The Pillars of the House Part 40

'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 eyebrows 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 p.r.o.nouncing 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 a.s.sisting 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 rea.s.sure 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 e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns 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 mesmerised 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 a.s.sure 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 pa.s.ses 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 pa.s.s, painting his own face with the soot from a flame over which his plate had been previously held. The shrieks of amus.e.m.e.nt 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 a.s.surances 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.'

'Naughty boy!' commented Stella. 'Poor Fee!'--and she reared up to kiss him, and stroke the cheeks that had suffered such an indignity.

'What! It was only a trick?' said Clement slowly, as if half mystified.

'Of course,' said Felix; 'could not you trust to that?'

'I don't know. Cathedrals are very lax, and it had a questionable name.'

'O Clem! if it had not been in you before, I should wish you had never gone to St. Matthew's. Come down now, don't let us disturb the little ones any longer. --Good-night, Angel; good-night, little star; we'll not make a row to wake you again.'

Clement, in a severe mood, followed Felix downstairs; but some wonderful spirit of frolic was on all the young people that night--a reaction, perhaps, from the melancholy that had so long necessarily reigned in that house, for though the fun was less loud, it was quite as merry: a course of riddles was going on; and Clement, who really was used to a great deal of mirth among the staff of St. Matthew's, absolutely unbent, and gloried in showing that even more conundrums were known there than by the house of Harewood. He was not strong in guessing them; but then Will Harewood made such undaunted and extraordinary shots at everything proposed, that the spirit of repartee was fairly awakened, and Cherry's bright delicate wit began to play, so that no one knew how to believe in the lateness of the hour, and still less that this was the same house that grave Wilmet had left that morning.

'Poor dear little Cherry!' said Felix to Mr. Audley, after helping her upstairs, 'she is quite spent with laughing; indeed my jaws ache, and she is ready to cry, as if it had been unfeeling.'

'Don't let her fancy that. We certainly were surprised into it to- night; but I only wish for her sake--for all your sakes--that you could keep the house merrier.'

Felix sighed. He too felt as if he had been betrayed into unbecoming levity; and though he would not dispute, his heart had only become the heavier. However, he did not forget, and when Cherry again breathed a little sigh as to what Wilmet would think of their first day, he stoutly averred that there was no use in drooping, and no harm in liveliness, and that no one had ever been so full of joyousness as their father.

She owned it. 'But--'