“Your H. MAY.”
It was enclosed in Mr. Ernescliffe’s envelope, and with it came tidings that Harry’s brave spirit was not failing, even under untoward circumstances, but he had struggled on deck, and tried to write, when all his contemporaries had given in; in fact, he was a fine fellow—every one liked him, and Captain Gordon, though chary of commendation, had held him up to the other youngsters as an example of knowing what a sailor was meant to be like.
Margaret smiled, and cried over the news when she imparted it—but all serenely—and though she was glad to be alone, and wrote journals for Alan, when she could not send letters, she exerted herself to be the same sister as usual to the rest of the household, and not to give way to her wandering musings.
From one subject her attention never strayed. Ethel had never found any lack of sympathy in her for her Cocksmoor pursuits; but the change now showed that, where once Margaret had been interested merely as a kind sister, she now had a personal concern, and she threw herself into all that related to it as her own chief interest and pursuit—becoming the foremost in devising plans, and arranging the best means of using Mr. Ernescliffe’s benefaction.
The Elwood family had grown in the good opinion of the Mays. Charity had hobbled to church, leaning on her father’s arm, and being invited to dinner in the kitchen, the acquaintance had been improved, and nurse herself had pronounced her such a tidy, good sort of body, that it was a pity she had met with such a misfortune. If Miss Ethel brought in nothing but the like of her, they should be welcome; poor thing, how tired she was!
Nurse’s opinions were apt to be sagacious, especially when in the face of her prejudices, and this gave Margaret confidence. Cherry proved to have been carefully taught by a good clergyman and his wife, and to be of very different stamp from the persons to whom the girls were accustomed. They were charmed with her, and eagerly offered to supply her with books—respecting her the more when they found that Mr. Hazlewood had already lent her their chief favourites. Other and greater needs they had no power to fill up.
“It is so lone without the church bells, you see, miss,” said Mrs. Elwood. “Our tower had a real fine peal, and my man was one of the ringers. I seems quite lost without them, and there was Cherry, went a’most every day with the children.”
“Every day!” cried Mary, looking at her with respect.
“It was so near,” said Cherry, “I could get there easy, and I got used to it when I was at school.”
“Did it not take up a great deal of time?” said Ethel.
“Why, you see, ma’am, it came morning and night, out of working times, and I can’t be stirring much.”
“Then you miss it sadly?” said Ethel.
“Yes, ma’am, it made the day go on well like, and settled a body’s mind, when I fretted for what could not be helped. But I try not to fret after it now, and Mr. Hazlewood said, if I did my best wherever I was, the Lord would still join our prayers together.”
Mr. Hazlewood was recollected by Mr. Wilmot as an old college friend, and a correspondence with him fully confirmed the favourable estimate of the Elwoods, and was decisive in determining that the day-school, with Alan’s ten pounds as salary, and a penny a week from each child, should be offered to Cherry.
Mr. Hazlewood answered for her sound excellence, and aptitude for managing little children, though he did not promise genius, such as should fulfil the requirements of modern days. With these Cocksmoor could dispense at present; Cherry was humbly gratified, and her parents delighted with the honour and profit; there was a kitchen which afforded great facilities, and Richard and his carpenter managed the fitting to admiration; Margaret devised all manner of useful arrangements, settled matters with great earnestness, saw Cherry frequently, discussed plans, and learned the history and character of each child, as thoroughly as Ethel herself. Mr. Ramsden himself came to the opening of the school, and said so much of the obligations of Cocksmoor to the young ladies, that Ethel would not have known which way to look, if Flora had not kindly borne the brunt of his compliments.
Every one was pleased, except Mrs. Green, who took upon herself to set about various malicious reports of Cherry Elwood; but nobody cared for them, except Mrs. Elwood, who flew into such passions, that Ethel was quite disappointed in her, though not in Cherry, who meekly tried to silence her mother, begged the young ladies not to be vexed, and showed a quiet dignity that soon made the shafts of slander fall inoffensively.
All went well; there was a school instead of a hubbub, clean faces instead of dirty, shining hair instead of wild elf-locks, orderly children instead of little savages. The order and obedience that Ethel could not gain in six months, seemed impressed in six days by Cherry; the neat work made her popular with the mothers, her firm gentleness won the hearts of the children, and the kitchen was filled not only with boys and girls from the quarry, but with some little ones from outlying cottages of Fordholm and Abbotstoke, and there was even a smart little farmer, who had been unbearable at home.
Margaret’s unsuccessful bath-chair was lent to Cherry, and in it her scholars drew her to Stoneborough every Sunday, and slowly began to redeem their character with the ladies, who began to lose the habit of shrinking out of their way—the Stoneborough children did so instead; and Flora and Ethel were always bringing home stories of injustice to their scholars, fancied or real, and of triumphs in their having excelled any national school girl. The most stupid children at Cocksmoor always seemed to them wise in comparison with the Stoneborough girls, and the Sunday-school might have become to Ethel a school of rivalry, if Richard had not opened her eyes by a quiet observation, that the town girls seemed to fare as ill with her, as the Cocksmoor girls did with the town ladies. Then she caught herself up, tried to be candid, and found that she was not always impartial in her judgments. Why would competition mingle even in the best attempts?
Cherry did not so bring forward her scholars that Ethel could have many triumphs of this dangerous kind. Indeed, Ethel was often vexed with her; for though she taught needlework admirably, and enforced correct reading, and reverent repetition, her strong provincial dialect was a stumbling-block; she could not put questions without book, and nothing would teach her Ethel’s rational system of arithmetic. That she was a capital dame, and made the children very good, was allowed; but now and then, when mortified by hearing what was done at Stoneborough, Fordholm, or Abbotstoke, Ethel would make vigorous efforts, which resulted only in her coming home fuming at Cherry’s “outrageous dullness.”
These railings always hurt Margaret, who had made Cherry almost into a friend, and generally liked to have a visit from her during the Sunday, when she always dined with the servants. Then school questions, Cocksmoor news, and the tempers of the children, were talked over, and Cherry was now and then drawn into home reminiscences, and descriptions of the ways of her former school. There was no fear of spoiling her—notice from her superiors was natural to her, and she had the lady-likeness of womanly goodness, so as never to go beyond her own place. She had had many trials too, and Margaret learned the true history of them, as she won Cherry’s confidence, and entered into them, feeling their likeness, yet dissimilarity, to her own.
