Westward Ho! with a rumbelow,And hurra for the Spanish Main O!
Westward Ho! with a rumbelow,And hurra for the Spanish Main O!
I was enthralled. The idea of a story, of a narrative of doings that never took place, of invented events, had never entered my head. Goldilocks, Rumplestiltskin and Little Red Riding Hood were not of my world. I had never begged "Tell me a story," nor heard the magical antiphone "Once upon a time."
Had Grandmother ever heard of Westward Ho!? Did she know there were books like this; true, yet about familiar places? Surely she must. Would she approve? I doubted for a moment, remembering the picture-book Uncle John had once sent to me, which Aunt Jael destroyed while my Grandmother looked on consenting; but was reassured by the godly sentiments which I found everywhere: by familiar phrases, even on the second page, such as "heathen Roman and Popish tyranny." Were there other books like this? If so, I should like to read them. Were they about the Indies too? A world of ideas possessed me, a new planet had swum into my skies. I read hard, wildly. I woke up at four that I might have a good long read before getting up; I went to my bedroom at odd hours of the day to snatch a few moments' delight.
One day just after dinner Uncle Simeon came in in his usual noiseless cat-like way. I just had time to stuff the book under the mattress and to begin pretending to do my hair. He did not seem to have seen anything.
I began to compare or contrast everything I read with myself or my own experiences. Flogging, for instance,—as practised by Sir Vindex Brimblecombe, whilom servitor of Exeter College, Oxford, and master of the Grammar School of Torribridge. I read with interest that flogging is the "best of all punishments" (I inclined to doubt this), "being not only the shortest" (indeed!) "but also a mere bodily and animal punishment" (whymere?), "though for the punisher himself pretty certain to eradicate from all but the noblest spirits every trace of chivalry and tenderness for the weak, as well as all self-control and command of temper." How true! How Aunt Jael's chivalry had waned! How Uncle Simeon's tenderness for the weak had withered and wilted away! Surely this book too was inspired. I enjoyed Amyas' encounter with Sir Vindex Brimblecombe. I loved to read how Sir Vindex jumped up, ferula in hand, and exhorted Amyas to "come hither, sirrah,and be flayed alive"; how the latter "with a serene and cheerful countenance" took up his slate, and brought it down on the skull of Sir Vindex "with so shrewd a blow" that slate and pate cracked on the same instant, and Sir Vindex dropped down upon the floor and "lay for dead." Oh vicarious joy, oh borrowed plumes of valour that I wore for that incident! I shut my eyes and visualized Aunt Jael in the stead of Sir Vindex Brimblecombe. "Minx!" she said (not sirrah), as she advanced upon me "stick in hand," for although I did not know what a ferula was, I felt it was somewhat too light and lissom a description of thorned stick or ship's rope. How I envied Amyas' "serene and cheerful countenance" and revelled in the crash. I rehearsed the scene also with Uncle Simeon in the villain's part and with an even dearer joy brought down the avenging slate on his honey-coloured coxcomb.
To every character in the book I tried to give a face. Amyas, the hero, was my difficulty; I had met no heroes. Don Guzman I pictured as Uncle Simeon, though statelier and nobler. Mrs. Leigh was naturally Mrs. Lee, my Grandmother; in name and character alike. Salvation Yeo I pictured as Brother Brawn, Frank Leigh,—tall, pale and distinguished—was of course the Stranger. I did not care very much for the Rose of Torridge herself, and had little interest in any of the ladies' doings. Theirs was a secondary part. They did not do things themselves; they stayed at home in Torribridge to think about and wait for and be loved by the men who did the valiant deeds. Love affairs, so-called, failed to interest me at all, though the passionate affection between Mrs. Leigh and her sons made me husky and envious. It never occurred to me to visualize myself as Rose; if I took any part it was Amyas'.
I was much interested in the description of Christmas Day. "It was the blessed Christmas afternoon. The light was fading down; the even-song was done; and the good folks of Torribridge were trooping home in merry groups, the father with his children, the lover with his sweetheart, to cakes and ale, and flap-dragons and mummers' plays, and all the happy sports of Christmas night." WhyblessedChristmas afternoon, I wondered? Was the word used in Mrs. Cheese's naughty sense or Miss Glory Clinker's noble one? In either case Ididn't see how it applied to the hideous 25th of December at Bear Lawn.
I was pleased with the sound views on Popery, described as frantic, filthy, wily, false, cruel. Papists were skulkers, dogs, slanderers, murderers, devils. To be brought up by Catholics was to be taught the science of villany on the motive of superstition, to learn that "all love was lust" and all goodness foul. A Romanist was not a man, but a thing, a tool, a Jesuit. I did not understand it all, but I approved highly. That bigotry which mars the book in the eyes of fair-minded men was the quality that sealed it with the mark of virtue in my zealot eyes. Critics (I have since learnt) forgive the slanderous religious hate of this book for the sake of the fresh spirit and the fine story: I excused these dangerous delights to my conscience and to my Grandmother's conscience by the author's pious attitude towards Rome and error. I felt that the book, in spite of the wild pleasure it gave me, must nevertheless be godly, because of the pious plenitude with which it anathematized the Bad Old Man of the Seven Hills, the Scarlet Woman, the Great Whore of Babylon, the Blatant Beast, the great HIM-HER. There was self-deceiving here.
The story was the thing: the most chivalrous adventure of the good ship "Rose"; how they came to Barbados, and found no men therein; how they took the pearls at Margarita; what befell at La Guayra; Spanish Bloodhounds and English Mastiffs; how they took the Communion under the tree at Higuerote; the Inquisition in the Indies; the banks of the Meta; how Amyas was tempted of the devil; how they took the gold train. I lived in a world of gold and silver, ships and swords, Dons and Devils. I saw the great Cordillera covered with gigantic ferns, and the foamless blue Pacific. I caught my breath as I stumbled on the dim ruins of dead Indian Empires; and I wiped my eyes when I read of Salvation Yeo and his little maid. I liked to read of the Queen of England, of Drake, Raleigh and Sir Richard Grenville, Devon men all, and John Oxenham swaggering along Torribridge Quay. I was interested most of all by Don Guzman, with his sweet sonorous voice, his woman's grace and his golden hair, as of a god. He had been everywhere and seenall. He knew the two Americas, the East Indies and the West, Old Spain, the seven cities of Italy, the twilight-coloured Levant and the multitudinous East....
I skimmed through each chapter quickly, and then read it slowly to drink in every word. Excitement of another kind was added by the difficulties of reading; I had to stop sometimes in the middle of an exciting passage and hide the book hastily away, when I heard Uncle Simeon on the staircase. However, I managed to get three-quarters way through without mishap: as far as the attack on the gold train. Amyas and his men were hiding in the forest. The long awaited Spaniards and their treasure were just in sight. "Suddenly"—my heart beat fast, then stood still at the sound of a stealthy foot-fall. The door opened and Uncle Simeon came in. I had no time to stuff the book under the mattress properly. I leaned against the place where the clothes were ruffled and pretended to be making my bed. This, I thought bitterly, was the only sort of excitement my life afforded: not splendid bravery and adventure in South American forests but mere feeble cunning to save myself from this whey-faced cringing wretch. He smiled blandly.
"Your aunt wants you to go for a walk with her," he said.
