The Pillars of the House Part 8

'Certainly I shall.'

Lady Price felt that she must go, and rose up with an endeavour to retract. 'Well, it is a relief to Mr. Bevan and me to find your son not consciously in fault, for it would have been a most serious thing. And in such a matter as this, of course you can do as _you_ please.'

To this Mr. Underwood made no reply, as none was necessary, but only saw her out to the door in that extremely polite manner that always made her feel smallest, and then he dropped into his chair again, with a curl of the lip, and the murmur, 'not consciously!'

'O Papa, Papa!' cried Cherry.

'Dear Felix!' said the mother, with tears in her eyes; 'but what can Alda have been saying?'

Cherry was about to speak again, but her father gently put her aside.

A little quietness now, if you please, my dear; and send Felix to me when he comes in. Let me have him alone, but don't say anything to him.'

There was no need to send Felix to his father, for he came in of his own accord, radiant, with a paper containing a report of a public meeting on Church matters that his father had been wishing to see.

'Thanks, my boy,' said Mr. Underwood; 'where does this come from?'

'From Froggatt's father. It was only fourpence.'

'But, Felix, repeated fourpences must exhaust even that Fortunatus'

purse of Admiral Chester's.'

Felix coloured. 'Yes, Papa, I wanted to tell you; but I waited till you were better.'

'You will hardly find a better time than the present,' said Mr Underwood.

'It is only this,' said Felix, with a little hesitation. 'You know there's a good deal of printing to be done for the school sometimes-- the questions in Latin and Greek and Algebra, and even when Mr. Ryder does have the proofs, it wants some one who really understands to see that the corrections are properly done. Old Smith used to do it, by real force of Chinese accuracy, but he has been ill for some time, and Mr. Froggatt can't see to do it himself, and Charlie won't, and can't be trusted either. So one day, when I was reading in the shop, Mr. Froggatt asked me to see if a thing was right; and it went on: he asked me after a time to take anything I liked, and I did get some school books we all wanted; but after that, just when you were ill, I could not help telling him I had rather have the money. O Father!'

cried the boy, struck by a certain look of distress, 'did I do wrong?'

'Not in the least, my boy. Go on; what does he give you?'

'Exactly at the rate he gave Smith for doing the same work,' said Felix: 'it always was an extra for being so troublesome. It was seven shillings last week--generally it comes to three or four and sixpence.'

'And when do you do it?'

'I run in after I come out of school for half an hour. Last Sat.u.r.day I corrected a sheet of the Pursuivant, because Mr. Froggatt had to go out, and that made it more. And, Father, Mr. Froggatt says that poor old Smith will never be fit for work again.'

'Then I suppose these welcome earnings of yours will end when he has a successor?'

Felix came nearer. 'Papa,' he said, 'Mr. Froggatt told me that if Charlie would only have taken to the work, he would have done without another man in Smith's place, and got him gradually into editing the paper too. He said he wished I was not a gentleman's son, for if I had not been so I should have suited him exactly, and should be worth a guinea a week even now. And, Father, do not you really think I had better take it?'

'You, Felix!' Mr. Underwood was exceedingly startled for the moment.

'You see,' said Felix rather grimly, leaning his head on the mantelshelf, and looking into the fire, 'any other way I can only be an expense for years upon years, even if I did get a scholarship.'

His face was crimson, and his teeth set. Mr. Underwood lay back in his chair for some seconds; then said in a low voice, 'I see you know all about it, Felix; and that I am going to leave you as heavy a burthen as ever lad took on willing shoulders.'

Felix knew well enough, but his father had never uttered a word of despondency to him before, and he could only go on gazing steadfastly into the fire with an inarticulate moan.

Mr. Underwood opened the first leaf of a volume of St. Augustine, beside him, a relic of former days, the family shield and motto within--namely, a cross potent, or crutch-shaped, and the old English motto, 'UNDER WODE, UNDER RODE.'

'Under wood, under rood,' he repeated. 'It was once but sing-song to me. Now what a sermon! The load is the Cross. Bear thy cross, and thy cross will bear thee, like little Geraldine's cross potent--Rod and Rood, Cross and Crutch--all the same etymologically and veritably.'