Cherry had been a brisk happy girl in a good place, resting in one of the long engagements that often extend over half the life of a servant, enjoying the nod of her baker as he left his bread, and her walk from church with him on alternate Sundays. But poor Cherry had been exposed to the perils of window-cleaning; and, after a frightful fall, had wakened to find herself in a hospital, and her severe sufferings had left her a cripple for life.
And the baker had not been an Alan Ernescliffe! She did not complain of him—he had come to see her, and had been much grieved, but she had told him she could never be a useful wife; and, before she had used her crutches, he was married to her pretty fellow-servant.
Cherry spoke very simply; she hoped it was better for Long, and believed Susan would make him a good wife. Ethel would have thought she did not feel, but Margaret knew better.
She stroked the thin slight fingers, and gently said, “Poor Cherry!” and Cherry wiped away a tear, and said, “Yes, ma’am, thank you, it is best for him. I should not have wished him to grieve for what cannot be helped.”
“Resignation is the great comfort.”
“Yes, ma’am. I have a great deal to be thankful for. I don’t blame no one, but I do see how some, as are married, seem to get to think more of this world; and now and then I fancy I can see how it is best for me as it is.”
Margaret sighed, as she remembered certain thoughts before Alan’s return.
“Then, ma’am, there has been such goodness! I did vex at being a poor helpless thing, nothing but a burden on father; and when we had to go from home, and Mr. and Mrs. Hazlewood and all, I can’t tell you how bad it was, ma’am.”
“Then you are comforted now?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Cherry, brightening. “It seems as if He had given me something to do, and there are you, and Mr. Richard, and Miss Ethel, to help. I should like, please God, to be of some good to those poor children.”
“I am sure you will, Cherry; I wish I could do as much.”
Cherry’s tears had come again. “Ah! ma’am, you—” and she stopped short, and rose to depart. Margaret held out her hand to wish her good-bye. “Please, miss, I was thinking how Mr. Hazlewood said that God fits our place to us, and us to our place.”
“Thank you, Cherry, you are leaving me something to remember.”
And Margaret lay questioning with herself, whether the schoolmistress had not been the most self-denying of the two; but withal gazing on the hoop of pearls which Alan had chosen as the ring of betrothal.
“The pearl of great price,” murmured she to herself; “if we hold that, the rest will soon matter but little. It remaineth that both they that have wives, be as they that have none, and they that weep, as though they wept not, and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not! If ever Alan and I have a home together upon earth, may all too confident joy be tempered by the fears that we have begun with! I hope this probation may make me less likely to be taken up with the cares and pleasures of his position than I might have been last year. He is one who can best help the mind to go truly upward. But oh, that voyage!”
Heart affluence in household talk,From social fountains never dry.—TENNYSON.
“What a bore!”
“What’s the matter now?”
“Here has this old fellow asked me to dinner again!”
“A fine pass we are come to!” cried Dr. May, half amused, half irate. “I should like to know what I should have said at your age if the head-master had asked me to dinner.”
“Papa is not so very fond of dining at Dr. Hoxton’s,” said Ethel. “A whipper-snapper schoolboy, who might be thankful to dine anywhere!” continued Dr. May, while the girls burst out laughing, and Norman looked injured.
“It is very ungrateful of Norman,” said Flora; “I cannot see what he finds to complain of.”
“You would know,” said Norman, “if, instead of playing those perpetual tunes of yours, you had to sit it out in that perfumy drawing-room, without anything to listen to worth hearing. If I have looked over that court album once, I have a dozen times, and there is not another book in the place.”
“I am glad there is not,” said Flora. “I am quite ashamed to see you for ever turning over those old pictures. You cannot guess how stupid you look. I wonder Mrs. Hoxton likes to have you,” she added, patting his shoulders between jest and earnest.
“I wish she would not, then. It is only to escort you.”
“Nonsense, Norman, you know better,” cried Ethel. “You know it is for your own sake, and to make up for their injustice, that he invites you, or Flora either.”
“Hush, Ethel! he gives himself quite airs enough already,” said the doctor.
“Papa!” said Ethel, in vexation, though he gave her a pinch to show it was all in good humour, while he went on, “I am glad to hear they do leave him to himself in a corner. A very good thing too! Where else should a great gawky schoolboy be?”
“Safe at home, where I wish he would let me be,” muttered Norman, though he contrived to smile, and followed Flora out of the room, without subjecting himself to the imputation of offended dignity.
Ethel was displeased, and began her defence: “Papa, I wish—” and there she checked herself.
“Eh! Miss Ethel’s bristles up!” said her father, who seemed in a somewhat mischievous mood of teasing.
“How could you, papa?” cried she.
“How could I what, Miss Etheldred?”
“Plague Norman,”—the words would come. “Accuse him of airs.”
“I hate to see young fellows above taking an honour from their elders,” said Dr. May.
“Now, papa, papa, you know it is no such thing. Dr. Hoxton’s parties are very dull—you know they are, and it is not fair on Norman. If he was set up and delighted at going so often, then you would call him conceited.”
“Conceit has a good many lurking-places,” said Dr. May. “It is harder to go and be overlooked, than to stay at home.”
“Now, papa, you are not to call Norman conceited,” cried Ethel. “You don’t believe that he is any such thing.”
“Why, not exactly,” said Dr. May, smiling. “The boy has missed it marvellously; but, you see, he has everything that subtle imp would wish to feed upon, and it is no harm to give him a lick with the rough side of the tongue, as your canny Scots grandfather used to say.”
“Ah! if you knew, papa—” began Ethel.
“If I knew?”
“No, no, I must not tell.”
“What, a secret, is there?”
“I wish it was not; I should like to tell you very much, but then, you see, it is Norman’s, and you are to be surprised.”
“Your surprise is likely to be very much like Blanche’s birthday presents, a stage aside.”
“No, I am going to keep it to myself.”
Two or three days after, as Ethel was going to the schoolroom after breakfast, Dr. May beckoned her back to the dining-room, and, with his merry look of significance, said, “Well, ma’am, I have found out your mystery!”
“About Norman? Oh, papa! Did he tell you?”