He tried to appear unconcerned, but I feared he had seen something. The moment he had gone I hid the book carefully under the mattress, right in the very middle of the bed. When I came back from the walk with Aunt Martha I went straight up to my room.The book was not there.My first rage at losing my treasure gave place, upon reflection, to fear. What would he do? At tea he smiled in a sneering way and said "What is worrying you, little one? You are pale." His manner frightened me. The very fact that he said nothing about the matter was unusual and presaged something exceptionally bad. Would he use the whip, or make the worst of it to Aunt Jael and Grandmother? And what had he done with the book? The answer to these questions, though I did not know it till much later, is lying before me as I write. It is written on faded yellow paper, in a neat hand, with old-fashioned pointed characters.
No 1, The Quay,Torribridge,Sept. 17th 1858.Dear Kinswomen and Sisters in the Lord,—One hopes the fine weather the Lord is sending finds both of you as well in body and mind and as thankful in spirit for our manifold blessings from above as I rejoice to say it finds dear Martha and one's own poor self. Dear little Mary too is well: the happy result of the good air of Torribridge and of the plenteous, if plainly, fare one's table affords. But the little one is not, alas, so thankful in spirit as her Aunt and oneself could wish. She has just done a deed which displays but poor gratitude, dear sisters, for your loving spiritual training of her early years and for one's own godly, if humble, care. She has, alas, committed a grievous sin; though it pains one to speak thus, one had best speak openly. A grievous sin—one shrinks from writing the words, but there is one's duty to you, to the child, to her aunt and to one's own afflicted self. The facts are these.Yesterday one found her in her bedchamber—a homely if humble apartment to which one has always trusted her to retire at will—one found her in the act of reading avile and worldly book. She hid it craftily under the bed-clothes when she heard one coming into the room as one chanced to do the other day. One let her see plainly one had detected all, looking at her sadly, as though to say "Ah, if Miss Vickary and dear Mrs. Lee knew what a viper they have nourished in their respective bosoms!", and gave her one more chance to conquer her sin by herself and destroy the noisome thing. But no! "As a dog returneth to his vomit so a fool to his folly" (Prov. xxvi, II—your own favourite Proverbs, dear Miss Vickary)—and yesterday once again found her flushed with the carnal pleasure of those evil pages. One opened the book, not without a silent prayer that the Lord would cleanse one from its touch. Feeling it one's plain, if painful, duty to see more clearly the nature of the evil thing, one perused a few pages. One found it to be alicentious novel, treating of haughty women "with stretched-forth necks and wanton eyes" (Isaiah iii, 16), of men who spend their days "in rioting and drunkenness, chambering and wantonness (Romans xiii, 13) and of drunkards, roisterers, sinners and blasphemers. Here and there the writer, who is, one is told, a Church of England minister in this town—so what could one hope?—strives to beguile the unwary by striking a godly attitude towards Rome. Sounding brass and tinkling cymbals—wolfish pretence to lead poor sheep astray. There is even worse than this; foul and wanton language abounds. A bad word on page 74 pained one much.Nothing has been said to the child yet, awaiting your wishes. One hopes you will not wish her to be punishedtooseverely. "Whom the Lord loveth he correcteth!" (Prov. iii, 12). One knows! one knows! Yet forgiveness may do much. One's heart shrinks from blows; nothing but the direst sin ever drives one to bodily correction. No! One willsimply burn the book before her, add a few godly words and read a Psalm together.Apart from this, the child's spiritual state is not without hope, but she is a tree that needs careful pruning, if she is to take up her cross, as one hopes, in the foreign field. She holds special place in our hearts (dear Martha's and one's own), nor do we cease to pray for her. God has blessed her in the past, and bestowed many gifts and advantages, but one longs to know that she has received better things than this poor world can give, even joy and peace, the result of sin forgiven and the assurance of eternal life by faith in God's Son as revealed in His Word. You will bear with one in speaking thus. One's love for her is great, and one dares to hope, dear Mrs. Lee, that your regard for one's self is considerable too, when you compare one with that other son-in-law, whose evil qualities, alas, seem to be showing in his little daughter despite her Christian environment.Our Meetings lately have been very helpful. A new sister has been won from Error; formerly a Wesleyan Methodist, a Miss Towl. Am deriving great consolation from a careful study of the prophet Joel.Forgive the length of this letter; one would have come to Tawborough had not the Lord's work detained one. Accept Martha's loving greetings and believe me in the Brotherhood of the Lord,One who is less than the least of all the Saints,Simeon Greeber.P.S. The poor wayward child refuses to tellhowshe came by the abomination. It was new, so she must have bought it in a shop where such things are sold. Her money should be watched. Little though she is so wisely allowed, would it not be better for one to take charge of it, to ensure that it be not spent in sin?P.P.S. Hoping that the Lord is granting you both the best of health and strength. Dear little Albert has a slight touch of quinsy, but this is yielding to treatment and prayer.
No 1, The Quay,Torribridge,Sept. 17th 1858.
Dear Kinswomen and Sisters in the Lord,—
One hopes the fine weather the Lord is sending finds both of you as well in body and mind and as thankful in spirit for our manifold blessings from above as I rejoice to say it finds dear Martha and one's own poor self. Dear little Mary too is well: the happy result of the good air of Torribridge and of the plenteous, if plainly, fare one's table affords. But the little one is not, alas, so thankful in spirit as her Aunt and oneself could wish. She has just done a deed which displays but poor gratitude, dear sisters, for your loving spiritual training of her early years and for one's own godly, if humble, care. She has, alas, committed a grievous sin; though it pains one to speak thus, one had best speak openly. A grievous sin—one shrinks from writing the words, but there is one's duty to you, to the child, to her aunt and to one's own afflicted self. The facts are these.
Yesterday one found her in her bedchamber—a homely if humble apartment to which one has always trusted her to retire at will—one found her in the act of reading avile and worldly book. She hid it craftily under the bed-clothes when she heard one coming into the room as one chanced to do the other day. One let her see plainly one had detected all, looking at her sadly, as though to say "Ah, if Miss Vickary and dear Mrs. Lee knew what a viper they have nourished in their respective bosoms!", and gave her one more chance to conquer her sin by herself and destroy the noisome thing. But no! "As a dog returneth to his vomit so a fool to his folly" (Prov. xxvi, II—your own favourite Proverbs, dear Miss Vickary)—and yesterday once again found her flushed with the carnal pleasure of those evil pages. One opened the book, not without a silent prayer that the Lord would cleanse one from its touch. Feeling it one's plain, if painful, duty to see more clearly the nature of the evil thing, one perused a few pages. One found it to be alicentious novel, treating of haughty women "with stretched-forth necks and wanton eyes" (Isaiah iii, 16), of men who spend their days "in rioting and drunkenness, chambering and wantonness (Romans xiii, 13) and of drunkards, roisterers, sinners and blasphemers. Here and there the writer, who is, one is told, a Church of England minister in this town—so what could one hope?—strives to beguile the unwary by striking a godly attitude towards Rome. Sounding brass and tinkling cymbals—wolfish pretence to lead poor sheep astray. There is even worse than this; foul and wanton language abounds. A bad word on page 74 pained one much.
