The Pillars of the House, V1 Read online

  'How well you ought to be!' said Mr. Audley one day at the reiteration, 'better every day!'

  'Yes, and best of all at last!' was the reply, with a sweet smile.

  For he was very happy. The partial provision for the four eldest children, two by their own exertions, two through friends, had evidently been received by him as an earnest of protection and aid for the rest, even to the babe whom he scarcely expected ever to see in this world. He said it would be ungrateful not to trust, and he did trust with all his heart, cheered as it was by the tardy cordiality of his cousin, and the indefinable love of kindred that was thus gratified. Thomas Underwood poured in good things of all kinds on the invalid and his house, fulfilled his promise of calling in further advice, and would have franked half the family to Torquay -Nice-Madeira-if the doctors had given the slightest encouragement. It could be of little ultimate avail; but the wine and soup did give support and refreshment bodily, and produced much gratitude and thankfulness mentally, besides lightening some of Mrs. Underwood's present cares.

  No one was more anxious to help than Mr. Ryder; he had been assiduous in his inquiries and offers of service ever since the attack at Michaelmas; and it was evident that he really venerated the Curate, while he was a severe and contemptuous judge of the Rector. But when, after a brilliant examination, he became aware that he was to lose both the elder Underwoods at once, his mortification was great, he came to call, and Mr. Underwood had again to undergo an expostulation on Felix's prospects, and an offer of keeping him free of expense. The school-fee was a mere trifle, but Mr. Ryder would willingly have boarded and lodged the boy himself-for the benefit of his authority, as he said, over younger boarders.

  'I am afraid,' said Mr. Underwood, kind and grateful as usual, 'that there are too many younger boarders here for Felix to be spared. No, thank you; I am sincerely obliged to you, but the hard cash is a necessary consideration.'

  'And you can sacrifice such a boy's prospects-'

  'Bread and cheese must be earned, even at the cost of prospects. He cannot afford to wait to make his labour skilled.'

  'Forgive me, Mr. Underwood, but I cannot think it is right to throw away his abilities.'

  'You can allow that it is a less wrong than to leave the rest to debt or starvation.'

  'You should trust-'

  'I do trust; but I can do so better when I humble what is nothing but pride and vanity in me, after all. I was foolish enough about it at first, but I am quite content now that my boy should do his duty, without being curious as to where it is to be done.'

  'You will tell me a schoolmaster's vanity is concerned; and I allow it is, for I looked to your sons to raise the reputation of the school; but perhaps it is only put off a little longer. Will you let me have Clement or Fulbert, on the terms I proposed for Felix?'

  'No, Ryder; with many, many thanks, much feeling of your generous kindness-it cannot be.'

  'You do not trust me.' This was said with as much indignation as could be shown to a man in Mr. Underwood's condition.

  No. Your very kindness would make the tone I regret in you more perilous. Do not think Felix ungrateful, Ryder; the desire is mine- and remember, it is that of a man who is dying, and who really loves and values you greatly. It is that the younger boys should, as soon as may be, go to schools where older systems prevail.'

  Mr. Ryder was exceedingly mortified, and though he tried hard to conceal the full extent of his annoyance, he could not help saying, 'You know how I respect your motives; but let me say that I doubt your finding any place where the ideas you deprecate are not to be found. And-pardon me-may not the finding their progress obstructed by your scruples, the more indispose your sons to them?'

  'I hope not,' said Mr. Underwood, calmly. 'I hope it may show them how strong the approach of death makes that faith-nay, rather assurance-with which your party are tampering.'

  'You are not doing me justice, Mr. Underwood. You know that my faith and hope are at the core the same as your own. All our question is what outworks are untenable.' Again he spoke hotly, but Mr. Underwood's gentleness seemed to silence him.

  'And that there should be any such question proves-alas!-the utter difference between our belief. Ryder, you are a young man, and as I believe and trust verily in earnest; and some day, I think, you will understand what faith is. Meantime, your uncertainties are doing more mischief than you understand-they pervade all your teaching more than you know. I dread what they may do to such as have not your moral sense to restrain them and bring them back, as I pray-I hope ever to pray-it may be with you. Thank you for all your kindness, actual and intended, to my boys.'

