sure she does, Bill, and there ain't no think in the matter; and there, for goodness' sake, don't you settle down into a grumbler, Bill, because you've got no cause to be, I'm sure."

"Well, I don't know, Betsey," he said, stirring his tea slowly. "Things don't seem to go right. I thought, seeing what I'd done for the schools, I ought to have a pretty good voice in everything, but because I've spent hundreds and hundreds over 'em it seems just why I'm to be opposed. Here's Chute: I showed the committee that he was a miserable spy of a fellow, not content with watching Miss Thorne, but putting it about that she was carrying on with different people in the place and gentlemen from town, just out of spite like, as Lambent agrees with me, because the poor gal wouldn't notice him. Well, I want him dismissed or made to resign."

"Well, and isn't he to go?"

"Go! Lor' bless you! Why, the committee's up in arms to keep him; and just on account of that school-pence job, as the poor gal couldn't help at all, they'd have dismissed her if she hadn't said she'd resign."

"Oh, Bill, it's much too bad!"

"Bad ain't nothing to it, my dear. I've been fighting hard for her stopping, and sending her resignation back; but neither Lambent nor Squire George Canninge won't interfere, and I'm left to fight it all out, and they're beating me."

"And why didn't you tell me all this before, Bill?" said Miss Burge.

"Oh, I hadn't the heart to talk about it, my dear," replied her brother.

"It's all worry and vexation, that it is, and I wish I'd never done nothing for the schools at all."

"Don't say that, Bill, when you've done so much good."

"But I do say it," he cried angrily. "Here is everybody setting themselves again' me, and it's all jealousy because I've got on. I never asked no favours of 'em before; it's all been give, give; and now they show what they're all made of. It's all horse-leeches' daughters with 'em, that's what it is, and I wish Plumton All Saints was burnt.

All Saints indeed!" he cried indignantly; "it's all devils, and no saints in it at all."

"But can't Mr Lambent settle it?"