Nothing has been said to the child yet, awaiting your wishes. One hopes you will not wish her to be punishedtooseverely. "Whom the Lord loveth he correcteth!" (Prov. iii, 12). One knows! one knows! Yet forgiveness may do much. One's heart shrinks from blows; nothing but the direst sin ever drives one to bodily correction. No! One willsimply burn the book before her, add a few godly words and read a Psalm together.
Apart from this, the child's spiritual state is not without hope, but she is a tree that needs careful pruning, if she is to take up her cross, as one hopes, in the foreign field. She holds special place in our hearts (dear Martha's and one's own), nor do we cease to pray for her. God has blessed her in the past, and bestowed many gifts and advantages, but one longs to know that she has received better things than this poor world can give, even joy and peace, the result of sin forgiven and the assurance of eternal life by faith in God's Son as revealed in His Word. You will bear with one in speaking thus. One's love for her is great, and one dares to hope, dear Mrs. Lee, that your regard for one's self is considerable too, when you compare one with that other son-in-law, whose evil qualities, alas, seem to be showing in his little daughter despite her Christian environment.
Our Meetings lately have been very helpful. A new sister has been won from Error; formerly a Wesleyan Methodist, a Miss Towl. Am deriving great consolation from a careful study of the prophet Joel.
Forgive the length of this letter; one would have come to Tawborough had not the Lord's work detained one. Accept Martha's loving greetings and believe me in the Brotherhood of the Lord,
One who is less than the least of all the Saints,
Simeon Greeber.
P.S. The poor wayward child refuses to tellhowshe came by the abomination. It was new, so she must have bought it in a shop where such things are sold. Her money should be watched. Little though she is so wisely allowed, would it not be better for one to take charge of it, to ensure that it be not spent in sin?
P.P.S. Hoping that the Lord is granting you both the best of health and strength. Dear little Albert has a slight touch of quinsy, but this is yielding to treatment and prayer.
The flattering creeping hound! His letter describes him better than any words of mine. At the time I knew nothing of it; I was merely uneasy and wondered why nothing was happening.
A few days later, just as we had finished evening prayers, he called me over to the fireside and said, "There's a duty to the Lord, little one, and to your dear Great-Aunt and Grandmother that has to be fulfilled. One has their orders and one's Lord's to obey." He rummaged in his cupboard and brought forth my dear book. He looked at me, the lowest meanest triumph in his eyes, then flung the book savagely into the midst of the flames. In the fire-light he looked livid with spite. "So shall they burn who go a-whoring after strange gods," he hissed.
How I hated him. Yet for a moment as the dear book burned, I did not think of him. I was wondering how Amyas captured the Gold Train, and if Salvation Yeo found his little maid, and what the Stranger would say if I met him again.
More than ever I lived in the world of my own imagination.
Every day and a good part of every night—for I rarely fell asleep till one or two o'clock—I was thinking, worrying, brooding, planning, dreaming. I too would sail to the Indies and the lands of hidden gold, gleaning fame which would help me to bear Aunt Jael's taunts with silent scorn, and wealth which I could fling in her face as clanging and triumphant rejoinder to "Ipay for the child's music." I would succour the oppressed Indians, free the slaves, overthrow the Inquisition, and bring each and all into the Brethren fold; baldly unaware that these things belonged to centuries past. To right the wrong was important; the all-important was thatIshould do it. But was it possible to a girl? Could even a grown woman do such things? Sailors were always men, shipwrecked mariners were always men, adventurers were always men. Bright deeds were the monopoly of breaches. It was not fair.
I would think of Mrs. Cheese's friend, poor old Robinson Crewjoe. I invented many desert islands of my own on which I was duly shipwrecked, was for ever drawing new maps of them, showing streams, creeks, bays and hills, position of my principal residence, summer bower, landing-spot of savages, position of wreck, etc., etc. I devised walks, expeditions, explorations; I varied my menu with a feminine skill unknown to old Robinson; and always, as befitted our morally-minded race, I would do good in my islands. I would justify my joy by works. I would convert the savages, and build a Meeting Room of clay and wattles. I would raid their Great God Benamuckee in his mountain fastness, burn him with ceremonial state, and thus atone for my own memorable blasphemy. But the chief joy, alas, of my twenty years' sojourning was never so much in what I did as in announcing to the world that I had done it; not in the good I wrought, but in the praise I should earn. Those twenty years of playing the shipwrecked sea-woman must be lit up by theglare of fame with which I should burst upon the world when at last some well-timed passing schooner restored me to the world. Horrible thought: suppose I, died there? It was not, for the moment, the idea of death that chilled me—for He chills everywhere—but the thought of the glory I should lose by dying before my adventures had astonished the world. And the sex trouble again. Would trousers (if I wore them) however masculine, however bifurcative, enable me to build huts, to shoot, fish, hunt and to fight savages as well as a man? My inability to do these manly things, however, deterred me little in my dreams. The castle-in-the-air-builder may build beyond her bricks.
At this time Uncle Simeon was naturally my most frequent actor. I fashioned a dozen different things I should discover about him and his attic, and a dozen different ways I should discover them. Sweetest of all were visions of revenge. He was a papist in disguise; I had him handed over to a kind of Protestant Holy Office, set up for his own peculiar benefit, of which I was Grand Inquisitress; I was not stingy with my bolts and nuts and prongs and screws; my soul spared not for his crying. A great pitched battle between Aunt Jael and Uncle Simeon was mypièce de résistance. Their hatred for each other was the fiery basis of the vision, my hatred for both of them the fuel. He would swish and she would bang. I let both of them be hurt, while I grudged to each of them the joy of hurting. If anybody won the battle it would be Aunt Jael; for my hatred of her was comparatively a mild thing, a healthy human thing, just as she was a healthy, cruel, humanly bad old woman, a mere wild beast in comparison to this Greeber reptile. I preferred a long long struggle of evenly matched sneers, retorts, cuts and blows, which went on hour after hour until both were bleeding, bruised and utterly exhausted: grimmest of drawn battles. Then I would step in as lofty mediator with the blessed aureole of peace-maker about my head, the pain and weakening of both my enemies for reward. (The same dream the Third Napoleon dreamt a few years later with Austria and Prussia in the rôles of Uncle Simeon and Aunt Jael: rudely shattered, was it not, by that swift Sadowa? But the Saviour of Society could not work his dream figures at will.)
In most of my picturings either I was alone, or dealing with enemies, some of whom, like Eternity, got the better of me, and others, like Uncle Simeon and Aunt Jael, over whom I triumphed. I shared no castle with a friend. A friend! Aunt Martha, Albert, Uncle Simeon?—I saw no one else. No visitor ever came to the house.
I was astonished therefore when the portents announced one. One afternoon I heard a noise of shifting in one of the unoccupied bedrooms. I looked in, and saw all the disarray of cleaning, with Aunt Martha and the charwoman, Miss Woe, getting the room into order. Was it merely an autumn spring-cleaning, or was somebody coming to stay? I peeped in again next morning. There were clean sheets, the bed was turned down, there was water in the ewer. Grandmother or Aunt Jael? No; I heard from Tawborough every week. Prolonged visit of Mr. Nicodemus Shufflebottom? No: it would wring Uncle Simeon's heart to revive the possibility of that nightmare breakfast of eggandbacon Aunt Martha had dared to put before him. After the day's walk, I looked in at the bedroom again on my way down to tea. Oh mystery, there was a long black trunk, studded with brass nails and bearing in new white paint the superscription: R.P.G. A small cap and overcoat thrown on the bed revealed the age and sex of the new comer. I went down to the dining-room, and found him seated at the tea-table.