  Then rising from his chair, while Mr. Ryder remained uncertain how to speak, he signed to him to remain still while he sought in his bookcase and returned with a small old copy of Jeremy Taylor's Holy Living and Dying; then sitting down again, wrote the schoolmaster's name in it, above his own 'Under-wode, Under-rode' stamp. 'Keep it, Ryder! I do not say that you will care for it now, but some day I think you will, and if I am allowed to know of it, it will be joy.'

  Mr. Ryder could only wring the hand that held it out to him, and with a great effort say, 'Thank you.' He saw that Mr. Underwood was too much tired to prolong the conversation; but he wrote a note of warm thanks that evening, promising to do whatever lay in his power for the boys, that their father would not think dangerous for them; and he added, that whatever he should for the future think or say, such an example as he had now seen was a strong weight on its own side. It was warmly and tenderly put, and like everything that befell him, gratified Mr. Underwood.

  A very happy man he had been, as he sincerely told those who would have grieved over him, and not without some remorse.

  'Yes,' as he said to Mr. Audley, who watched him like a son, 'it is indeed the LORD who hath led me all my life through. I never had a want or a care unfulfilled till nine years ago. Then, just as I had become sluggish and mechanical in fixed habits of easy country work, came this thorough change, break, and rousing. I tell you, I can never be thankful enough for the mercy. Not to leave them all provided for, as the saying is, would I go back to be such a priest as I was becoming. Happy-yes, I have been much happier here, since no choice was left me but working up to my strength.'

  'And beyond it,' said Mr. Audley, sadly.

  'If so-well; so much the better!' he said. 'It is a blessing to be allowed to be spent in that service. And for the children, I wish only for work and goodness for them-and for that I may well trust my good Master.'

  CHAPTER IV. TWILIGHT AND DAWN

  'Two Angels, one of Life and one of Death,

  Passed o'er the village as the morning broke;

  The dawn was on their faces; and beneath

  The sombre houses capped with plumes of smoke.

  LONGFELLOW.

  'Don't, Ful!'

  'That's nothing to you, Clem.'

  'I say, this won't do. I must have some light.'

  'Indeed, Ed, we must not light a candle before five o'clock.'

  'Pish!'

  'Oh please, Edgar, don't stir the fire. If you knew how few coals there are!'

  'Stuff''

  'No, I won't have it done if Wilmet says not;' and Felix reared up in the gloom, and struggled with his brother.

  Felix-Edgar-Oh, don't.'

  'Hsh-sh-Now, you girls are worse than all, screaming in that way.' A few moments' silence of shame. It had been a weary, long, wet day, a trial under any circumstances to eleven people under seventeen, on the 4th of January, and the more oppressive in St. Oswald's Buildings, because not only had their father been in a much more suffering state for some days past, but their mother, who had hoped to keep up for some weeks longer, had for the last two days been quite unlike herself. In the sick-room she was as tender and vigilant as ever in her silent way, but towards her children a strange fretful impatience, a jealousy of their coming near their father, and an intolerance of the least interruption from them even for the most necessary cause. Moreover, t
he one friend and helper who had never failed them before, Mr. Audley, had not been seen since he had looked in before early service; and altogether the wretchedness and perplexity of that day had been such, that it was no wonder that even Felix and Wilmet had scarcely spirits or temper for the only task that seemed at present left them, the hindering their juniors from making themselves obnoxious.

  'Wilmet, do you think we shall go to the party at Centry Park?' reiterated Fulbert.

  'Do hold your tongue about that. I don't believe there's the least chance,' said Alda fretfully.

  'And I don't know how you can think of such a thing,' added Cherry.

  'I want to see Cousin Marilda's Christmas tree,' whined Robina.

  'Do ask Mamma again,' entreated another voice.

  'I shall do no such thing,' said Wilmet, with absolute crossness in her tone.