“When I came home from the hospital last night, at an hour when all respectable characters, except doctors and police, should be in their warm beds, I beheld a light in Norman’s window, so methought I would see what Gravity was doing out of his bed at midnight—”
“And you found him at his Greek—”
“So that was the meaning of his looking so lank and careworn, just as he did last year, and he the prince of the school! I could have found it in my heart to fling the books at his head!”
“But you consent, don’t you, to his going up for the scholarship?”
“I consent to anything, as long as he keeps within due bounds, and does not work himself to death. I am glad of knowing it, for now I can put a moderate check upon it.”
“And did he tell you all about it?”
“He told me he felt as if he owed it to us to gain something for himself, since I had given up the Randall to gratify him—a pretty sort of gratification.”
“Yes, and he will be glad to get away from school. He says he knows it is bad for him—as it is uncomfortable to be singled out in the way Dr. Hoxton does now. You know,” pleaded Ethel, “it is not ingratitude or elation, but it is, somehow, not nice to be treated as he is, set apart from the rest.”
“True; Dr. Hoxton never had taste or judgment. If Norman were not a lusus naturae,” said Dr. May, hesitating for a word, “his head would have been turned long ago. And he wants companions too—he has been forced out of boyhood too soon, poor fellow—and Harry gone too. He does not get anything like real relaxation, and he will be better among youths than boys. Stoneborough will never be what it was in my time!” added the doctor mournfully. “I never thought to see the poor old place come to this; but there—when all the better class send their sons to the great public schools, and leave nothing but riff-raff here, one is forced, for a boy’s own sake, to do the same.”
“Oh, I am so glad! Then you have consented to the rest of Norman’s scheme, and will not keep poor little Tom at school here without him?”
“By what he tells me it would be downright ruin to the boy. I little thought to have to take a son of mine away from Stoneborough; but Norman is the best judge, and he is the only person who seems to have made any impression on Tom, so I shall let it be. In fact,” he added, half smiling, “I don’t know what I could refuse old June.”
“That’s right!” cried Ethel. “That is so nice! Then, if Norman gets the scholarship, Tom is to go to Mr. Wilmot first, and then to Eton!”
“If Norman gains the scholarship, but that is an if,” said Dr. May, as though hoping for a loop-hole to escape offending the shade of Bishop Whichcote.
“Oh, papa, you cannot doubt of that!”
“I cannot tell, Ethel. He is facile princeps here in his own world, but we do not know how it may be when he is measured with public schoolmen, who have had more first-rate tutorship than poor old Hoxton’s.”
“Ah! he says so, but I thought that was all his humility.”
“Better he should be prepared. If he had had all those advantages—but it may be as well after all. I always had a hankering to have sent him to Eton, but your dear mother used to say it was not fair on the others. And now, to see him striving in order to give the advantage of it to his little brother! I only hope Master Thomas is worthy of it—but it is a boy I can’t understand.”
“Nor I,” said Ethel; “he never seems to say anything he can help, and goes after Norman without talking to any one else.”
“I give him up to Norman’s management,” said Dr. May. “He says the boy is very clever, but I have not seen it; and, as to more serious matters—However, I must take it on Norman’s word that he is wishing to learn truth. We made an utter mistake about him; I don’t know who is to blame for it.”
“Have you told Margaret about Norman’s plan?” asked Ethel.
“No; he desired me to say nothing. Indeed, I should not like Tom’s leaving school to be talked of beforehand.”
“Norman said he did not want Flora to hear, because she is so much with the Hoxton’s, and he said they would all watch him.”
“Ay, ay, and we must keep his secret. What a boy it is! But it is not safe to say conceited things. We shall have a fall yet, Ethel. Not seventeen, remember, and brought up at a mere grammar-school.”
“But we shall still have the spirit that made him try,” said Ethel, “and that is the thing.”
“And, to tell the truth,” said the doctor, lingering, “for my own part, I don’t care a rush for it!” and he dashed off to his work, while Ethel stood laughing.
“Papa was so very kind,” said Norman tremulously, when Ethel followed him to his room, to congratulate him on having gained his father’s assent, of which he had been more in doubt than she.
“And you see he quite approves of the scheme for Tom, except for thinking it disrespect to Bishop Whichcote. He said he only hoped Tom was worthy of it.”
“Tom!” cried Norman. “Take my word for it, Ethel, Tom will surprise you all. He will beat us all to nothing, I know!”
“If only he can be cured of—”
“He will,” said Norman, “when once he has outgrown his frights, and that he may do at Mr. Wilmot’s, apart from those fellows. When I go up for this scholarship, you must look after his lessons, and see if you are not surprised at his construing!”
“When you go. It will be in a month!”
“He has told no one, I hope.”
“No; but I hardly think he will bear not telling Margaret.”
“Well—I hate a thing being out of one’s own keeping. I should not so much dislike Margaret’s knowing, but I won’t have Flora know—mind that, Ethel,” he said, with disproportionate vehemence.
“I only hope Flora will not be vexed. But oh, dear! how nice it will be when you have it, telling Meta Rivers, and all!”
“And this is a fine way of getting it, standing talking here. Not that I shall—you little know what public schools can do! But that is no reason against trying.”
“Good-night, then. Only one thing more. You mean that, till further orders, Margaret should not know?”
“Of course,” said Norman impatiently. “She won’t take any of Flora’s silly affronts, and, what is more, she would not care half so much as before Alan Ernescliffe came.”
“Oh, Norman, Norman! I’m sure—”
“Why, it is what they always say. Everybody can’t be first, and Ernescliffe has the biggest half of her, I can see.”
“I am sure I did not,” said Ethel, in a mortified voice.
“Why, of course, it always comes of people having lovers.”
“Then I am sure I won’t!” exclaimed Ethel.
Norman went into a fit of laughing.
“You may laugh, Norman, but I will never let papa or any of you be second to any one!” she cried vehemently.
A brotherly home-truth followed: “Nobody asked you, sir, she said!” was muttered by Norman, still laughing heartily.
“I know,” said Ethel, not in the least offended, “I am very ugly, and very awkward, but I don’t care. There never can be anybody in all the world that I shall like half as well as papa, and I am glad no one is ever likely to make me care less for him and Cocksmoor.”