"Master Robert," said Uncle Simeon; introducing us in the honeyed voice he used before you knew him, "this is Mary. You may come forward, little one. This is Master Robert."
Handshake was followed by the furtive silence during which children stare at each other while vainly pretending to look elsewhere. Master Robert being the shyer, pretended more than he stared: I, being even more curious than shy, stared more than I pretended. I saw a healthy boy's face with big brown eyes, a head of chestnut coloured hair and a brown velvet suit, the last very impressive. I guessed he was about my own age, though he was taller and bigger. All through tea I stared at him with merest snatches of polite pretence. This was the first time I had ever sat at the same table with any boy, except Albert. The latter did not appear to sharehis father's obsequious delight in the new-comer, over whom Uncle Simeon sat fawning.
I know now that he was a handsome little boy, but doubt if I thought so then. If I did, I was too jealous to admit it to myself. I felt I was an odd drab little object by the side of this healthy, well-dressed and superior being, as far above me as I above Susan Durgles. His rich velvet suit, my old grey merino; his laughing, tan-coloured face and brown happy eyes; my pinched white face and cat-green eyes: he was something better and richer and finer and happier than I was, and I did not like him. Little girls, they say, are never never jealous of little boys' good looks, and the only people whose looks they envy are the other little girls with whom they are competing for the favour of the good-looking little boys. It may be so. I was pitiably ignorant of the proper sentiments. My world was divided not into sexes but into two classes divided far more deeply: myself and other people. The second class was mostly cruel and unkind, so every new-comer was suspect. Master Robert's fine poise, his colour, his health, the curve of his mouth, the velvet suit (I could not take my eyes from it, what wealth, what prestige, it betokened!) were all against him, and more so the favour with which he was regarded by Uncle Simeon. He was shy; I could stare him out easily. I fell to wondering who he was and why he was here.
Robert Grove was the younger brother of Aunt Martha's old pupil (who had died some years back) and the orphan heir to a fine house and estate the other side of Tiverton. Nearly all his relatives were dead except a bachelor uncle, Vivian Grove, Esquire, with whom he lived at the latter's house near Exeter. Uncle Vivian was travelling abroad for a few months and had put Robert here in his absence. Aunt Martha was known to and respected by Mr. Grove as the old governess of his elder nephew, though if he had known the kind of house she lived in now he would have hardly sent Master Robert there with so light a heart. The arrangements must have been made through friends or by correspondence, as Mr. Grove never entered our house and Aunt Martha never went away to see him.
Robert did lessons with Albert and me, and the three of us went our walks together. Uncle Simeon fawned on the new-comer and was by comparison sharper than ever with me; until, seeing that Robert did not like this, he pretended to treat me better. He did not want to offend Robert, who might write to his Uncle Vivian, and ask to be sent somewhere else. To make sure of keeping Robert's board money, he had to curb somewhat his dislike for me. Greed vanquished spite, or rather, while profit was a thing it must be his present endeavour to retain, spite would wait. For greed's sake he fawned sickeningly upon the boy; a few kicks in dark corners and pinches as he passed me on the stairs sufficed for the present as tribute to spite. Albert and Robert were on bad terms from the start; Albert disliked him as I did, for his better clothes and superior ways, and more bitterly, "for sneaking up to father." Robert despised Albert. Albert tried to win my alliance against him by treating me better. I accepted his advances while knowing their motive and value.
Master Robert and I had not much to say to each other. Despite my jealousy, I could see how much better and kinder-faced he was than Albert, but I could not like him, as he was "in" with Uncle Simeon. The very fact that his face was good made me despise him the more for liking Uncle Simeon; I felt he was a traitor. He could not be "very much of it" or he would show much more plainly than he did what he thought of Uncle Simeon's treatment of me. This I could see upset him, but he was too cowardly to say so. On the other hand, he knew nothing of the sly slaps and dark-corner kicks with which his dear friend favoured me. Jealousy was kept alive by the better treatment he got in the way of food and everything else, which he seemed to take for granted. Yet if the facts of the case were against him, instinct spoke on the other side. I knew that any one whose eyes looked at you in the same kind way as my Grandmother's must, like her, be kind and good. I argued that he was horrid, I felt that he was kind. I was as sure he did not treat me well as I was that I would like it if he did. Once he made friendly advances. I shied off; toady to a toady of Uncle Simeon's? Never! When I had rebuffed him, I began to reproach him with not making further efforts at friendliness. If he really wanted to,he would try again. If I had been a jolly little girl with fine clothes, curly hair and dark bright eyes, he would be trying all day long. Why were these allurements denied me, why had I no single attractive quality?
Now if ever in all recorded history there was a little girl ignorant of the bare existence of boy and girl sentiment and of all the normal notions that ordinary books, playmates and surroundings give to children, I was that little girl. Yet here at my first contact with a presentable young male of the human species, I was a-sighing for charms to lure him.
This struggle over the pros and cons of Master Robert raged within. We had little to say to each other. Uncle Simeon never left us alone together; watched us and made a careful third when Albert and Aunt Martha were not about. The first time we spoke to each other alone must have been two or three weeks after he came. Aunt and Uncle were both going out.
"Albert," he said, "don't you leave your cousin and Robert alone. Entertain them, you know, while one is out, you—ha ha!—are the master of the house."
As soon as Albert, leaning out of the window, had seen his father safely round the corner, he went out too, for communion I suppose with his unsaved friends.
"No sneaky tricks, mind!" he said to me, and looked the same injunction at Robert.
"Why does he talk like that?" said the latter, as soon as he was gone. We looked at each other. "Do—do youreallylike him?"
The implied tribute flattered me. I flung my new ally to the dogs.
"Not very much," I said.
"At all?"
"No, not at all—really."
"And—Mr. Greeber, do you like him?"
"Do youthinkI do? You know all right. Doyou?"
"No." He paused. "You don't like it here at all, do you?"
"Why?"
"Because you don't look as though you liked it": awkwardly.
"I know I don't look as though I liked it," I snapped. "I know I don't look anything nice! We can'talllook lovely.Youdon't look like I do, so what does it matter to you?Youhaven't much to abide.Youdon't get it all day long." Starving for sympathy I pushed it away.
"No—o. I know. But I'm sorry."
"Whyare you sorry?" I would hold out in the grim fortress of my loneliness, or I would taunt him to say something so plain, to attack so boldly, that he would force me to give in. I was holding out for a more complete surrender.
"Why?"
"Oh well, I don't know, because—I mean—I think—I like you. You are not really like he said you were. I never thought it."
I pounced. "Hesaid I was? What about him? What did he say? Tell me."
Aunt Martha came in and cut us short.
That night in bed, in my usual Think I found how much happier I was. I placed him high; excelling Miss Glory Clinker, equalling Brother Briggs and much nicer looking, nearing the Stranger, and falling short of my Grandmother only. That was my complete catalogue of friendly people. Yet why did he never take my part? Why had he not made it clearer to Uncle Simeon that he disliked him as he had told me he did, and disliked him most of all for ill-treating me? Over and above all, how could he sit at meals gorging himself on dainties and look calmly across the table at me with never enough to eat?