  Robina began to cry.

  'Come here, Bobbie,' said Cherry's voice in the dark end of the room; 'I'll tell you a story.'

  'I know all Cherry's stories, and they're rubbish,' said Fulbert.

  'This is quite a new one. There was once a little match-girl-'

  'Bosh! I know that little brute, and I hate her,' broke in Fulbert.

  'Hold your tongue,' said Clement; 'but-'

  'Oh no, don't let us have the match-girl,' cried several voices.

  'Why can't you be good? There was once an old giant that lived in a cave-'

  'I hate old giants,' said Cherry's critical public; and her voice grew melancholy.

  'But this one had but one eye. Come, do listen; papa told me. He was in an island-' but the voice grew mournful, and was broken by a cry.

  'Oh! Fulbert hurt me!'

  'Fulbert, for shame! What is it, Angel dear?'

  'I only laid hold of her pudding arm,' growled Fulbert. 'Oh! I say, Felix, that's too bad!'

  'Hold your row, I say,' said Felix, after his application of fist law. 'Hollo! what's that?' and he sprang to his feet with Angela in his arms, as the door was opened by a hand groping, and Mr. Audley's voice said, 'Darkness visible.'

  There was a general scrambling up all over the floor, and Edgar rushed across to light a candle. Wilmet alone had not stirred, as Bernard lay asleep across her lap. The flash of the match revealed a mass of light disordered heads, and likewise a black figure in the doorway.

  'Here is a kind helper for you, Wilmet,' said Mr. Audley, 'from St. Faith's, at Dearport. You must call her Sister Constance.'

  Wilmet did rise now, in some consternation, lifting her little brother, whose hand was still in the locks, the tangling of which had been his solace. There was a sweet warm kiss on her brow, and her lost net was picked up, her hair coiled into it by a pair of ready tender hands, but she faltered, 'Oh, thank you. Does Mamma know?'

  'She was there when I got a sort of consent from your father,' said Mr. Audley.

  'She has not said a word,' said Alda, half resentfully. 'We have hardly been in all day except just to fetch and carry.'

  'Never mind,' said the Sister, 'it is much better that she did not think about it. Now, my dear, don't! I won't have anything done for me. You don't know how we Sisters sleep on nothing when we do sleep.'

  'But you'll have some tea,' said Alda, the only smooth-haired one of the party.

  'When you do, perhaps, thank you. Will you come to me, my dear!' relieving Felix from Angela. 'What is your name?' and the child, though ordinarily very shy, clung to her at once; while she, moving over to Cherry, found her in tears, shook up her cushion, arranged her rug, and made her comfortable in a moment. A sense came over them all that they had among them a head on whom they might rest their cares; and as the black bonnet and veil were taken off, and they saw a sweet fair, motherly face beaming on them from the white plain- bordered cap, they gathered round with an outpouring of confidence, small and great, while Mr. Audley went upstairs to announce what he had done. He presently returned, saying, 'All right! Perhaps you had better come up at once.'

  There they sat, on either side of the hearth, he pillowed up and in a dressing-gown, more entirely the sick man than he had ever before given up himself to be. Mrs. Underwood rose, and with tears in her eyes, mutely held out her hand, while her husband at once recognised Sister Constance as Lady Herbert Somerville, the wife of the late rector of Dearport. He had last met her when, some six or seven years before he had been invited to preach at festivals at Dearport, and had seen her the sunbeam of her house. He knew that her husband, who was a connection of Mr. Audley's, had since died of the same malady as his own, and had left her, a childless widow, together with all else he had to leave, to the Sisterhood they had already founded in the seaport town. But his greeting was, 'This is very good in you; but surely it must be too painful for you.'

  'The Superior saw how much I wished it,' she said.

  'You are like Alexandrine de la Ferronays,' he said, remembering her love for tending a consumptive priest for her husband's sake.

  'I am always wishing that I were!' she said.