“Stay till you are tried,” said Norman.
Ethel squeezed up her eyes, curled up her nose, showed her teeth in a horrible grimace, and made a sort of snarl: “Yah! That’s the face I shall make at them!” and then, with another good-night, ran to her own room.
Norman was, to a certain extent, right with regard to Margaret—her thoughts and interest had been chiefly engrossed by Alan Ernescliffe, and so far drawn away from her own family, that when the Alcestis was absolutely gone beyond all reach of letters for the present, Margaret could not help feeling somewhat of a void, and as if the home concerns were not so entire an occupation for her mind as formerly.
She would fain have thrown herself into them again, but she became conscious that there was a difference. She was still the object of her father’s intense tenderness and solicitude, indeed she could not be otherwise, but it came over her sometimes that she was less necessary to him than in the first year. He was not conscious of any change, and, indeed, it hardly amounted to a change, and yet Margaret, lying inactive and thoughtful, began to observe that the fullness of his confidence was passing to Ethel. Now and then it would appear that he fancied he had told Margaret little matters, when he had really told them to Ethel; and it was Ethel who would linger with him in the drawing-room after the others had gone up at night, or who would be late at the morning’s reading, and disarm Miss Winter, by pleading that papa had been talking to her. The secret they shared together was, of course, the origin of much of this; but also Ethel was now more entirely the doctor’s own than Margaret could be after her engagement; and there was a likeness of mind between the father and daughter that could not but develop more in this year, than in all Ethel’s life, when she had made the most rapid progress. Perhaps, too, the doctor looked on Margaret rather as the authority and mistress of his house, while Ethel was more of a playfellow; and thus, without either having the least suspicion that the one sister was taking the place of the other, and without any actual neglect of Margaret, Ethel was his chief companion.
“How excited and anxious Norman looks!” said Margaret, one day, when he had rushed in at the dinner-hour, asking for his father, and, when he could not find him, shouting out for Ethel. “I hope there is nothing amiss. He has looked thin and worn for some time, and yet his work at school is very easy to him.”
“I wish there maybe nothing wrong there again,” said Flora. “There! there’s the front door banging! He is off! Ethel!—” stepping to the door, and calling in her sister, who came from the street door, her hair blowing about with the wind. “What did Norman want?”
“Only to know whether papa had left a note for Dr. Hoxton,” said Ethel, looking very confused and very merry.
“That was not all,” said Flora. “Now don’t be absurd, Ethel—I hate mysteries.”
“Last time I had a secret you would not believe it,” said Ethel, laughing.
“Come!” exclaimed Flora, “why cannot you tell us at once what is going on?”
“Because I was desired not,” said Ethel. “You will hear it soon enough,” and she capered a little.
“Let her alone, Flora,” said Margaret. “I see there is nothing wrong.”
“If she is desired to be silent, there is nothing to be said,” replied Flora, sitting down again, while Ethel ran away to guard her secret.
“Absurd!” muttered Flora. “I cannot imagine why Ethel is always making mysteries!”
“She cannot help other people having confidence in her,” said Margaret gently.
“She need not be so important, then,” said Flora—“always having private conferences with papa! I do not think it is at all fair on the rest.”
“Ethel is a very superior person,” said Margaret, with half a sigh.
Flora might toss her head, but she attempted no denial in words. “And,” continued Margaret, “if papa does find her his best companion and friend we ought to be glad of it.”
“I do not call it just,” said Flora.
“I do not think it can be helped,” said Margaret: “the best must be preferred.
“As to that, Ethel is often very ridiculous and silly.”
“She is improving every day; and you know dear mamma always thought her the finest character amongst us.”
“Then you are ready to be left out, and have your third sister always put before you?”
“No, Flora, that is not the case. Neither she nor papa would ever be unfair; but, as she would say herself, what they can’t help, they can’t help; and, as she grows older, she must surpass me more and more.”
“And you like it?”
“I like it—when—when I think of papa, and of his dear, noble Ethel. I do like it, when I am not selfish.”
Margaret turned away her head, but presently looked up again.
“Only, Flora,” she said, “pray do not say one word of this, on any account, to Ethel. She is so happy with papa, and I would not for anything have her think I feel neglected, or had any jealousy.”
“Ah,” thought Flora, “you can give up sweetly, but you have Alan to fall back upon. Now I, who certainly have the best right, and a great deal more practical sense—”
Flora took Margaret’s advice, and did not reproach Ethel, for a little reflection convinced her that she should make a silly figure in so doing, and she did not like altercations.
It was the same evening that Norman came in from school with his hands full of papers, and, with one voice, his father and Ethel exclaimed, “You have them?”
“Yes;” and he gave the letter to his father, while Blanche, who had a very inquisitive pair of eyes, began to read from a paper he placed on the table.
“‘Norman Walter, son of Richard and Margaret May, High Street, Doctor of Medicine, December 21st, 18—. Thomas Ramsden.’”
“What is that for, Norman?” and, as he did not attend, she called Mary to share her speculations, and spell out the words.
“Ha!” cried Dr. May, “this is capital! The old doctor seems not to know how to say enough for you. Have you read it?”
“No, he only told me he had said something in my favour, and wished me all success.”
“Success!” cried Mary. “Oh, Norman, you are not going to sea too?”
“No, no!” interposed Blanche knowingly—“he is going to be married. I heard nurse wish her brother success when he was going to marry the washerwoman with a red face.”
“No,” said Mary, “people never are married till they are twenty.”
“But I tell you,” persisted Blanche, “people always write like this, in a great book in church, when they are married. I know, for we always go into church with Lucy and nurse when there is a wedding.”
“Well, Norman, I wish you success with the bride you are to court,” said Dr. May, much diverted with the young ladies’ conjectures.
“But is it really?” said Mary, making her eyes as round as full moons.
“Is it really?” repeated Blanche. “Oh, dear! is Norman going to be married? I wish it was to be Meta Rivers, for then I could always ride her dear little white pony.”
“Tell them,” whispered Norman, a good deal out of countenance, as he leaned over Ethel, and quitted the room.