Since his arrival food had improved, but not for me. The contrast was the more marked. At breakfast for instance, Robert began with porridge, of course with sugar and milk, then he had an egg, usually poached on a piece of buttered toast; or a rasher of bacon with lovely bread fried in the fat, and laver; or perhaps mackerel done in butter. Then he had as many slices of bread and butter as he wanted, spread with some of Aunt Martha's home-made jam, whortleberry, raspberry or black currant (by what he was allowed to eat I gauged the mighty sum Uncle Vivian must be paying for board: I had no idea of money values but the sum must be vast, infinite). Uncle Simeon had much the same, less the jam. Albert was not only docked the jam, but his egg was merely boiled instead of poached and served on toast, or if it were bacon he had no laver and a much smaller piece of breadfried in the fat. There was a heavy drop to Aunt Martha, who had porridge, and bread and butter with jam. I came last of all with porridge and jamless bread and butter; very often not even the latter because of punishments or "mortifyings." Note the careful grading. Robert got the most: there was a purse behind him. Uncle Simeon's lavishness here was dictated by meanness: "If I feed the boy well, he stays; if he stays he pays." For himself he was torn as always between meanness and greed. He compromised shrewdly by foregoing his jam, which he did not care for overmuch. Meanness alone governed Albert's ration, so the King's son got less than the King. Aunt Martha received what her husband chose to allow her, as a good wife should. Spite as well as meanness apportioned to me, Hagar, least of all; though if my bigger portion of porridge were counted against her jam, Aunt Martha really fared no better than I did; and thin and pale she looked. Robert riled me most. It was natural for Uncle Simeon to be mean, greedy, vile. In Robert I felt it was wrong; like Methodies,he knew better. Kind brown eyes were all very well, but a poor set-off to a greedy little belly. One morning therefore when in the middle of breakfast, just as he was beginning his poached egg, Robert said he felt sick, I neither felt sorry nor pretended to. Justice at last! I hoped he would be very,verysick. Uncle Simeon followed him out, fawning.
"Look here child, eat this," said Aunt Martha passing me Robert's poached egg, "'twill do you good." Kindly but fearfully: her usual struggle. She declined to share it with me, so I accepted. I was just munching the last delicious yellow mouthful, when Robert came back, looking still pale, but better. He saw what had happened, and flushed crimson. He saw what I thought of him and flushed deeper.
That afternoon, when I was in my bedroom putting on my hat, there was a timid knocking. He walked in. I hardened my heart.
"I'm sorry about breakfast, Mary," he faltered. I knew his heart was beating fast.
"Breakfast? What do you mean,MasterRobert?"
"You know. The egg. I'm sorry—"
"Of course you are. Sorry I ate it."
He flushed. I developed a meticulous interest in a pincushion.
"No; sorry to see you eating it so hungrily. You know that's what I meant. Now I know it's all lies when he says eggs are bad for you and that you don't like them and you refuse them when he offers them and that you mustn't eat much of anything. It's all a lie, because he doesn't want you to eat things, because he hates you or because he's mean. I always thought it funny you never had nice things. I asked him three times and he said you were always taking medicine, and the doctor said you must eat very little and always very plain. You must have thought me horrid."
"I did. I'm sorry. Oh, the liar, the mean wretch, he dare tell you all that? Look here, we've begun now, haven't we, so I'm going to tell you what I know of him; everything. First you must answer a question. Do you just not like Uncle, or do you really hate him, hate him like this?" I clenched my fists and ground my teeth together.
"Yes,nowI do; he's never done anything to me, but I've liked him a bit less every day I've been here. Now I hate him, like you do."
"Well, I'll tell you, he's a mean, cruel, wicked man. He beats and cuffs and pinches me when you're not looking. He canes me till I bleed. He starves me so as to make as much money as he can out of what my Grandmother pays him. The first morning I came I said No, when he offered me one miserable spoonful of his egg. I've never touched one since, and he's told you all this about my not liking eggs at all. I do take medicine, but it's because I'm ill and don't get enough to eat. He's mean and he hates me, that's why he starves me: one as much as the other. He's nice to you because you're rich and important and have friends and relations. Do they pay a lot of money for you?"
"I don't know."
"They must do or you wouldn't get so much to eat. Oh, the beast, he's always talking as though he was so good and then he starves me and gives me sneakish blows in the dark. He praises the Lord with his lips and he's got the devil in hisheart. He flatters with his tongue, but his inward part is very wickedness—"
I stopped short, fancying I heard a noise outside, and looked out into the passage. There he was, skulking as usual, making pretence to rummage in a cupboard just outside the door.
"What are you doing, Uncle?" I asked weakly, very weakly.
"What areyoudoing, one asks."
"I just—opened the door...."
"Ah," he said, slipping away.
"Has he heard?" asked Robert fearfully.
"Every word. I don't care. He knows the truth now; he can't treat me worse than he has done. I hate him. Everything is hateful. All the world is against me always; 'tis all beating and starving and meanness and misery; and nobody loves me. I wish I'd never been born, I do, I do." I broke down and sat on the bed, sobbing bitterly.
"Don't, Mary," huskily, "everybody doesn't hate you, I don't." He sat beside me and put his arm on my shoulder.
That was the beginning of happiness.
I cried more than ever, but they were other tears.
"Don't cry, Mary, don't cry, please. I like you. Tell me you know I do. I'm going to do something, I'm going to help you somehow. I'll never touch another egg unless you do too, and if he stops mine, I'll write to Uncle Vivian and tell him why. I shall ask Uncle Vivian to let me go somewhere else as soon as I can; but you must get away first, you must ask your Grandmother to have you back with her right away. Mary dear, don't cry."
He was on the border line himself. He screwed a dirty little handkerchief into his eyes. The other arm was still on my shoulder. He was crying too. Then I comforted him, and found it a joy greater even than being comforted.
"We must go now," I said, getting up. "Come on,MasterRobert," smiling; smiling being a thing I achieved perhaps once a year.
"No, and don't say Robert either. Say Robbie. Uncle Vivian and all the people I like call me that."
There were two pairs of red eyes at the tea table that night,and one pair of steel blue ones which observed them. From that moment, the political situation of No. 1 the Quay was entirely transformed. In the field of domestic economy there was a more striking change still. Next morning, I almost reeled when a boiled egg was set before me, though as the porridge was cut down by nearly half, my Uncle spiced his defeat with triumph. Openly he treated me no worse, though he gave me a savage kick in the hall that night. I knew he was saving up for something dreadful. Once the mood of passion and defiance had passed away, I was more afraid of him than ever. He hated Robbie now, while striving not to show it. Robbie showed his feelings sometimes and was openly surly. The short-lived Albert-Maryententecollapsed once for all, shattered by the Mary-Robert alliance.
The new friendship caused a veritable revolution in all my ideas. Now, whenever I was brooding or thinking away in my usual bitter fashion, I would say to myself, "Think of it, quickly, quickly," and I would feel again his hand on my shoulder; he would comfort me and I him. I re-lived it over and over again. It was the first purely happy vision I had ever conjured up. To Robbie it meant much less. I decided he was a nice little boy, kind and decent-hearted; he had been sorry to see me unhappy and he had been glad to comfort me. It was an impulse; not more. He liked me, hepitiedme, but the whole thing meant very little to him.