  So they perfectly understood each other, and poor Mrs. Underwood, who had, in her new and extraordinary petulance, fiercely resisted the doctor's recommendation of a nurse, found herself implicitly relying on and trusting Sister Constance with a wonderful sense of relief-a relief perhaps still greater to the patient himself, who had silently endured more discomforts and made more exertions than she knew, rather than tire her or vex her by employing even son or daughter, and who was besides set free from some amount of anxiety.

  Indeed the widow had too perfect a sympathy to interfere with the wife's only comfort. When it could safely be done, she left the two alone together, and applied herself to winning the hearts and soothing the spirits of the poor children downstairs, and suggesting and compounding new nourishing delicacies.

  She even persuaded Mrs. Underwood to go to the next room for a night's rest while she sat up, and learnt-what the silent wife had never told any one-how trying the nights were even to that spirit! At first the patient liked to talk, and drew out much of the hidden treasure of her spirit respecting her husband, who, though ailing for years, had finally passed away with only the immediate warning of a week-the final cause being harass from the difficulties from those above and below him that beset an earnest clergyman of his way of thinking.

  What struck her, as it did all, was Mr. Underwood's perfect absence of all care, and conviction that all the burthen was taken off his hands. Her own husband had, as she could not help telling him, found it hard to resign himself to leaving his plans half carried out to instruments which he had but half formed. He had wished with all his might to live, and though he had resigned himself dutifully, it had been with a real struggle, and a longing for continued service rather than rest, a hope that he should more efficiently serve, and much difficulty in refraining from laying all about him under injunctions for the future.

  Mr. Underwood half smiled. 'I am neither head nor principal,' he said. 'Plans have been over long ago. I am only tired out, too tired to think about what is to follow. If I live three days longer I shall have just had my forty years in the wilderness, and though it has blossomed like a rose, I am glad to be near the rest.'

  And then he asked for the Midnight Office; and afterwards came fitful sleep, half dreamy, half broken by the wanderings of slight feverishness and great weakness; but she thought her attendance would not be very brief, and agreed mentally with what Mr. Audley had told her, that the doctor said that the end might yet be many weeks away. When in the dark winter's mornings the wife crept back again to her post, and all that could be done in those early hours had been effected, Sister Constance went to the half-past seven o'clock service with Felix and Clement, imparting to them on the road that the Superior of St. Faith's was expecting to receive some of the least of the children in the course of the day, to remain there for the present.

  Both boys declared it would be an infinite relief, but they doubted exceedingly whether either father or mother would consent to lose sight of them, si
nce the former never failed to see each child, and give it a smile and kiss, if no more. If they were to be sent, Felix supposed there was no one but himself to take them; nobody with whom they would be happy could be spared, nor did he show any repugnance to the notion of acting pere de famille to three babies on the railway.

  It was quickly settled. Mr. Underwood at once confessed the exceeding kindness, and declared it to be much better for everybody. 'Do you not feel it so, Mother?'

  She bent her head in assent, as she did to all he said.

  'Having them back will be good for you,' he added persuasively; and again she tried to give a look of response. So they were brought- Robina, Angela, and Bernard-and each stood for a moment on a chair at his bedside. The two little ones he merely kissed and blessed, but to Robina he said a few more words about being good, and minding Mamma and Felix.

  'Oh yes, papa! And they'll have a Christmas tree! and I'll save all my bon-bons to make your cough well.'

  He watched wistfully as the bright heads passed out of sight, and the long struggling cough and gasping that followed had all the pangs of parting to add to their burthen. Half the family escorted Felix and his charge to the station, and in the quiet that followed, Sister Constance had a good sleep on Wilmet's bed, as much, she said, as she ever required; and she came from it all freshness and brightness, making the dinner-time very charming to all the diminished party, though Wilmet felt greatly lost without the little ones; and afterwards she earned the warmest gratitude from Edgar and Geraldine by looking over their drawings and giving them some valuable hints- nay, she even devised the new and delightful occupation of ship- building for those three inconvenient subjects, Clement, Fulbert, and Lancelot. Upstairs or down, all was gentle cheerfulness and patience wherever she went.