'Don't call them a burthen, pray!' said Felix, with a sense both of deprecation and of being unable to turn to the point.

'My boy, I am afraid I was thinking more of myself than of you. I am an ungrateful fool; and when a crutch is offered to me, I take hold of it as a log instead of a rood. I did not know how much pride there was left in me till I found what a bitter pill this is!'

Felix was more crimson than ever. 'Ought I not--' he began.

'The _ought_ is not on your side, Felix. It is not all folly, I hope; but I had thought you would have been a better parson than your father.'

There were tears in the boy's eyes now. 'There are the others; I may be able to help them.'

'And,' added Mr. Underwood, 'I know that to be a really poor priest, there should be no one dependent on one, or it becomes "Put me into one of the priest's offices, that I may eat a piece of bread." It is lowering! Yes, you are right. Even suppose you could be educated, by the time you were ordained, you would still have half these poor children on your hands, and it would only be my own story over again, and beginning younger. You are right, Felix, but I never saw the possibility so fully before. I am glad some inward doubt held me back from the impulse to dedicate my first-born.'

'It shall be one of the others instead,' said Felix in his throat.

Mr. Underwood smiled a little, and put his finger on the verse in his beloved Epistle--'Look not every man on his own things but every man also on the things of others.'

'You really wish this. Do you consider what it involves?' he said.

'I think I do,' said Felix in a stifled voice.

'This is not as if it were a great publisher,' continued Mr.

Underwood, 'with whom there would be no loss of position or real society; but a little bookseller in a country town is a mere tradesman, and though a man like Audley may take you up from time to time, it will never be on an absolute equality; and it will be more and more forgotten who you were. You will have to live in yourself and your home, depending on no one else.'

'I can stand that,' said Felix, smiling. 'Father, indeed I thought of all that. Of course I don't like it, but I don't see how it is to be helped.'

'Sit down, Felix: let us go over it again. I suppose you don't know what our subsistence is at present.'

'I know you have 250 pounds a year from Mr. Bevan.'

'Yes, I had 200 pounds at first, and he added the 50 pounds when the third curate was given up. That goes with me, of course, if not before. On the other hand, my poor good uncle, the wisest thing he ever did, made me insure my life for 5000, pounds so there will be 150 pounds a year to depend on, besides what we had of our own, only 2350 pounds left of it now. I have had to break into it for the doctor's bills, but at least there are no debts. Thank G.o.d, we have been saved from debt! I think,' he continued, 'that probably it will have to be brought down to twenty-two hundred before you have done with me. On the whole, then, there will be about 180 pounds a year for you all to live upon. Are you understanding, Felix?'

For the boy's anxious look had gone out of his face, and given place to a stunned expression which was only dispelled with a sudden start by his father's inquiry. 'Yes, yes,' he said recalling himself.

'I have left it all absolutely to your mother,' said Mr. Underwood.

'She will depend more and more on you, Felix; and I have made up my mind to expect that no help will come to you but from yourselves.

Except that I hope some of you may be educated by clergy orphan schools, but you are too old for that now. Felix, I believe it may be right, but it is very sore to break off your education.'

'I shall try to keep it up,' said Felix, 'in case anything should ever turn up'

'A guinea a week!' said Mr. Underwood, thoughtfully. 'It would make you all not much worse off than you are now, when I am out of the way. And yet--' A violent cough came on. 'We must wait, Felix,' he said, when he had recovered himself. 'I must have time to think; I will speak to you to-morrow.'

Felix left him, very grave and subdued. He buried himself in his tasks for the next day, hardly looked up or smiled at little Bernard's most earnest attempts at a game of play, and had not a word for even Cherry, only when Wilmet begged anxiously to know if he thought Papa worse, he answered that he believed not particularly so.

Alda was sent to carry some tea to her father that evening. As she set it down on the table before him, he said gently, 'My dear, I want to know what has been pa.s.sing among you and your school-fellows about Felix.'

'Oh, nothing, Papa,' said Alda rather hastily. 'Some nonsense or other is always going on.'