One day a letter came from his Uncle Vivian.
He came to me joyfully. "Hurrah! Hurrah! I shall be going away soon. I'm ever so glad."
"In every way?" with a sneer; hungrily.
He flushed crimson, as we do when any one surprises us in thoughtless egotism; when another lays bare to us a selfishness we were too selfish to have seen. Or else it was the cruel injustice of what I said, or both: the good reason and the bad.
"You know I didn't mean that. When I get to Uncle Vivian I'll tell him to write to your Grandmother and tell her all about it and have you taken away. She'd listen to my uncle. But wait, you must get away from here before that. It would be dreadful if you were here alone for a bit between my goingand the time you'd be able to get away, if we waited for Uncle Vivian to write—"
"He'd kill me if he dared. Can't you write to Uncle Vivian now, so that he could write to my Grandmother at once? I can't write. Uncle Simeon reads all my letters to her."
"A letter of mine mightn't reach Uncle Vivian. The last time he wrote to me was from Paris in France; he said he was going further south for Christmas, that's somewhere much further away, and said I need not write again as he would be back for the New Year. We're quite near Christmas now, so it's too late. I'll tell you my plan. Now, the day I go away, Mr. Greeber is sure to be at the railway station to see me off. The minute we've left the house you must be dressed and ready to run away and walk back to Tawborough; your Grandmother couldn't be angry if you told her all about him. Then Uncle Vivian will write as soon as I see him, and you won't have been alone with Mr. Greeber in the house for a minute."
"'Tisn't Grandmother, 'tis Aunt Jael. And suppose only Uncle Simeon goes with you to the station to see you off. What about Albert and Aunt Martha? Besides, he'll make me come too. He'd do it to please you, knowing you'd like it, though out of spite he'd want me not to, because he knows I'd like to. It all depends whether he wants to be nice to you more than to be nasty to me. Nice to you, I think, most of the two, because he can be nasty enough to me the second you're gone."
"You could say you felt sick."
"That's a lie. Besides, that might make him want to make me come all the more, if he thought it would pain me or make me feel worse to come. I don't tell lies, if he does. Unless of course, Ireallyfelt sick. I could take something and make myself sick, and then 'twould be true. But then Aunt Martha would say she'd stay with me while the rest of you went to the railway station. No, the best thing is to pretend very much I'd like to come, which of course I would, and then he won't let me. You might pretend to quarrel with me the last day; that would help. The real trouble is Aunt Jael; she'd get into a frightful rage and send me back; and when I came back, 'twould be a hundred times worse. He'd kill me."
"You said your Aunt Jael hated Mr. Greeber. If she knew he'd like it, are you sure she'd send you back; when she knew too that you'd run away for fear of your life? I'm sure she wouldn't do that."
"You don't know her. No, my plan is this: to write a letter somehow to Grandmother, who'd talk to Aunt Jael and sort of prepare her for my running away. I'll write it in bed tonight, it's the only place I can where he's not watching me; and we'll post it tomorrow afternoon, sometime on the walk when Albert isn't looking. I'll tell my Grandmother about the canings, and how he half starves me. Aunt Jael hates him so much that I think there's a chance. Then I needn't run away at all. Grandmother would come to fetch me herself."
The letter was duly written that night. I jumped out of bed and hid it in the bottom of my chest of drawers, in a far corner of the drawer between two white cotton Chemises. It would be safe there till the next afternoon. After dinner next day I came up to put on my hat and to get the letter. I put my hand in the corner underneath the Chemises. The letter was not there! I pulled the top chemise right out. There the letter was after all, but at the other end of the chemise. It had been moved. The garment was only eighteen or twenty inches long, but I remembered perfectly I had put the letter at the outside-end of the drawer and now it was right at the other end of the chemise, near the middle of the drawer. Yet there was my handwriting, there was the envelope: no one had tampered with it. It must be my over-suspicious mind. Aunt Martha had been tidying my clothes, or putting the clean washing away and so had moved the letter without seeing anything.... We posted it that afternoon. In a couple of days came my Grandmother's reply.
The first sentence made my heart sick. "Your uncle writes me—tells me he has destroyed an untruthful letter, full of untruthful complaints that you had written me without his knowledge—how grieved he and your Aunt Martha are—how they do everything to make you happy—your Aunt Jael is grievously annoyed—your loving Grandmother is disappointed—Always come to me, my dear, for help, but don't give way to discontent so easily. Reflect always what your dear mother had to put up with. Take up thy cross and walk!"
This letter Uncle Simeon never asked to see, but he had had one for himself from my Grandmother by the same post. He said nothing, but looked at me from time to time with malicious triumph, meaning "Revenge is near; it will be sweet. Wait till this fine young friend of yours is out of the way. One has a whip, you remember, ha, ha, one has a whip!"
A few days later Robbie had a letter from his Uncle Vivian announcing his return to England for December 30th and arranging for Robbie to leave Torribridge on New Year's Eve, now only three weeks away.
New Year's Eve then was the day, and though I did eventually fly from Torribridge to Tawborough within a few hours of the time we fixed, it befell very differently from anything we had planned or foreseen.
Heaven was dark; yet the clouds at last had begun to break. For always, eternally, I could re-make the moments that had been, and live and cry and laugh and love it over again.
I pretended his arm was round me each night as I fell asleep.
"What do you do for Christmas?" asked Robbie a day or two later. "It's only a week tomorrow."
"What do you mean—dofor Christmas?"
"Why, people coming to stay, and a party perhaps. You know."
"What do you mean? The only party we ever had was on Aunt Jael's seventieth birthday and that's in August."
"It must be different at your house from anywhere else. People have a jolly sort of time, a lot of people in the house and that kind of thing."
"There was something about it in Westward Ho! the bookhestole from me and burned just before you came. It said something about 'happy sports and mummers' plays,' and cakes and ale and some word like flapdragons. It's what worldly people do, I suppose, and sinners, but not us; I've never heard of it with the Saints."
Robbie was too wise to attack priggery-piety in the open. "I don't know about all that. You do talk funnily; your Grandmother seems to be different from other people. Youmustknow all the special things you do at Christmas, all the special things you eat—"
"I don't. What are they?"
"Oh, roast goose and turkey and plum-pudding and mince pies. Then for tea the big Christmas cake, crammed with raisins and covered with almond paste and icing sugar with crystallized fruit on top and those little green bits like candied peel—not really candied peel, it's some name I forget, anyway it's nice. If you're a little boy you're allowed to stay in the dining-room all the same and eat all the walnuts and dates you want and drink a little port or madeira! What doyouhave for Christmas dinner?"
"Hash," I replied enviously, "and a roly-poly pudding with no jam, or hardly any, for afterwards."
Incredulity seemed to struggle with pity in his mind.
"I'm sorry. It sounds so funny. I didn't know there were people like that. The villagers are just the same. Mrs. Richards down at the Blue Dragon makes the biggest Christmas cake I've ever seen, lovely bluey-looking icing with preserved cherries in it, those big red ones, and almond paste an inch thick. Everywhere it's the great day in the year for feasting."