Ethel cried, “Now then!” and looked at her father, while Blanche and Mary reiterated inquiries—marriage, and going to sea, being the only events that, in their imagination, the world could furnish. Going to try for a Balliol scholarship! It was a sad falling off, even if they understood what it meant. The doctor’s explanations to Margaret had a tone of apology for having kept her in ignorance, and Flora said few words, but felt herself injured; she had nearly gone to Mrs. Hoxton that afternoon, and how strange it would have been if anything had been said to her of her own brother’s projects, when she was in ignorance.
Ethel slipped away to her brother, who was in his own room, surrounded with books, flushed and anxious, and trying to glance over each subject on which he felt himself weak.
“I shall fail! I know I shall!” was his exclamation. “I wish I had never thought of it!”
“What? did Dr. Hoxton think you not likely to succeed?” cried Ethel, in consternation.
“Oh! he said I was certain, but what is that? We Stoneborough men only compare ourselves with each other. I shall break down to a certainty, and my father will be disappointed.”
“You will do your best?”
“I don’t know that. My best will all go away when it comes to the point.”
“Surely not. It did not go away last time you were examined, and why should it now?”
“I tell you, Ethel, you know nothing about it. I have not got up half what I meant to have done. Here, do take this book—try me whether I know this properly.”
So they went on, Ethel doing her best to help and encourage, and Norman in an excited state of restless despair, which drove away half his senses and recollection, and his ideas of the superior powers of public schoolboys magnifying every moment. They were summoned downstairs to prayers, but went up again at once, and more than an hour subsequently, when their father paid one of his domiciliary visits, there they still were, with their Latin and Greek spread out, Norman trying to strengthen all doubtful points, but in a desperate desultory manner, that only confused him more and more, till he was obliged to lay his head down on the table, shut his eyes, and run his fingers through his hair, before he could recollect the simplest matter; his renderings alternated with groans, and, cold as was the room, his cheeks and brow were flushed and burning.
The doctor checked all this, by saying, gravely and sternly, “This is not right, Norman. Where are all your resolutions?”
“I shall never do it. I ought never to have thought of it! I shall never succeed!”
“What if you do not?” said Dr. May, laying his hand on his shoulder.
“What? why, Tom’s chance lost—you will all be mortified,” said Norman, hesitating in some confusion.
“I will take care of Tom,” said Dr. May.
“And he will have been foiled!” said Ethel
“If he is?”
The boy and girl were both silent.
“Are you striving for mere victory’s sake, Norman?” continued his father.
“I thought not,” murmured Norman.
“Successful or not, you will have done your utmost for us. You would not lose one jot of affection or esteem, and Tom shall not suffer. Is it worth this agony?”
“No, it is foolish,” said Norman, with trembling voice, almost as if he could have burst into tears. He was quite unnerved by the anxiety and toil with which he had overtasked himself, beyond his father’s knowledge.
“Oh, papa!” pleaded Ethel, who could not bear to see him pained.
“It is foolish,” continued Dr. May, who felt it was the moment for bracing severity. “It is rendering you unmanly. It is wrong.”
Again Ethel made an exclamation of entreaty.
“It is wrong, I know,” repeated Norman; “but you don’t know what it is to get into the spirit of the thing.”
“Do you think I do not?” said the doctor; “I can tell exactly what you feel now. If I had not been an idle dog, I should have gone through it all many more times.”
“What shall I do?” asked Norman, in a worn-out voice.
“Put all this out of your mind, sleep quietly, and don’t open another book.”
Norman moved his head, as if sleep were beyond his power.
“I will read you something to calm your tone,” said Dr. May, and he took up a Prayer-book. “‘Know ye not, that they which run in a race, run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run that ye may obtain. And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible.’ And, Norman, that is not the struggle where the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong; nor the contest, where the conqueror only wins vanity and vexation of spirit.”
Norman had cast down his eyes, and hardly made answer, but the words had evidently taken effect. The doctor only further bade him good-night, with a whispered blessing, and, taking Ethel by the hand, drew her away. When they met the next morning, the excitement had passed from Norman’s manner, but he looked dejected and resigned. He had made up his mind to lose, and was not grateful for good wishes; he ought never to have thought, he said, of competing with men from public schools, and he knew his return of love of vain-glory deserved that he should fail. However, he was now calm enough not to be likely to do himself injustice by nervousness, and Margaret hid hopes that Richard’s steady equable mind would have a salutary influence. So, commending Tom’s lessons to Ethel, and hearing, but not marking, countless messages to Richard, he set forth upon his emprise, while his anxiety seemed to remain as a legacy for those at home.
Poor Dr. May confessed that his practice by no means agreed with his precept, for he could think of nothing else, and was almost as bad as Norman, in his certainty that the boy would fail from mere nervousness. Margaret was the better companion for him now, attaching less intensity of interest to Norman’s success than did Ethel; she was the more able to compose him, and cheer his hopes.
Weary soul, and burdened sore,Labouring with thy secret load,Fear not all thy griefs to pourIn this heart, love’s true abode.Lyra Innocentium.
Tea had just been brought in on the eighth evening from Norman’s departure, when there was a ring at the bell. There was a start, and look of expectation. “Only a patient,” said the doctor; but it surely was not for that reason that he rose with so much alacrity and opened the door, nor was “Well, old fellow?” the greeting for his patients—so everybody sprang after him, and beheld something tall taking off a coat, while a voice said, “I have got it.”
The mass of children rushed back to Margaret, screaming, “He has got it!” and then Aubrey trotted out into the hall again to see what Norman had got.
“A happy face at least,” said Margaret, as he came to her. And that was not peculiar to Norman. The radiance had shone out upon every one in that moment, and it was one buzz of happy exclamation, query, and answer—the only tone of regret when Mary spoke of Harry, and all at once took up the strain—how glad poor Harry would be. As to the examination, that had been much less difficult than Norman had expected; in fact, he said, it was lucky for him that the very subjects had been chosen in which he was most up—luck which, as the doctor could not help observing, generally did attend Norman. And Norman had been so happy with Richard; the kind, wise elder brother had done exactly what was best for him in soothing his anxiety, and had fully shared his feelings, and exulted in his success. Margaret had a most triumphant letter, dwelling on the abilities of the candidates whom Norman had outstripped, and the idea that every one had conceived of his talent. “Indeed,” wrote Richard, “I fancy the men had never believed that I could have a clever brother. I am glad they have seen what Norman can do.”
Margaret could not help reading this aloud, and it made Norman blush with the compunction that Richard’s unselfish pride in him always excited. He had much to tell of his ecstasy with Oxford. Stoneborough Minster had been a training in appreciation of its hoary beauty, but the essentially prosaic Richard had never prepared him for the impression that the reverend old university made on him, and he was already, heart and soul, one of her most loyal and loving sons, speaking of his college and of the whole university as one who had a right of property in them, and looking, all the time, not elated, but contented, as if he had found his sphere and was satisfied. He had seen Cheviot, too, and had been very happy in the renewed friendship; and had been claimed as a cousin by a Balliol man, a certain Norman Ogilvie, a name well known among the Mays. “And how has Tom been getting on?” he asked, when he returned to home affairs.
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Ethel. “He will not have my help.”
“Not let you help him!” exclaimed Norman.
“No. He says he wants no girls,” said Ethel, laughing.
“Foolish fellow!” said Norman. “I wonder what sort of work he has made!”
“Very funny, I should think,” said Ethel, “judging by the verses I could see.”
The little, pale, rough-haired Tom, in his perpetual coating of dust, softly crept into the room, as if he only wanted to elude observation; but Mary and Blanche were at once vociferating their news in his ears, though with little encouragement—he only shook them off abruptly, and would not answer when they required him to be glad.
Norman stretched out his arm, intercepting him as he was making for his hiding-place behind Dr. May’s arm-chair.
“Come, August, how have things gone on?”
“Oh! I don’t know.”
“What’s your place?”
“Thirteenth!” muttered Tom in his throat, and well he might, for two or three voices cried out that was too bad, and that it was all his own fault, for not accepting Ethel’s help. He took little heed, but crept to his corner without another word, and Mary knew she should be thumped if she should torment him there.
Norman left him alone, but the coldness of the little brother for whom he had worked gave a greater chill to his pleasure than he could have supposed possible. He would rather have had some cordiality on Tom’s part, than all the congratulations that met him the next day.
He could not rest contented while Tom continued to shrink from him, and he was the more uneasy when, on Saturday morning, no calls from Mary availed to find the little boy, and bring him to the usual reading and Catechism.
Margaret decided that they must begin without him, and poor Mary’s verse was read, in consequence, with a most dolorous tone. As soon as the books were shut, she ran off, and a few words passed among the elder ones about the truant—Flora opining that the Andersons had led him away; Ethel suggesting that his gloom must arise from his not being well; and Margaret looking wistfully at Norman, and saying she feared they had judged much amiss last spring. Norman heard in silence, and walked thoughtfully into the garden. Presently he caught Mary’s voice in expostulation: “How could you not come to read?”
“Girls’ work!” growled another voice, out of sight.
“But Norman, and Richard, and Harry, always come to the reading. Everybody ought.”
Norman, who was going round the shrubs that concealed the speakers from him, here lost their voices, but, as he emerged in front of the old tool-house, he heard a little scream from Mary, and, at the same moment, she darted back, and fell over a heap of cabbage-stumps in front of the old tool-house. It was no small surprise to her to be raised by him, and tenderly asked whether she were hurt. She was not hurt, but she could not speak without crying, and when Norman begged to hear what was the matter, and where Tom was, she would only plead for him—that he did not intend to hurt her, and that she had been teasing him. What had he done to frighten her? Oh! he had only run at her with a hoe, because she was troublesome; she did not mind it, and Norman must not—and she clung to him as if to keep him back, while he pursued his researches in the tool-house, where, nearly concealed by a great bushel-basket, lurked Master Thomas, crouching down, with a volume of Gil Blas in his hand.
“You here, Tom! What have you hidden yourself here for? What can make you so savage to Mary?”
“She should not bother me,” said Tom sulkily.
Norman sent Mary away, pacifying her by promises that he would not revenge her quarrel upon Tom, and then, turning the basket upside down, and perching himself astride on it, he began: “That is the kindest, most forgiving little sister I ever did see. What possesses you to treat her so ill?”
“I wasn’t going to hurt her.”
“But why drive her away? Why don’t you come to read?” No answer; and Norman, for a moment, felt as if Tom were really hopelessly ill-conditioned and sullen, but he persevered in restraining his desire to cuff the ill-humour out of him, and continued, “Come! there’s something wrong, and you will never be better till it is out. Tell me—don’t be afraid. Those fellows have been at you again?”
He took Tom by the arm to draw him nearer, but a cry and start of pain were the result. “So they have licked you? Eh? What have they been doing?”
“They said they would spiflicate me if I told!” sighed Tom.
“They shall never do anything to you;” and, by-and-by, a sobbing confession was drawn forth, muttered at intervals, as low as if Tom expected the strings of onions to hear and betray him to his foes. Looking on him as a deserter, these town-boys had taken advantage of his brother’s absence to heap on him every misery they could inflict. There had been a wager between Edward Anderson and Sam Axworthy as to what Tom could be made to do, and his personal timidity made him a miserable victim, not merely beaten and bruised, but forced to transgress every rule of right and wrong that had been enforced on his conscience. On Sunday, they had profited by the absence of their dux to have a jollification at a little public-house, not far from the playing-fields; and here had Tom been dragged in, forced to partake with them, and frightened with threats that he had treated them all, and was liable to pay the whole bill, which, of course, he firmly believed, as well as that he should be at least half murdered if he gave his father any suspicion that the whole had not been consumed by himself. Now, though poor Tom’s conscience had lost many scruples during the last spring, the offence, into which he had been forced, was too heinous to a child brought up as he had been to be palliated even in his own eyes. The profanation of Sunday, and the carousal in a public-house, had combined to fill him with a sense of shame and degradation, which was the real cause that he felt himself unworthy to come and read with his sisters. His grief and misery were extreme, and Norman’s indignation was such as could find no utterance. He sat silent, quivering with anger, and clenching his fingers over the handle of the hoe.
“I knew it!” sighed Tom. “None of you will ever speak to me again!”
“You! Why, August, man, I have better hopes of you than ever. You are more really sorry now than ever you were before.”
“I had never been at the Green Man before,” said poor Tom, feeling his future life stained.
“You never will again!”
“When you are gone—” and the poor victim’s voice died away.
“Tom, you will not stay after me. It is settled that when I go to Balliol, you leave Stoneborough, and go to Mr. Wilmot as pupil. Those scamps shall never have you in their clutches again.”
It did not produce the ecstasy Norman had expected. The boy still sat on the ground, staring at his brother, as if the good news hardly penetrated the gloom; and, after a disappointing silence, recurred to the most immediate cause of distress: “Eight shillings and tenpence halfpenny! Norman, if you would only lend it to me, you shall have all my tin till I have made it up—sixpence a week, and half-a-crown on New Year’s Day.”
“I am not going to pay Mr. Axworthy’s reckoning,” said Norman, rather angrily. “You will never be better till you have told my father the whole.”
“Do you think they will send in the bill to my father?” asked Tom, in alarm.
“No, indeed! that is the last thing they will do,” said Norman; “but I would not have you come to him only for such a sneaking reason.”
“But the girls would hear it. Oh, if I thought Mary and Margaret would ever hear it—Norman, I can’t—”
Norman assured him that there was not the slightest reason that these passages should ever come to the knowledge of his sisters. Tom was excessively afraid of his father, but he could not well be more wretched than he was already; and he was brought to assent when Norman showed him that he had never been happy since the affair of the blotting-paper, when his father’s looks and tones had become objects of dread to his guilty conscience. Was not the only means of recovering a place in papa’s esteem to treat him with confidence?
Tom answered not, and would only shudder when his brother took upon him to declare that free confession would gain pardon even for the doings at the Green Man.
Tom had grown stupefied and passive, and his sole dependence was on Norman, so, at last, he made no opposition when his brother offered to conduct him to his father and speak for him. The danger now was that Dr. May should not be forthcoming, and the elder brother was as much relieved, as the younger was dismayed, to see, through the drawing-room window, that he was standing beside Margaret.
“Papa, can you come and speak to me,” said Norman, “at the door?”
“Coming! What now?” said the doctor, entering the hall. “What, Tom, my boy, what is it?” as he saw the poor child, white, cold, almost sick with apprehension, with every pulse throbbing, and looking positively ill. He took the chilly, damp hand, which shook nervously, and would fain have withdrawn itself.
“Come, my dear, let us see what is amiss;” and before Tom knew what he was doing, he had seated him on his knee, in the arm-chair in the study, and was feeling his pulse. “There, rest your head! Has it not been aching all day?”
“I do not think he is ill,” said Norman; “but there is something he thinks I had better tell you.”
Tom would fain have been on his feet, yet the support of that shoulder was inexpressibly comfortable to his aching temples, and he could not but wait for the shock of being roughly shaken and put down. So, as his brother related what had occurred, he crouched and trembled more and more on his father’s breast, till, to his surprise, he found the other arm passed round him in support, drawing him more tenderly close.
“My poor little fellow!” said Dr. May, trying to look into the drooping face, “I grieve to have exposed you to such usage as this! I little thought it of Stoneborough fellows!”
“He is very sorry,” said Norman, much distressed by the condition of the culprit.
“I see it—I see it plainly,” said Dr. May. “Tommy, my boy, why should you tremble when you are with me?”
“He has been in great dread of your being displeased.”
“My boy, do you not know how I forgive you?” Tom clung round his neck, as if to steady himself.
“Oh, papa! I thought you would never—”
“Nay, you need never have thought so, my boy! What have I done that you should fear me?”
Tom did not speak, but nestled up to him with more confidence. “There! that’s better! Poor child! what he must have suffered! He was not fit for the place! I had thought him looking ill. Little did I guess the cause.”
“He says his head has ached ever since Sunday,” said Norman; “and I believe he has hardly eaten or slept properly since.”
“He shall never be under their power again! Thanks to you, Norman. Do you hear that, Tommy?”
The answer was hardly audible. The little boy was already almost asleep, worn out with all he had undergone. Norman began to clear the sofa, that they might lay him down, but his father would not hear of disturbing him, and, sending Norman away, sat still for more than an hour, until the child slowly awoke, and scarcely recalling what had happened, stood up between his father’s knees, rubbing his eyes, and looking bewildered.
“You are better now, my boy?”
“I thought you would be very angry,” slowly murmured Tom, as the past returned on him.
“Never, while you are sorry for your faults, and own them freely.”
“I’m glad I did,” said the boy, still half asleep. “I did not know you would be so kind.”
“Ah! Tom, I fear it was as much my fault as yours that you did not know it. But, my dear, there is a pardon that can give you better peace than mine.”
“I think,” muttered Tom, looking down—“I think I could say my prayers again now, if—”
“If what, my dear?”
“If you would help me, as mamma used—”
There could be but one response to this speech.
Tom was still giddy and unwell, his whole frame affected by the troubles of the last week, and Dr. May arranged him on the sofa, and desired him to be quiet, offering to send Mary to be his companion. Tom was languidly pleased, but renewed his entreaty, that his confession might be a secret from his sisters. Dr. May promised, and Mary, quite satisfied at being taken into favour, asked no questions, but spent the rest of the morning in playing at draughts with him, and in having inflicted on her the history of the Bloody Fire King’s Ghost—a work of Tom’s imagination, which he was wont to extemporise, to the extreme terror of much enduring Mary.
When Dr. May had called Mary, he next summoned Norman, who found him in the hall, putting on his hat, and looking very stern and determined.
“Norman!” said he hastily, “don’t say a word—it must be done—Hoxton must hear of this.”
Norman’s face expressed utter consternation.
“It is not your doing. It is no concern of yours,” said Dr. May, walking impetuously into the garden. “I find my boy ill, broken down, shattered—it is the usage of this crew of fellows—what right have I to conceal it—leave other people’s sons to be so served?”
“I believe they did so to Tom out of ill-will to me,” said Norman, “and because they thought he had ratted.”
“Hush! don’t argue against it,” said Dr. May, almost petulantly. “I have stood a great deal to oblige you, but I cannot stand this. When it is a matter of corruption, base cruelty—no, Norman, it is not right—not another word!”
Norman’s words had not been many, but he felt a conviction that, in spite of the dismay and pain to himself, Dr. May ought to meet with submission to his judgment, and he acquiesced by silence.
“Don’t you see,” continued the doctor, “if they act thus, when your back is turned, what is to happen next half? ‘Tis not for Tom’s sake, but how could we justify it to ourselves, to expose other boys to this usage?”
“Yes,” said Norman, not without a sigh. “I suppose it must be.”
“That is right,” said Dr. May, as if much relieved. “I knew you must see it in that light. I do not mean to abuse your confidence.”
“No, indeed,” answered Norman warmly.
“But you see yourself, that where the welfare of so many is at stake, it would be wickedness—yes, wickedness—to be silent. Could I see that little fellow prostrated, trembling in my arms, and think of those scamps inflicting the same on other helpless children—away from their homes!”
“I see, I see!” said Norman, carried along by the indignation and tenderness that agitated his father’s voice in his vehemence—“it is the only thing to be done.”
“It would be sharing the guilt to hide it,” said Dr. May.
“Very well,” said Norman, still reluctantly. “What do you wish me to do? You see, as dux, I know nothing about it. It happened while I was away.”
“True, true,” said his father. “You have learned it as brother, not as senior boy. Yes, we had better have you out of the matter. It is I who complain of their usage of my son.”
“Thank you,” said Norman, with gratitude.
“You have not told me the names of these fellows! No, I had best not know them.”
“I think it might make a difference,” hesitated Norman.
“No, no, I will not hear them. It ought to make none. The fact is the same, be they who they may.”
The doctor let himself out at the garden gate, and strode off at a rapid pace, conscious perhaps, in secret, that if he did not at once yield to the impulse of resentment, good nature would overpower the sense of justice. His son returned to the house with a heavy sigh, yet honouring the generosity that had respected his scruples, when merely his own worldly loss was involved, but set them aside when the good of others was concerned. By-and-by Dr. May reappeared. The head-master had been thoroughly roused to anger, and had begged at once to examine May junior, for whom his father was now come.
Tom was quite unprepared for such formidable consequences of his confession, and began by piteous tears and sobs, and when these had, with some difficulty, been pacified, he proved to be really so unwell and exhausted, that his father could not take him to Minster Street, and was obliged to leave him to his brother’s keeping, while he returned to the school.
Upon this, Dr. Hoxton came himself, and the sisters were extremely excited and alarmed by the intelligence that he was in the study with papa and Tom.
Then away went the gentlemen; and Mary was again called to comfort Tom, who, broken down into the mere longing for sympathy, sobbed out all his troubles to her, while her eyes expanded more and more in horror, and her soft heart giving way, she cried quite as pitifully, and a great deal more loudly; and so the other sisters learned the whole, and Margaret was ready for her father when he came in, in the evening, harassed and sorrowful. His anger was all gone now, and he was excessively grieved at finding that the ringleaders, Samuel Axworthy and Edward Anderson, could, in Dr. Hoxton’s opinion, receive no sentence but expulsion, which was to be pronounced on them on Monday.
Sam Axworthy was the son of a low, uneducated man, and his best chance had been the going to this school; but he was of a surly, obstinate temper, and showed so little compunction, that even such superabundant kindness as Dr. May’s could not find compassion for him; especially since it had appeared that Tom had been by no means the only victim, and that he had often been the promoter of the like malpractices, which many boys were relieved to be forced to expose.
For Edward Anderson, however, or rather for his mother, Dr. May was very sorry, and had even interceded for his pardon; but Dr. Hoxton, though slow to be roused, was far less placable than the other doctor, and would not hear of anything but the most rigorous justice.
“Poor Mrs. Anderson, with her pride in her children!” Flora spoke it with a shade of contemptuous pity, but it made her father groan.
“I shall never be able to look in her face again! I shall never see that boy without feeling that I have ruined him!”
“He needed nobody to do that for him,” said Flora.
“With every disadvantage!” continued Dr. May; “unable even to remember his father! Why could I not be more patient and forbearing?”
“Oh, papa!” was the general cry—Norman’s voice giving decision to the sisters’ exclamation.
“Perhaps,” said Margaret, “the shock may be the best thing for him.”
“Right, Margaret,” said her father. “Sometimes such a thing is the first that shows what a course of evil really is.”
“They are an affectionate family too,” said Margaret, “and his mother’s grief may have an effect on him.”
“If she does not treat him as an injured hero,” said Flora; “besides, I see no reason for regret. These are but two, and the school is not to be sacrificed to them.”
“Yes,” said Norman; “I believe that Ashe will be able to keep much better order without Axworthy. It is much better as it is, but Harry will be very sorry to hear it, and I wish this half was over.”
Poor Mrs. Anderson! her shower of notes rent the heart of the one doctor, but were tossed carelessly aside by the other. On that Sunday, Norman held various conversations with his probable successor, Ashe, a gentle, well-disposed boy, hitherto in much dread of the post of authority, but owning that, in Axworthy’s absence, the task would be comparatively easy, and that Anderson would probably originate far less mischief.
Edward Anderson himself fell in Norman’s way in the street, and was shrinking aside, when a word, of not unfriendly greeting, caused him to quicken his steps, and say, hesitatingly, “I say, how is August?”
“Better, thank you; he will be all right in a day or two.”
“I say, we would not have bullied him so, if he had not been in such a fright at nothing.”
“I dare say not.”
“I did not mean it all, but that sort of thing makes a fellow go on,” continued Edward, hanging down his head, very sorrowful and downcast.
“If it had only been fair bullying; but to take him to that place—to teach him falsehood—” said Norman.
Edward’s eyes were full of tears; he almost owned the whole. He had not thought of such things, and then Axworthy—It was more evident from manner than words that the boy did repent and was greatly overcome, both by his own disgrace and his mother’s distress, wishing earnestly to redeem his character, and declaring, from the bottom of his heart, that he would avoid his former offences. He was emboldened at last to say, with hesitation, “Could not you speak to Dr. Hoxton for me?”
“My father has said all he could in your behalf.”
Edward’s eye glanced towards Norman in wonder, as he recollected that the Mays must know that a word from him would have saved Norman from unjust punishment and the loss of the scholarship, and he said, “Good-night,” and turned aside to his own home, with a heavy sigh.
Norman took another turn, looked up at the sky, twisted his hands together in perplexity, mumbled something about hating to do a thing when it was all for no use, and then marched off towards Minster Street, with a pace like his father’s the day before.