"Why?" I asked. "Why should Christmas Day be the great day for feasting? It's the day Jesus was born; why should that make people guzzle? A funny way of keeping His birthday, eating and drinking. I know what it is, it's what the Papists do: eat all day. That's it, it's Popish." My voice rose combatively in the good cause of plain and Protestant living, hash and heaven.
Weakly or wisely, he skirted the theological issue. "Don't be silly. Besides it's not only what you eat yourself. At Christmas time you always give a lot away to the poor people. Uncle Vivian gives heaps of logs and firewood and coal all round the village, and gives geese to the tenants and heaps of other things; giving things away is a good enough way of keeping Christmas, isn't it? There are presents. You get presents, don't you?"
"Never."
Here I was wrong, for on Christmas morning a parcel came addressed to Miss Mary Lee. It was the first I had ever received, except some new winter underclothes Grandma had sent me from Tawborough, and I undid it eagerly. Inside was a box of colours. I found from a little note inside the cover of the box that Great-Uncle John had sent me this in addition to his usual half-sovereign. This made me ponder. I had heard vaguely of his half-sovereign at long intervals of time, but had never thought of it in the light of a Christmas present. I had never seen or touched it; it was "put by" or otherwise dimly dealt with by Grandmother and Aunt Jael.
This box of colours was the finest thing I had yet possessed. No doubt the art of mixing paint was then in its infancy, and this box provided me with but a few of the simplest colours; no doubt a mere half crown box of today is superior both in number of colours and quality of paint. No doubt, butignorance was bliss; no such odious comparisons came to cloud my joy. I had never seen a paint box before except through a shop window; and now I had one in my own hands and was gloating with all the joy of proprietorship over the twelve little pans before me and the high adventurous names with which each was labelled.
Gamboge, yellow-ochre; cobalt, Prussian blue; green-bice, Hooker's green; carmine, crimson-lake; raw-sienna, burnt-sienna; sepia and ivory black. There was also a mysterious little tube tucked away in a niche at one end and labelled Chinese white, the contents of which oozed out when pressed, like a white tape-worm. These names were a delight. Carmine: the colour which Brother Quappleworthy painted his sins in discourse. Crimson-lake: which called up a vision of a great sea of Precious Blood with wave-crests of scarlet-foam.
Robbie had several presents: a box of soldiers, a picture book, some sweetmeats and money.
"That's much less than usual," he said, not too kindly. "I expect there's more waiting for me at Uncle Vivian's."
Albert was bare and giftless, for his half sovereign from Great-Uncle John meant no more to him than to me, being instantly put (or not put) into "the bank" by Uncle Simeon. He was naturally jealous, envied Robbie's wealth and luck, cursed his father's meanness in giving him nothing, reviled Uncle John for sending me the paint-box as well as the half sovereign, and to himself no corresponding extra. All this well distributed hostility he could vent on me alone. The means of his vengeance should be my solitary ewe-lamb. He waited his opportunity.
Robbie went out to dinner, invited by some friends of his uncle's. So Uncle Simeon brought a cane in to dinner, lodged it on the edge of the table, and allowed me to taste it now and then. I espied neither goose nor turkey, cakes nor ale, port nor madeira; though there was a much better pudding than usual, a suet one made in a basin with sultanas and citron peel which bore—alas!—an awful and edible likeness to the genuine popish article. After dinner Aunt Martha, who said she had a headache, retired to her bedroom to lie down, and later on Uncle Simeon went out, his big Bible under one arm and his big umbrella under the other, to expound the former to abedridden old female Saint he visited twice a week, a second cousin of Brother Atonement Gelder's.
Albert and I were left alone together in the dining-room. It was perhaps not more than three o'clock, but it was a cold, dark day and the room was already dusk. Uncle Simeon was hardly out of the house before Albert came up to the table at which I was just settling down to begin using my treasure, snatched the box away, dipped the biggest brush into my cup of water and began roughly digging it into the pans of colour. Then he splashed water over all the pans and made great wasteful daubs on the palette.
"Don't, Albert," I pleaded, "please don't."
"I shall, I shall—ugh" (his usual grunt), "nothing will happen to me if I do. It's no good your whining, I'm going to spoil it, out of spite! because I want to! Try sneaking to father if you dare. Ha, ha, I know what you told Robert Grove about father, nasty little sneaks and liars both of you. Father's on my side now, so you won't get much by going to him; and if you did I'd bang you afterwards."
He took up the cup and poured water into the box, smearing all the colours together with the brush. The little brute was ruining my treasure before my eyes. Appeal was useless, so I made a deft attempt to snatch. For reply he struck me heavily with his fist over the ear. I screamed out half in pain, half in rage, and made another snatch. This time, throwing the box on to the ground, he struck me on the shoulder with the full force of his fist and sent me flying. I fell down, half stunned for a moment, when another voice broke into the room.
"You beast, you brute," I heard—and saw Robbie, back sooner than we expected. He slammed the door behind him, went straight across the room to Albert, and tried to seize his arm.
"Here, you leave me alone. She hit me first, when I wanted to use her filthy paint box, and the mean cat said I shouldn't, and started snatching and scratching so I had to push her away."
"Oh, you liar!" I cried.
"Then she banged her paint box on the floor in her rage, and came for me again, then I punched her, and serve her right."
"'Tis all lies, lies, lies."
"Believe her, do you?" sneered Albert, lowering at Robbie, "she's a nice one to believe. Do you know what her father did? I do; ugh, ugh, she's a nice one like he was. Look here, just keep your hands off me."
Albert struck a first blow and the two boys were soon fighting like savages. My head was still aching from the two blows that Albert had given me; I forgot them and everything else in the excitement of the struggle. Blows on head, face and shoulders were exchanged. With every stout one Albert received I exulted; every one of Albert's that hurt Robbie hurt me too. Albert was sturdy and strong and even broader than Robbie; on the whole he was getting the best of it; I felt sick and apprehensive. I prayed fervently to God for Robbie to win, promising lordly penances and impossible virtues in return. I would give all my life and health to comforting the heathen if Robbie might win. I would be burnt or eaten alive—if Robbie might win. I employed all the magic I knew, and counted frenzied thirty-sevens between each blow—for luck to Robbie. Prayer is not always answered by return, and Albert's right fist now landed a heavy blow on Robbie's left ear, which nearly felled him; he tottered and paled. So did I as I resolved to intervene. I would fight till I fainted—to prevent Robbie being beaten. I clenched my teeth and hovered awkwardly nearer, wondering how to get in my first blow (or scratch)—when Robbie recovered suddenly and crashed with his fist between Albert's eyes. Now it was the latter's turn to stagger. My spirits rose. Now Albert picked himself up again. Both were battered. Robbie had a bleeding ear (to match my own), Albert a black eye and broken nose. The fight went on. Robbie began to get the upper hand; I could see the loser's look on Albert's face. "Robbie will win! Robbie will win!" said Instinct exulting. I thought for a moment of that tame fixture, Susan Durgles versus Seth Baker, when my main emotion was mere pity for Seth: water to the wine of joy now coursing through my veins as I watched Robbie pound Albert more victoriously every moment. Albert was now desperate, came closer, tried to grip Robbie and push him to the ground. For a moment prize fight turned to wrestling bout.
The harmony of a choir, singing carols on the Quay outside, fell suddenly on our ears. It may have been the Parish Church choir, or a glee party from the Wesleyan Chapel: sinners, in any case, as Miss Glory would have said. They were singing a carol with a friendly wave-like tune, merry, yet sad too, as Christmas songs should be:It came upon the midnight clear—though I did not know the words. The tune revived the fighting. The boys got free from each other's grip; blows were resumed. The end came at last with a swift, terrific stroke on Albert's shoulder, which knocked him flat. In a second Robbie was kneeling on his body and had pinioned his arms. The victim scowled, the victor showed modest pride, the spectator exulted like a savage.
"There now," said Robbie, "that's what you get for striking a girl. Worse another time. Say you're sorry you hit Mary. Say you were a brute."
Albert scowled, growled, made efforts to get free, failed.
"No good, you'll stay here till you say it; 'I'm sorry I hit Mary and I was a brute.'"
Albert wriggled again, perceived that all endeavours would be fruitless, and surrendered. "Well, then, you great bully. Sorry—hit—Mary—and—was—brute. There you are, now let me go."
"Not until you've made one more promise, 'I'll never hit Mary again.'"
For some reason Albert obeyed with alacrity this time. "I'll never strike Mary again."
Robbie released him, and walked towards the door saying shyly to me: "Come to my bedroom, and help bathe my face; it's awful."
I followed him upstairs. Just as we reached the landing Albert came out and shouted. "Ugh, you nasty beasts. I promised I'd never strike Mary again and I won't—never want to see her ugly face again—but I'll see that father does all right. This very night too, as soon as ever he comes in. He'll make you cringe and bleed; he'll make the flesh fly. You too, you bully, you overdressed flashy big—"
We went into Robbie's bedroom and stopped to hear no more.
"It's not much good," said Robbie, smiling mournfully, as he washed the blood from his ears and face, "because I shall get hurt much more when Mr. Greeber comes in. That beast downstairs is sure to set him on. I think he would dare to flog me this time, because he'd be able to say to Uncle Vivian that I'd half killed Albert."
"Yes, he'd say 'one felt it one's painful duty after young Master Robert's brutal attack on one's own dear son,' and that you had really hurt Albert. Which you have," I concluded with satisfaction.
"Still, it'll be nothing to what he'll do toyouif he gets you alone; so you must get away the same day as me; or sooner would be best."
"No, sooner wouldn't do, because then he'd flogyouworse; he'd be sure to know you'd helped me get away."
"Yes, my first plan is best; while they're at the station seeing me off you must run away to Tawborough or take the coach, because we've enough money for that now. Here's the half-sovereign, my present, you know; the half-crown mightn't be enough and I've nothing in between—"
The door, opening softly, cut him short. Uncle Simeon, very pale and slimy and cat-like—himself at his worst—was followed by Albert, also at his worst, with an ugly black eye and an uglier leer.
"No, father," he whined, "not one; both. Flog 'em both, father, both of 'em."
Albert's disappointed whine seemed to mean that his father might not dare to touch Robbie. I was glad for Robbie's sake; what my own fate would be I hardly dared to think. I shrank from him into the seat of the window sill. He took a long coil of cord out of his pocket, and came towards—not me—but Robbie. What, would you dare? Was Robbie, after all, the victim, and I, if only for the moment, the one to escape? I must do myself the justice of noting that for once in my life at any rate I was sorry to bear the easier part: I would gladly have chosen to take the beating for Robbie, would bravely have played the Royal Prince's whipping-girl. He bound Robbie with the cord hand and foot to the bedpost,his own bedpost of course; for it all took place in his bedroom, where Uncle Simeon had surprised us. Uncle Simeon went out of the room for a moment, leaving Albert to watch us.
There was two minutes absolute silence. The three children looked at each other. We waited.
He came back, in his right hand the long heralded whip; a kind of cat-o'-nine-tails for domestic use, with five tails only instead of nine; these were made of cord, with three knots each at intervals, and were fastened to a piece of thick rope, which Uncle Simeon wielded. An evil-looking thing.
Robbie did not wince. He would not while I was by. But I lost all control of myself, and, for the first time, burst out openly against Uncle Simeon. I flew up to him, and with fierce feebleness clutched his wrist.
"Don't you dare touch him," I cried, in a treble shriek. "I dare you to whip him. You cruel, horrible man."
"Cruel horrible man," he sneered. "Bah! A fine one you are to call one that; you, your father's daughter every inch of you. Cruel horrible man, forsooth!—Go and callhimthat, your own dear, kind, loving father who drove your dear mother into an early grave and mocked her when she was lying there; a heartless whoremongering beast who spent all the time he spared from stews and brothels in hounding her to death with his cruelties; unfit to untie the shoe of a humble Christian like oneself, frail and sinful though one doubtless is. You're like him, body and soul. Come, loose hold!"
The vile words stung me for a moment, but when he wrenched my hand from his wrist, scratching at it savagely with his nails, I cried with redoubled fury: "Don't you dare to whip him, don't you dare."
"Whip him? Whip him?" he purred with bland enquiry, "Who can be meant by 'him'? Not Master Robert surely? One would not dream of punishing one whose only sin is to be led into evil paths by another. One must tie him up, to be sure, lest he should be led into the evil path of interfering with a certain little duty one owes to one's Lord, one's little son, and one's own poor self. Quick, off with your blouse and skirt!"
He gnashed his teeth. Even at that moment it fascinatedme to watch how curiously the muscles under his cheek twitched when he was on cruelty bent. There must be a cruelty muscle.
I stood before him in vest and petticoat, pale and limp with fright, a pitiable, cowering object: the sort of rabbit the serpent loves. I had felt and seen hard blows that same day; now too Aunt Jael's masterpieces flitted in dour procession through my mind: the rope end, the day I sucked the acid drops, the three blows of the thorned stick after Robinson Crewjoe, the great flogging with the butt end of her stick when I said that Proverbs was the nastiest book in the Bible. These were as nothing to what was coming now. I lifted my eyes and for one second looked into his. I shall never again, please God, see a look so cruel, so craven, so cad-like. There was spite in it, and hate, and fear. Yet his fear was as nothing to mine.
Whip in hand he came towards me to catch hold. There could be no hope. Aunt Martha was not to be seen; in any case what could she have done? Albert was kneeling hopefully on the bed, Robbie's bed, to get a better view of the sport. Robbie was bound hand and foot, looking hate at Uncle Simeon; wretchedness, sympathy and encouragement at me. His lips were tight together so that he should not cry. Here was Simeon Greeber approaching me. He looked like the devil; the idea seized me, hewasthe devil, the Personal Devil himself; now I knew. But here lay hope: through the devil's enemy, the Lord God Almighty. Moved by an insane impulse, I went down on my knees on the bare floor.
"Oh, God," I cried, "save me from him, now, somehow! Save me, and if it be Thy will, strike him dead!"
I was cut rudely short. He clutched my shoulder, his claw striking cold and damp through my vest, and pulled me roughly to my feet.
"My Lord, my Lord, how she blasphemes! One will avenge it, Lord, one will avenge." He dragged me into the middle of the room.
In that moment a strange thing happened. The sudden sweetness of an old Christmas hymn smote our ears. It was the carollers again: they must have moved up the Quay, for now they were singing just outside the house: