A Little World

George Manville Fenn

"A Little World"

Volume One—Chapter One.

Duplex Street.

“Some people are such fools!” said Richard Pellet; and, if public judgment was right, he knew what a fool was as well as any man in the great city of London. He was a big man was Richard Pellet, Esq., C.C., shipper, of Austin Friars, and known among city men as “the six-hundred-pounder;” and he knew a fool when he saw one. But whether at his office in the city, or down at his place at Norwood,—“his little place at Norwood,” where he had “a morsel of garden” and “a bit of glass,” and grew pine and melon, peach and grape, and had a fat butler in black, and a staff of servants in drab, trimmed with yellow coach-lace,—no matter where Richard Pellet might be, he could always see in his mind’s eye the greatest fool that ever breathed—the man whom he was always mentally abusing—to wit, his brother Jared.

But Jared Pellet always was a fool—so his brother said; and he was continually filling the foolish cup of his iniquitous folly fuller and more full. He was a fool to be tyrannised over by his brother when a boy, and to take all the punishment that should have fallen to Richard’s share; he was a fool to marry Lizzie Willis, who had not a penny, when Richard would have given his ears to stand in his shoes; he was a fool for being happy—loved and loving; he was a fool to have such a large family; he was a fool for being a poor struggling man, while his brother was so rich; in short, taking Richard Pellet’s opinion—which must have been correct, seeing how wealthy, and stout, and clean shaven, and respected he was—there was not a bigger fool upon the face of the earth!

Just as if it was likely that a man could get a living in Clerkenwell by mending musical instruments in so unmusical a place; doctoring consumptive harmoniums; strengthening short-winded concertinas; re-buffing a set of hammers, or tuning pianos and putting in new strings at one shilling each.

However, living or no living, Jared Pellet rented a house in Duplex Street, Clerkenwell; and there was a brass plate on the door, one which Patty Pellet brightened to such an extent that when the sun did shine in Duplex Street—which was not often—it would kiss the bright metal and then shoot off at various angles to dart into darksome spots where, directly, he seldom or never shone.

It was a bright plate that, and a couple more years of such service would have oiled and rotten-stoned and rubbed and polished out the legend, “J. Pellet, Pianoforte Tuner;” for at this time there was but little of the original black composition left in the letters, and as for the corner flourishes, they were quite gone. But there was a board up over the front parlour window, bearing, in gold letters, much decayed, the self-same legend, with the addition of “Musical Instruments Carefully Repaired;” while, so that there might be no mistake about the indweller’s occupation, a couple of doleful-looking, cracked, and wax-ended clarionets sloped from the centre hasp to either side of the said front parlour window; and where by rights there should have been one of those folding-door green Venetian barred blinds so popular in the district, there graced the bottom panes—“The Whole Art of Singing,” “Beaustickski’s Violin Tutor,” and “Instructions for the Concertina”—fly-stained and dust-tarnished books, that had been put in on Monday mornings and taken out again on Saturday nights, in company with the cracked clarionets, ever since Jared Pellet had hired the place, and determined upon keeping it private on Sundays.

There was nothing else very particular about the house save that it had once entered into the heart of its owner to have the front stuccoed, ever since which time it had suffered severely from a kind of leprosy which made it shell and peel off abundantly; and that the top pane of the parlour window had once been cracked by a tip-cat, forming a star whose rays extended to the putty all round, starting now from a round dab of the same material. Jared did not have that pane mended, saying that it would soon give way, and then they would have a fresh one put in; but that starred and puttied pane bore a charmed life, having outlived every one of its eleven brethren, who had all gone to the limbo of broken glass, while it still remained. It may perhaps be mentioned, though, that there were some rusty iron railings laid horizontally beneath the window, forming the kitchen into a cage, and just sufficiently far apart to allow of playthings of every description being dropped into the area; when would come the ringing of the door-bell to ask for restitution of the treasure. At intervals, too, there would be the trouble of some child or other getting its foot firmly fixed between the bars, to remain the centre of a commiserating crowd until the arrival of its incensed parent, and the extrication of the imprisoned member, minus shoe or boot, which of course followed the example of Newton’s apple, illustrating the force of gravity for the benefit of Jared’s children.

There was a watchmaker’s next door to Jared’s on the right, and a watchmaker’s next door on the left, and watchmakers in front, all along the street. In fact, it was altogether a very mechanical place, although Richard Pellet said that no one but a fool would ever have thought of living there.

But Jared’s house had an inside as well as an out: the rooms were neither light, airy, nor large, and it was probably from sanitary ideas that Jared refrained from filling his apartments with furniture, and from covering his floors with hot, thick carpets. But, well or ill-furnished, the place was scrupulously clean, and possessed an ornament that a prince might have coveted in the shape of Patty Pellet, the eldest daughter of the household. Talk of classic types, noble features, chiselled nostrils, or heads set upon swan-like necks, until you are tired, and then you will not produce a word-painting worthy to vie with blushing, down-bloomed, soft-cheeked Patty, with her brown wavy hair half hiding her little pinky ears, which seemed to be continually playing in and out from behind two of the brightest curls ever seen. As for her forehead—well, it was a white forehead, and looked nice and pure and candid, while beneath it her eyes were laughing and bright; and her lips—well, it was a fact that many a quiet old-fashioned man wanted to kiss them, innocently and pleasantly too, without feeling a blush of shame for the wish, for Patty’s lips seemed as if they had been made on purpose to kiss, and more than one thought that it would be a sin to neglect the opportunity.

What further description need be given more than to say that she was like the best parts of her father and mother combined, that she was just eighteen, and washed all the children every morning before breakfast.

Volume One—Chapter Two.

Jared at Home.

Jared Pellet sat in the front parlour—pro tem, his workshop—while, to keep the sun from troubling him, Patty had been pinning up the broad sheet of a newspaper over the window, and now descended by means of a chair. For jared was busy working a curious-looking pair of bellows with his foot, and making a little tongue of metal to vibrate with a most ear-piercing but doleful note in the process of being tuned, before being returned to the German concertina, where its duty was to occupy the part of leading note in the major scale of C.

“Hum-um,” sang Jared, checking the current of air, and striking a tuning-fork upon his little bench. “Hum-um; a bit flat, eh, Patty?”

“Just a little,” said Patty, looking up from her work.

“But there, only think!” cried Jared, dropping his tuning-fork, leaving his task, and crossing over to an old harmonium, over whose keys he ran his bony fingers; “only think if I could—only think if I could get it! Fifty pounds a year for two practices a week, and duty three times on Sundays. Black, of course, for your mother; but what coloured silk shall it be for you, eh, Patty?”

“Silk?” said Patty wonderingly, and her eyes grew more round.

“Yes, silk—dress, you know,” said Jared, jumping up again from the harmonium, and walking excitedly about the room. “Only think if I could get it—Jared Pellet—no, Mr Jared Pellet; or ought it to be esquire, eh, Patty? Organist of St Runwald’s. But there,” he continued, with a grim smile, “this is counting the chickens before they are hatched, and when there has not been one solitary peck at the shell. Heigho, Patty, if the wind has not been and blown down my card house.”

“Is any one at home?” said a high-pitched, harsh voice, as the door was quietly opened, and a little yellow-looking Frenchman entered, a tasselled cane in one hand, a cigarette being held between the fingers of the other, but only to be changed to the hand which held the cane, that its owner might raise the pinched hat worn on one side of his head, and salute gravely the two occupants of the room.

“Aha! the good-day to you bose. The good Monsieur Pellet is well? and you, my dear child, you do bloom again like the flowers.”

Patty smiled as she held out her hand; the little Frenchman gravely raising it to his lips, and then crossing to where Jared had stood, looking ten years older, till, reseating himself at his bench, he began to make the metal tongue vibrate furiously, sending a very storm of wind through it, so rapidly he worked his foot; now making the note too sharp, now too flat, and taking twice as long as usual to complete his task.

“No, no, mon ami; he is too sharps—now too flats again. Aha, it is bad!” exclaimed the visitor, dropping cane and cigarette to thrust both fingers into his ears as Jared brought forth a most atrocious shriek from the tortured tongue.

“My ear’s gone completely, I believe,” exclaimed Jared, looking in a bewildered way at his visitor.

“Ah, no, no; try him again—yais, try him again;” and the visitor leaned over the performer. “Ta-ta” he hummed, nodding his head, and beating time with a finger. “Better—yes, better—better still—one leetle touch, and—aha, it is done—so!” he exclaimed triumphantly, as the little note now sounded clear and pure.

“And now I must have two string for my violin. They do wear out so fast.” Which was a fact, and nothing could have more fully displayed Monsieur Canau’s friendship than his constant usage of Jared Pellet’s strings, best Roman by name, worst English by nature. “Why do you not come to-day?” he continued, as Patty opened a tin canister, and emptied a dozen of the transparent rings of catgut upon the table.

“I could not leave,” said Patty, hastily. “We are anxious about the organ.”

“Yes, oui, of course; and the good papa will get it?”

“He has not written yet,” said Patty, dolefully.

“But he is méchant! Why do you not write? Eh! what—you are going to? It is good; then I will not stay. But write—write—for you must have it. What! you shake your head. Fie; you must have it. And you, ma fille—I will take these two—and you will come to us soon, for the poor Janette is triste, and longs for you, and the birds pine; but he goes to write. Adieu.”

The little Frenchman kissed his hand to both in turn, and, with his yellow face in puckers, stole out of the door on tip-toe, turning back for an instant to make a commanding gesture at Jared, who rose from his bench and went slowly towards the table.

For, be it known, that the post of organist to St Runwald’s was vacant—the church that everybody knows, situated as it is in a corner, with houses all round, turning their backs as if ashamed, and hiding it, lest people should see what a patch Sir Christopher Wren made of the fine old Gothic building when he restored it, squaring the windows, putting up a vinegar-cruet steeple, padding, curtaining, brass-rodding, and cushioning the interior to make calm the slumbers of miserable sinners; and, one way and another, so changing it that, could the monks of old once more have gazed upon the place, they would have groaned in their cowls, and called Sir Christopher a barbarian.

But the only groans proceeding from cowls were those which were heard upon windy nights, when showers of blacks were whirled round and round and then deposited in the corners of the window sills, or against the lead framing, whence they could filter through in a dust of the blackest, which would gather upon the pew edges in despite of the pew-opener’s duster, ready to be transferred to faces by fingers, or to rise of itself and make church-goers sneeze and accuse the old place of being damp, the churchwarden of being stingy with the coals, the pew-opener of not lighting the fires at proper time to air the church, and the vicar of spinning out his sermons, finishing off by accounting for the smallness of the attendance by declaring that it was impossible for a parish to be religious where there was such a damp church. And all this through the sootiness of the neighbouring houses, for St Runwald’s was as dry as a bone—as the bones of the old fathers who lay below in the vaults, placed there hundreds of years ago, when Borgle’s yard was occupied by a monastery, and matins and vespers were rung out from the tower of the church.

Jared Pellet in after times could have told you it was not damp, in spite of the words of Sampson Purkis, the beadle, who said that there were “sympsons” of it, else why did the steel fastenings of the poor-boxes grow rusty? unless—but thereby hangs a tale. Jared could have told you the place was not damp by the organ, for would not the stops have stuck, and the notes refused to speak, had there been moisture? But at this period he was in ignorance, for, incited thereto by his wife, his daughter Patty, Mr Timson, the churchwarden, and Monsieur Canau, professor of the violin, Jared Pellet was about to offer himself as a candidate for the vacant post of organist, to perform which task he had now settled himself at a table—some four or five small faces that had come peeping in at the door having been warned off by divers very alarming looking frowns and shakes of the head.

But it was no easy task to write a letter at Jared Pellet’s. True, there had been a pennyworth of the best “cream laid,” and envelopes to match, obtained for the occasion; but the ink in the penny bottle was thick, and when thinned with vinegar to prevent it from coming off the nibs upon the paper in beads, it looked brown and bitty. Then the pen spluttered, partly from rust, partly from having been turned into a tool for raising the tongues of silent harmonium notes.

So fresh pens and ink had to be procured, when Jared wrote one application, and smeared his name, and then said, “Tut-tut-tut!” He wrote a second, but that did not look well, for there was a hair in the pen, and he put two n’s in candidate. He then wrote a third, but only to find that he had done so with the paper upside down, when he exclaimed—

“There never was a letter yet that didn’t get more and more out of tune—I mean didn’t get worse—the more you tried.”

Patty did not speak, only looked sympathetic, and as if she would gladly have written the letter herself. But Jared tried once more, and this time a proper missive was written, passed round, and approved by both Mrs Pellet and her daughter. Then the postage stamp was affixed to the envelope with paste, for Jared had managed to lick off all the gum; and at last, when the important document had been safely posted, its writer recollected half a score things he ought to have said, and after fidgeting all the evening, went off despairingly to bed, feeling certain that the post of organist could never be his.

Volume One—Chapter Three.

Organic.

A busy day at St Runwald’s. Mrs Nimmer, the pew-opener, in a clean cap, like a white satin raised pie. Mr Purkis, the beadle—of “Purkis’s Shoe Emporium,” in private life—in full uniform and dignity. He had cuffed Ichabod Gunnis, the organ-blower, for spinning his top in the porch, and sent that young gentleman howling up the stair leading to the loft, where he thrust off his big charity-boy shoes, and stole down again in his soft, speckled-grey worsted stockings, to where from a darkened corner he could catch sight of his portly enemy, and relieve his mind by turning his back, doubling down, and grinning between his legs, distorting his face after the fashion of the corbels of the old church, the tongue being a prominent figure as to effect. For quite five minutes Ichabod showed his utter contempt for the church dignitary in question, who was all the time in a brown study, calculating the amount he would probably receive by way of what he called “donus,” upon the appointment of a new organist—a train of thought interrupted by the consideration of the verses he should distribute at the coming Christmas, the last set having been unsatisfactory, from having been used by the beadle of the neighbouring parish, “a common man and low.”

But there was soon an interruption to this second train of thought, for people began to congregate, and he had to lend his aid to Mrs Nimmer, and assist the worthy old lady in imprisoning the new-comers in the big old pews, where if they could not see they would at all events be able to hear, this being the day for the organ competition.

People assembled under the impression that they were about to hear something unusual, eight competitors having been selected from a very host of applicants; for the post, without taking into consideration the fifty pounds per annum, was one of honour, St Runwald’s being an organ with a name.

Through the influence of the churchwarden and his medical friend—only a slight return on that gentleman’s part, for Jared had been a good friend to him—the Clerkenwell music cobbler, as he called himself, was one of the select, and now sat in nervous guise where the vicar and churchwardens were assembled to elect the new performer.

Eight competitors, with testimonials to prove that though there might have been Mozarts, Beethovens, and a long roll of worthy names in harmony, yet there never had lived such able, such enthusiastic musicians as Edward Barrest, Mus. Doc., Oxon.; Philip Keyes, Mus. Doc., Cantab.; Herr Schtopffz; Handel Smith, R.A.; and Corelli Sweller. There were two other names read, but Mr Timson, the vicar’s churchwarden, bungled so that Jared Pellet could not catch them; but his ear-drum vibrated when his own was given out, and he shivered horribly. There were stout and important men there, and men thin and insignificant, but conspicuous for his shabby aspect was Jared Pellet.

The testimonials did not have their due weight, for the vicar’s churchwarden, Mr Timson, tea-dealer, a short, stout, peg-top style of man, threw himself into a violent perspiration by trying to keep each man’s papers separate, as he turned them over and over with a peck here, and a peck there, and laid them in heaps, just as if he were sorting tea-papers for pounds, halves, and quarters; and at last, what with confusion and his formidable double eye-glass, which was rather weak in the back and given to shutting up when it should have kept open, he worked himself into such a knot that he did what was best for him under the circumstances, handed the paper chaos over to his brother official, who hurriedly put on his gold-rimmed spectacles, and did not read a word.

The vicar, the Rev. John Grey, a ruddy, genial old man, then in his turn read aloud, for the benefit of those in the vestry, the list of the candidates.

“And now, then, gentlemen,” he said, “preliminaries being adjusted, and matters in train, we will proceed to the organ.”

“We” meant the candidates; for the vicar took possession of a pew, where he looked very much out of place, seeing that reading-desk and pulpit were both empty; and then there was a little bustle and confusion in the old church, as Jared slowly, and with sinking heart, followed the great musicians to the organ loft, from whence he could see Monsieur Canau taking snuff furiously, and Mrs Pellet, Patty, and a pew full of little Pellets anxiously waiting “to hear father play.”

“Ten minutes each, gentlemen,” said the vicar loudly from below, when, the Oxford doctor’s name being first upon the list, he took his seat.

Ichabod Gunnis loudly moistened his hands, and bent to his task, pulling up the bellows beam, and then sprawling across it to bear it down again with his own weight. While unrolling a piece of music, the doctor informed those around that it was his own composition, and played it through in a most admirable manner.

But the effect of the doctor’s composition was spoiled, for just in the midst of the finest forte Ichabod Gunnis had fished a “boxer” top from the pocket of his yellow leather tights, and, lost in admiration of its peg, forgotten his task and slackened his efforts, so that the wind failed in the chest, and in place of a series of grand chords there came from the old organ such doleful howls, as of a dying tune, that the organist thrust the fingers that should have been upon the keys into his hair, and grinned at himself in the reflector like a musical fiend.

“Try again,” whispered a competitor, loftily, and the Oxford man re-played his piece; but though he got through it this time without mishap, the doctor felt that unless his testimonials told strongly in his favour, his had been but a fruitless journey that day.

Next came the Cambridge doctor, with a noble march, which brought forth murmured applause from those who listened. Then followed Handel Smith, who confined himself to the works of his great namesake, and now won plaudits, softly given, for his masterly performance of the great “Hallelujah Chorus.”

As this last performer left his seat, Jared glanced down into the church, where, amidst the fast increasing audience, and occupying the most prominent place he could secure, stood Richard Pellet, with his thumbs in the arm-holes of his white vest, as he leaned back in portly guise against the pew front, and frowned acceptance of the last man’s musical incense, which he seemed to consider entirely in his own honour. But now he caught sight of brother Jared, and as eye met eye, Richard’s frown deepened, and his bottom lip protruded, as he appeared contemptuously to say, “Some people are such fools.”

At all events, Jared Pellet seemed to feel the words, and to think them true. He glanced round the church, as if seeking an opportunity to escape from the moral custody in which he found himself; but there was refreshment for him in the bright eyes of Patty, and an encouraging smile from Mrs Pellet at her side.

The competition progressed. Mr Timson gave vent to his opinion that Herr Schtopffz—a gentleman who appeared to be all fair hair, cheeks, and spectacles—almost made the organ speak; while in their turns the other competitors played admirably. A buzz of conversation ensued, as people warmly discussed the merits of the various performers; the churchwardens looked at one another, as if to say, “What next?” and Mrs Pellet and her daughter began to fidget in their seats, both impatient for Jared to begin, since it had been their decided opinion that he should have been the first to play.

But the buzz of conversation suddenly ceased, for the vicar rose in his pew and exclaimed loudly—

“Another candidate yet, gentlemen—Mr Jared Pellet.”

Volume One—Chapter Four.

Jared’s Piece.

For the last half hour Jared had been wishing himself in Duplex Street, and for the last five minutes he had indulged in a hope that he would be passed over and forgotten. But as his name was uttered, he started and mechanically left his seat, while Patty turned pale, and Mrs Pellet had what she afterwards described as a rising sensation in her throat.

Anything but a formidable competitor seemed Jared Pellet as he rose from his seat, gazing with a lost and wandering look round the old church, and wiping the perspiration from his brow, till what with abject air, want of confidence, and his anything but bright costume, poor Jared’s aspect was pitiable to an extent that made one of his brother’s feet work as if it wanted something to kick.

After the first glance, the audience resumed their conversation, and the rival candidates, making common cause against their opponent, raised their brows, tightened their lips, and shrugged their shoulders, especially Herr Schtopffz, who quite covered his ears as he took a pinch of snuff.

Jared gave one more glance round the church, as if he expected a miracle to be performed in his favour, and that one of the stone angels by a neighbouring tablet would suddenly whisk him off. He then stepped slowly towards the vacant seat, rubbing his long bony fingers together so that they crackled again.

The appearance of the organ was enough to make Jared approach it reverently; and he shuffled on to the long stool, pressing down the lowest pedal key as he passed, so that it gave forth a deep shuddering rumble. This mishap seemed to add to his confusion, which, however, culminated as he felt in his pocket for the roll of music from which he was to have played. He felt in the next pocket, then in his breast, and lastly looked in his hat, as if expecting to see it there. Then he gazed in the faces of his fellow-candidates, as if to say, “What’s become of it?” But the roll was not forthcoming; and in despair, he now glanced at himself in the glass reflector above the key-board. But nothing was to be seen there but a doleful, hopeless-looking face, seeming to tell him that every chance of success was gone.

But as Jared sat there, in full view of the whole church, he felt a slight vibration in his seat, and heard the air rushing into the wind-chest as the boy toiled on at his task to keep it filled and make no more mistakes, for already, in anticipation, he was suffering from a cut or two of Beadle Purkis’s cane.

Jared gazed up at the towering pipes above his head, down at the keys and stops on either side; and then seemed to come over him the recollection of many a pleasant practice in a dim old church, where he had forgotten the troubles of the present in the concord of sweet sounds he had drawn from the instrument. He grew more agitated, his hands trembled, his cheeks flushed, and his eyes brightened—his whole form seemed to dilate, and he thrust his long fingers through his hair, as if seeking to add to the oddity of his appearance, while the audience ceased their murmuring hum of conversation as they witnessed his strange gestures.

He pulled out a stop here and a stop there, tenderly, as if caressing something he loved. Then pushing off his boots, he thrust in every stop, seized them sharply to draw nearly all out, and struck so wild and thrilling a chord, that his hearers started and craned forward to catch the next notes.

Now there was silence, save the dying vibrations of the chord heard in the distant corners and groinings of the roof, for not a whisper was audible amongst the many listeners assembled.

Still silence, as Jared Pellet sat motionless before the great instrument while you might have counted thirty, for the player was lost in the crowd of recollections the sounds had evoked from the past Competition, the audience, all had faded from his mental vision as once more he leaned forward; and fingers were held up to command silence.

“He’s a lunatic, sir,” said one of the listeners to Mr Timson, as Jared Pellet again bent over the keys.

“Then I should like to be at a concert of such lunatics, sir,” answered Mr Timson, who then gave forth an audible “Hush!” as, in a rapid rolling passage, the huge pedal pipes thundered forth a majestic introduction; when again for a few moments there was a pause, and the organist’s fingers were held crooked in mid-air, till with a spasmodic effort he brought them down upon the keys, to pour forth crashing volley after volley of wondrous chords, from end to end of the key-board, and with the full power of the mighty pipes.

Again a rest, and again crashing forth with wondrous rapidity came the spirit-thrilling passages, till, with suppressed breath, the listeners leaned forward as though overpowered; while, after another slight pause, came wailing and sobbing forth so sweetly mournful, so heavenly a strain, that there were some present who were moved to tears, and two, seated in a pew surrounded by children, joined hands and listened with bended head. So sweet an air had never before pealed through the old aisles of St Runwald’s, and made to tremble the woodwork of the great pews with which it was disfigured; for now the melody was wild and piercing—now subdued and plaintive, to rise soon to the jubilant and hopeful: it was the soul of the true musician pouring forth through the medium of the divine art its every thought and feeling.

Again a pause, and the seven rivals, with parted lips, eagerly clustered round the man who saw them not, who ignored church, audience, self, everything but the majestic instrument before which he was seated; and again and again, although the ten minutes had long expired, the audience listened to the bursts of harmony which swayed them as one man, floating around until the air seemed quivering and vibrating with the songs of a multitude of heaven’s own choristers. Louder and louder, chords grander and more majestic, then softly sweet and dying away, while, after one sweeping crescendo passage, Jared ended with a mighty chord which no other man could have grasped, and the audience seemed to be released from the spell which had bound them, as, stop by stop and interval by interval, the chord was diminished, until the pedal key-note alone vibrated shudderingly through the church.

“Rather warm work that, sir,” said the little churchwarden, leaning over into the vicar’s pew.

“Hush, Timson,” said the vicar; “he has not done.”

But he had, though for a few minutes there was a silence that no one cared to break, till, forgetful of place—everything but the strains they had heard—from the vicar downwards, all joined in one loud burst of applause; while, dull, lustreless, spiritless, Jared Pellet responded to the congratulations of his rivals—one and all too true lovers of their art to withhold the palm where they felt it to be well deserved.

Down in the nave, too, there was a pompous, bustling man, talking loudly to those around, giving people to understand that the performer was his brother—the man who, without hesitation, was elected to the post—and for once in a way, Richard Pellet went and shook hands with Jared, and, as he warmly asked him to dinner, forgot to tell him that he was a fool.

Volume One—Chapter Five.

Saint Runwald’s.

There were grand rejoicings in Duplex Street when Jared obtained official announcement, under the hand and seal of Mr Timson the tea-dealer, of his appointment to the post of organist of St Runwald’s, with a salary of fifty pounds a year. To be sure, it was settled before; but Mrs Jared said they might run back, and, after the many disappointments they had had during their married life, it was dangerous to reckon on too much. But now that there was an official appointment in Mr Timson’s round, neat calligraphy, she had no words to say, save those of thankfulness.

Proud! Ay, he was proud, was Jared, for that was an organ to be proud of. It was none of your grand new instruments, full of stops bearing a score of unaccountable names, miserably naked, skeleton-looking affairs, like a conglomeration of Pandean pipes grown out of knowledge, and too big for the society of their old friend the big drum—beggarly painted things, with pipes in blue and red and white, after the fashion of peppermint sticks of the good old times. Why, I hardly believe that Jared, unless prompted thereto by the wolf Poverty, would have struck one of his mighty chords upon them.

But there would have been nothing surprising in Jared’s refusal, since the instrument now placed under his charge was a noble organ in a dark wood case, one which grew richer of tone year by year, while the carved fruit and flowers that clustered around pipes, reflector, music-stand—in fact, wherever a scrap of carving could be placed—were worthy of inspection, without taking into account the shiny Ethiopie cherubs that perched upon their chins, and spread their wings at every available corner.

No; Jared’s was no common organ, as would be declared by any one who had seen the great pipes towering up into the gloom of the roof, and their gilding shedding a rich sunset hue into the farthest corners of the old church. People came miles to hear that organ as soon as Jared became its ruling spirit, and Mrs Nimmer grew hot on Sunday mornings in her endeavours to find sittings for the strangers who flocked in. But the old vicar, the Rev. John Grey, used to chuckle, and think that all was due to his sermons, and wonder whether there could ever be a second St Chrysostom, the golden-mouthed.

Purkis, the beadle, used to wink—that is to say, he would draw a heavy lid over one of his lobster eyes—and say, “I know!” For Jared, in spite of his poverty and large family, had commenced his musical reign by a “donus” of three half-crowns to the beadle, who would boast that he (the beadle) could give people a better service than they could get in any other church in London; and “as to the orgin, why they’d better come and see, that’s all.”

And truly it seemed that Jared could make that instrument thrill beneath his touch, till every passion of the human heart had its representative amongst those notes. You might hear it sob, and wail, and moan in the most piteous manner, whisper and die away in sweet sighing melodies amongst the old pillars, or far up in the carven corners of the chancel, where the notes made the glass to tremble in the lead as they seemed striving to pass through the painted windows. Hear it thunder too, like a young earthquake, and rage, and roar, and growl, till the very pew doors rattled and chattered; and however thick and soft your cushion, you could feel the deep-toned diapasons shuddering up and down your spine. There were love sighs, joy, rage, contending armies, the warring elements, with the rolling billow and crashing thunder, all to be heard from those organ-pipes when Jared Pellet touched the keys; and matters grew to such a pitch, that, partly out of pity for Ichabod Gunnis, and partly because people would not be played out, Mr Timson limited Jared’s voluntaries to a duration of ten minutes.

Mr Purkis’s dinner grew cold; but he did not mind it, for he loved music, and would sit with mouth open and eyes upturned, swallowing the sweet sounds which floated in the air; but Mrs Nimmer, who was not musical, and who, alternately with Mr Purkis, locked up the church, did mind. Hints were of no use; the people would stop, while Ichabod Gunnis heartily wished that he might do the same, for it was a close and confined space where he laboured at the handle of his wind pump, until Jared’s afflatus had been dispersed.

Mr Timson stopped all this with his ten minutes’ law—ample time as he said; and as Jared Pellet never thought of opposing anybody, the voluntaries were reluctantly brought to an end. For Jared’s behaviour at the competition was but a sample of his future proceedings, and when once he began to play, and the organ was in full burst, there was no Jared there, only his body see-sawing from side to side, with shoeless feet working at the pedals, and fingers, bony almost as the keys themselves, nimbly running from flat to natural and sharp, and back again. Jared was not there, he was in the spirit soaring far away upon musical pinions, and in another state of existence, wherein he was freed from the cares and troubles of this life, and felt them only indirectly, as they affected others with whom he seemed to weep or smile, as the character of the music was grave or gay.

Jared Pellet had just finished a morning practice, for he had had to work hard to reduce his wild, semi-extemporised style to the requirements of a regular choir. He had pushed in the last stop, and left his long stool, closing the organ with a sigh, before opening the locker in his seat and depositing therein his book and manuscript. He had drawn the red curtains along the rod when he had entered, and on leaving drew them back again, so that he stood confessed before Ichabod Gunnis; and for a stranger to see Jared Pellet stand confessed after one of his ethereal musical flights, was like taking him from the seventh heaven and putting him under the pump. It was worse than going right into fairyland at the back of the stage on pantomime night, and staring dismayed at the dauby paint, canvas, and confusion.

Ichabod and the organist stood face to face, and whatever the failings of the latter, the former was no pattern of personal beauty; for as to his appearance, he had been rightly named, had there ever been any glory to depart; but the sole reason for the boy bearing his quaint cognomen was, that at the workhouse where he received his early gruel, the authorities had worn out the twelve patriarchs and the twelve apostles, while the number of Abels, Davids, Solomons, and Jonathans who had left their walls was something startling, so they had tried Ichabod for a change, the Gunnis being an after addition.

Ichabod’s leather garments have already been delicately hinted at, but it has not been said that they badly fitted his fourteen year old limbs, neither have his blue bob-tail coat and his vest, ornamented with pewter buttons, been mentioned—buttons bearing a large capital “G.” There was no star of merit upon the left breast of Ichabod, but a pewter plate was stitched on, close to his heart, to keep him from being smitten by the pity of those who saw his absurd garments, and also to act as a label, and to show that he was number fifty-five in the list of scholars belonging to that most excellent gift of charity—Gunnis’s, which, every one who knows London will tell you, is a school where so many boys are educated, and made moral scarecrows; and Ichabod being a “fondling”—as he was called by the workhouse nurse—was entered at last, to the freedom of his parish, already overburdened, and became one of Gunnis’s boys.

“Six o’clock, Ichabod,” said Jared, “and don’t be late.”

“No, sir,” said ’Bod, as he was familiarly termed; and then he began to spin his muffin cap by the tuft of coloured wool on the top.

“Don’t do that, my boy, or you’ll pull off the tassel,” said Jared, as he prepared to descend the stairs, while the young gentleman addressed, evidently perceiving how disfigured his worsted cap would be without its red tuft, tossed it high in the air, to nimbly catch it again upon his head, though rather too far over his eyes for comfort in wearing. Then listening to the descending footsteps, he threw off his coat, and went down upon the boards in a sitting posture, but not of the common kind; for, though one leg was down in a normal position, the other was stretched out far behind, so that it appeared as if the joint had been reversed.

Up again; and now one leg was thrust over his head, to the great danger of his leather pants; then the other leg was tucked over, and the boy down prostrate upon his chest, so that he wore the appearance of a dislocated frog, though his countenance beamed with satisfaction.

“Ichabod!” cried Jared from below.

“Comin’, sir,” shouted the boy, trying hard to untie himself, but in vain, although, after a couple more calls, he could hear the reascending steps of his employer. He twisted, he turned, he struggled, but he was like a mouse in a wire-trap; it was easy to get into his present state, but extrication seemed impossible.

Higher came the steps, and the boy struggled more violently than ever to free himself, till, just as Jared reached the door of the organ loft, the unpractised tumbler rolled over upon his back and stared with upturned eyes over his forehead at the organist.

“Why, bless my soul!” exclaimed Jared, “what a dreadful contortion. The boy must be in a fit.”

“No, I ain’t,” blubbered ’Bod. “I’m only stuck.”

“Stuck!” exclaimed Jared.

“Yes, stuck,” whimpered the boy. “Can’t get my legs back ’cause I’ve got shoes on.”

“Stuck—shoes on,” repeated Jared, in a puzzled way.

“Yes, sir,” wept ’Bod, “and if you’ll pull down one, I can do t’other myself.”

Jared stared at the imp for a few moments as if he took him for a sort of human treble clef, then seizing the uppermost leg, he set it at liberty, and the boy reduced himself to ordinary proportions, standing erect, with one arm raised ready to ward off the expected blow.

“How dare you play such tricks as that in the church, sir?” cried Jared. “Suppose that you had become fixed—what then?”

Ichabod evidently did not know “what then,” so he did not say; but snivelled and rubbed one eye with the cuff of the coat he was about to put on.

“There, go on down first,” said Jared, smiling grimly to himself, “and mind and be punctual; there’s a good boy.”

The good boy, now that the danger was past, went down grinning, and darted out of the porch, forgetting in less than five minutes all that had been said to him about the practice.

Jared’s must have been a more than usually patient disposition; for the same evening he arrived at the church at the appointed hour to find that Ichabod had not come, nor did he make his appearance when his master had opened the organ, and seated himself to wait while gazing dreamily in the old reflector before him.

Not the first time this, that Ichabod had failed; but Jared Pellet had spent the whole of his life accommodating himself to circumstances; and now, as had often before been his wont, he gave unbounded freedom to his thoughts. The mirror before him was dim, for the night was closing in, and besides, the old church was always in a state of twilight from the stained glass windows; but as he looked he could just distinguish the pulpit, dimly shadowed forth, and the screen before the chancel. Soon these seemed to fade from the reflector, and Jared was gazing upon the scenes of his early life—scenes now bright, now shadowed—which passed rapidly before him as if actually mirrored in the glass;—the day that his brother and he were left orphans; their school days, when he was always fag and slave; scene after scene, scene after scene. That mirror had grown to be Jared’s opium—his one indulgence, and, seated alone in the dark church, he had gone on dreaming of the past, and building up fancies of the future, until a habit was formed that it was not easy to shake off.

There was a strange life history to be read in that reflector, as Jared dreamed on, recalling his first severe illness, and its following weakness, for many months solaced by the attentions of the usher’s little girl, whose father had taken charge of him when he was removed from school. Here it was that he had laid the foundation of his dreamy future, as he read aloud to his fair little companion. This had been a pleasant oasis in his life journey, in spite of long weary months of suffering, during which he never left his reclining position, succeeded by a long sojourn in a London hospital, and all from an unlucky blow given by his tyrant brother.

Many dreams had Jared in that old church: of early manhood, and years passed as usher in his old school, while his brother was prospering in town; his love for his old playmate, Lizzie, and the bar of prudence which stayed their marriage; the failure of the school, and his efforts to gain a living by teaching music, eking out his income by the trifling salary he obtained as organist of the little town church—an accomplishment taught by love, for Lizzie Willis had been his instructress, and now gave up the duty in his favour.

At such an hour as this, back too would float the times when he had leaned against one of the old pews listening while she played some grand old tune.

Floating before him always, scene after scene: his application to his brother for help when he first reached London in search of a more lucrative post; the refusal; and the subsequent rage of Richard when he found that Jared, the despised, had married the woman who had but a short time before rejected him, Richard, the prosperous. Then his coming up to London with his wife, and their happiness together, even though, on the second day after their arrival, the bankruptcy of a firm threw Jared out of the employment he had gained.

He recalled, too, his despondency over the disappointment, and then his determination to fight it out; how, struggling on, he had obtained a tuning job here, and some repairing there; now taught a little, and now obtained a commission to purchase some instrument; and one way and another obtained a living, in spite of the way in which Mrs Jared seemed to look upon him as a sort of human camel, adding to his burden year after year with the greatest of punctuality; and still his back was not broken, though twins, as he often told his wife, must have been fatal.

Volume One—Chapter Six.

Patty’s Mistake.

Matters wore a rather serious aspect at Duplex Street; for a whole month Jared had been enjoying all the sensations known only to the wealthy. He had been congratulated by his family, who looked upon him as a sort of musical god, or as, at least, a musician worthy of ranking with those fiddling and trumpet-blowing angels they had seen once upon a holiday, smiling benignantly in a cloudy heaven upon the ceilings at Hampton Court Palace.

He had been congratulated too by Monsieur Canau, who had been in the habit of occasionally bringing his violin for an evening duet; and, as has been already stated, he had been congratulated by his brother, who invited him to dinner, and then put him off twice, ending though by announcing his marriage with the wealthy Mrs Clayton, widow of a merchant captain, and, desiring that bygones might be bygones, requesting that Jared, with his wife and daughter, would spend the afternoon and dine with them at Norwood on Christmas Day.

Jared had said “No;” but Mrs Jared “Yes;” for even if it spoiled their own homely day, no opportunity ought to be passed over which promised reconciliation between brothers, for whose estrangement her woman’s tact told her she was partly to blame.

So arrangements were made for the flock in Duplex Street, Janet, protégé of Monsieur Canau, readily undertaking to be shepherdess for the occasion. Clothes were compared, and, what Mrs Jared called, made the best of; Jared himself devoting quite an hour to the brushing and nap-reviving of his old black coat and trousers. Many an old scrap of half-forgotten finery was routed out by Mrs Jared for her embellishment, after long discussions; while as for Patty, when did a fair open-countenanced young girl look otherwise than well in virgin white, even though it was but a cheap book muslin, made up at home, with very little regard to fashion?

At the appointed hour, a cab deposited the party from Duplex Street at the door of Richard’s “little place,” at which door they arrived after a drive along a gritty gravel sweep. The stout and gentlemanly butler was there, and received them with frigid courtesy, two doors being flung open by as many gentlemen in drab and coach-lace, which tall parties indulged in a laugh and a wink behind their hands at the expense of Jared, though number one—the under-butler—afterwards told number two—the footman—that “the gal wasn’t so very bad.”

And now the brothers had met, and Jared the poor been introduced by Richard the wealthy to his wife, late the widow of Captain Clayton, of the merchant service.

There was another introduction though, performed by Mr Richard Pellet in a condescending fashion, namely, of his stepson Harry Clayton; who, however, seemed to forget all the next moment, as he made his step-father frown upon seeing the attentions paid by the frank, earnest young undergraduate to his blushing niece. Jared too felt troubled, he did not know why, for he dwelt with pleasure upon the young man’s face as it shone in opposition to the darkened countenance of the elder.

The conversation rose and flagged; but it was evident to Jared that there was a cloud overshadowing the meeting, though the young man heeded not the glances of father and mother, as he chatted on to the fresh happy girl at his side.

Doubtless to a grandee of the London season Patty would have seemed slow and backward in conversation; but to the young collegian there was something fascinating in the naïve, ingenuous girl; and in spite of looks, hints, and even broad remarks, which turned Jared’s morocco-covered chair into a seat of thorns, Harry laughed and chatted on through the dinner.

There was everything at Norwood requisite for the spending of a pleasant evening—everything, with one exception. There was what Jared afterwards called in confidence to his wife, “the fat of the land;” but though the said fat was well cooked and served, and there were luscious wines to wash it down, yet was there no geniality, and the visitors partook of portions of their meal in the midst of a chilly, though exceedingly well-bred silence.

Jared was not at his ease, and he could not help flinching from the ministrations of the men in coach-lace, while he felt quite hot when the gentlemanly butler asked him in stern tones if he would take champagne.

Not that conversation was entirely wanting on the part of the elders, for at intervals Jared listened to thrilling narratives of his brother’s speculations, and of how much money he had made in different ways; he learned, too, something new—what a fine thing cash was, how powerful it made its owner, and how he enjoyed its possession. Then Richard pitied kindly Jared’s want of business tact, hinted how much more might have been made had both been business men, and concluded by wishing him better days, and drinking his health in a glass of port—a port purchased at Mr Humphrey Phulcrust’s sale, as he informed Jared, at one hundred and twenty shillings a dozen; Jared thinking the while that it was very strong and harsh, and flavoured of the sloes he had gathered as a boy, while a dozen of the ruddy fluid would have paid a quarter’s rent in Duplex Street, so that altogether he quite trembled, and felt as if he were injuring his wife and family as he sipped and sipped, like a man who was engaged in swallowing sixpences.

When Richard Pellet was not frowning upon his stepson, he was very active in promoting the comfort of his guests, after the same fashion in which he had flavoured his brother’s wine, telling them how much port was in the soup, how much he paid for the turbot in Billingsgate, and how he gave a crown for the lobster. As for the turkey, that was five-and-thirty shillings, and bought on purpose for their coming. Many other things were equally expensive, so that Jared and his family thoroughly enjoyed the epicurean feast, thinking all the while of their own humble board. Home would keep rising to his mind, so that before the dinner had half dragged through its slow length, Jared was wishing himself back in Duplex Street, having a duet with Monsieur Canau, while Janet and Patty played at forfeits or blind man’s buff with his tribe, watching the while that they did not meddle with any of his musical concerns.

Money and business, business and money, were Richard Pellet’s themes, and on the golden string they formed when twisted he harped continually. But it was not only in speech that you felt the money, for it was peering out of everything, from the mistress of the house, with her massive gold chain and large diamond rings, down to the very carpet on which she trod. There were books in gilded bindings that had never been opened; a piano of the most costly kind that was rarely touched; there was every luxury that money could purchase; while, lastly, the very essence of his cash, grey-headed, bushy and prominently browed, very smooth and glossy, and always chinking a few sovereigns in either pocket, there was Richard Pellet, looking down with a pleasant patronising smile of contempt upon his guests.

“Some people are such fools,” he seemed to mutter to himself as he pitied poor, comely Mrs Jared, who appeared to be neither surprised nor disappointed, but took all with a quiet, well-bred ease, and did not in the least allow stout Mrs Richard to sit upon her—metaphorically of course—in spite of her violent flame-coloured moiré; neither did she seem to be crushed by the conversation, which varied little between the weather and the dinner.

But however full of constraint the repast might have been for the elders, to Patty it was a scene of enjoyment, for Harry Clayton, awake now to their meaning, laughed at his mother’s remonstrant looks, and ignoring those of Richard, was more than ever attentive to the bright-eyed girl, who in her light-hearted innocence chatted merrily with him, listening eagerly to his account of college life, both thinking nothing of the wealth around them in the thorough enjoyment of the hour.

It was, of course, very provoking; but in spite of all hints to the contrary, when they were in the drawing-room, Harry would linger by Patty’s chair.

“Would she play?” Yes, she would play. “And sing?” Yes, and sing too. The first skilfully; the latter in a sweet, little, silvery, gushing voice, that was bird-like in its purity and freedom from affectation. For Patty was Jared’s own child, with her father’s zest for music, the art which he had loved to teach her, at times too when often and often called away to perform some simple domestic duty.

Richard Pellet seemed surprised, and listened in silence. Mrs Richard forgot herself so for as to clap her hands and call Patty “a dear little darling.” But, gazing upon the group at the piano with the eyes of her lord, she felt that this sort of thing would not do. Apparently, too, acting upon a hint from Richard, she kept framing blundering excuses for getting the young man to her side—excuses, though, so trivial, that Harry only laughed good-humouredly, and then made his way back to their young visitor.

It was nearly time for tea, and Harry had coaxed the artless girl into the little drawing-room to show her some sketches, and the photographs of the elders. Jared and his brother had their backs to them, hard and fast in a discussion upon money,—Richard telling his brother what a deal a sovereign would make,—Jared the while in a state of doubt, from old experience how short a road it went, whether there really were as many as twenty shillings in a pound. As for Mrs Jared, she was seated in a low chair by the fire, and being beamed upon by Mrs Richard, who had exhausted the weather, finished the dinner, and was now at a loss for a fresh subject.

The sketches were very interesting, so much so that Harry was obliged to explain them in a low, subdued tone, when, taking advantage of their position, he with a heightened colour took from the wall a sprig of mistletoe, and held it before Patty’s eyes.

“No, no,” she whispered in a low tone—so low that he probably did not hear it. “No, no; that is only for children.”

“The licence of the season,” Harry whispered, as with one hand he held up the sprig, and then drew towards him the yielding girl.

Well, Patty was very young, very natural, and quite unused to worldly ways; and Harry was somewhat rough and wilful. Patty had listened that night to words new to her, and where her parents had seen but pride and ostentation, she had had her eyes blinded by a couleur de rose veil, drinking deeply the while of the honied draught the young fellow in all earnestness pressed upon her.

All was so sweet, and new, and delightful. He must mean all he said; while being Christmas-time, with a scrap of the pearl-hung parasite to hallow the salute, how could she scream or struggle, as was, of course, needful under the circumstances? Patty did not resist, for being ignorant and natural, she thought that she would like it, and so allowed her soft cheek to rest for a moment where it was drawn, while the little red half-parted lips hardly shrank from the kiss they received.

“Harry!” roared Richard Pellet, leaping from his chair, for he had been seated opposite to a glass which betrayed every movement of the young people. “Harry!” he roared, and the young man with eyes cast down, but raised head, stood erect and defiant before him; “come here!” he exclaimed, striding towards the door, while as the delinquent followed him from the room, Jared and his wife distinctly heard the words, “That beggar’s brat!”

Volume One—Chapter Seven.

The Lover’s Petition.

An hour later and the party were back in Duplex Street, having travelled home in silence, with Patty weeping her sin the whole way, while she now sat sobbing by the fireside almost heedless of her mother’s consoling words. Jared had looked stern and troubled, but not cross; in fact, he had been talking the matter over to himself on the way back, and himself had had the best of the argument by declaring that it was only a custom of the season; that Harry Clayton was a fine handsome young fellow, and Patty as sweet a little girl as ever breathed; and that, though the matter had turned into an upset, the young folks were not so very much to blame.

Jared was beaten by himself, that is to say, by his own good nature, and what was more, he seemed so little put out in consequence, that he rode home the rest of the way with his arm round his wife’s waist—but then, certainly it was dark.

“There, there!” exclaimed Jared at last; “go to bed, Patty, and let’s have no more tears.”

He spoke kindly; but Patty could not be consoled, for she told herself that she had been very, very wicked, and if dear father only knew that she had almost held out her lips to be kissed, he would never, never, forgive her. So she sobbed on.

“Why, what is the matter?” exclaimed Jared at last, for Patty had thrown herself on her knees at her mother’s feet, and was crying almost hysterically in her lap. “What are you crying for?”

“Oh! oh! oh!” sobbed poor Patty, whose conscience would not let her rest until she had made a full confession of her sin, “I did-id-id-n’t try to stop him.”

“Humph!” grunted Jared, and the eyes of husband and wife met over their weeping girl, whose sobs after confession grew less laboured and hysterical.

The next day Harry Clayton called at Duplex Street, and the next day, and again after two days, and then once more after a week, but only to see Mrs Jared, who never admitted the visitor beyond the door-sill. She was civil and pleasant; but he must call when Mr Jared Pellet was at home, which he did at last and was ushered into the front parlour.

Jared was in his shirt sleeves, and had an apron on, for he was busy covering pianoforte hammers, and there was a very different scent in the place to that in Mrs Richard’s drawing-room, for Jared’s glue-pot was in full steam.

Had Mr Harry Clayton received permission from his parents to call? This from Jared very courteously, but quite en prince, though his fingers were gluey.

No, from the young man, very humbly, he had neither received nor asked permission; but if Mr Jared would not let him see Miss Pellet before he went, he should leave town bitter, sorrowful, and disappointed; for there had been a great quarrel at home, and though he was of age, Mr Richard Pellet wished to treat him like a child.

Only a shake of the head from Jared at this.

Would Mr Jared be so cruel as to refuse to let him bid Miss Pellet good-bye?

Yes, Jared Pellet would, even though his wife had entered, and was looking at him with imploring eyes. For Jared had a certain pride of his own, and a respect for his brother’s high position. And besides, he told himself bitterly that it was not meet that the stepson of a Croesus should marry with “a beggar’s brat.”

So Jared would keep to his word, and Mrs Jared could only sympathise with the young man, holding the while, though by a strange contradiction, to her husband.

Harry gave vent to a good deal of romantic saccharine stuff of twenty-one vintage, interspersed with the sea saltism of “true as the needle to the pole,” and various other high-flown sentiments, which mode of expressing himself, tending as it did to show his admiration for her daughter, and coming from a fine, handsome, and manly young suitor, Mrs Jared thought very nice indeed; but she diluted its strength with a few tears of her own.

Jared was obstinate though, and would not look; he only screwed up his lips and covered pianoforte hammers at express speed, making his fingers sticky and wasting felt; for every hammer had to be re-covered when Harry had taken his departure.

Harry was gone, with one hand a little sticky from the touch of Jared’s gluey fingers, as he said, “Good-bye,” and one cheek wet with Mrs Jared’s tears, as he saluted her reverently, as if she had been his mother.

“But a nice lad, dear,” said Mrs Jared, wiping her eyes.

“Yes; I dare say,” said Jared, stirring his glue round and round; “but mighty fond of kissing.”

Then husband and wife thought of the strange tie growing out of the new estrangement, and also of the fact that they must be growing old, since their child was following in their own steps—in the footprints of those who had gone before since Adam first gazed upon the fair face of the woman given to be his companion and solace in the solitude that oppressed him.

And where was Patty?

Down upon her knees in her little bedroom, whither she had fled on hearing that voice, sobbing tremendously, as if her fluttering heart would break—her handkerchief being vainly used to silence the emotion.

Poor Mrs Jared was quite disconcerted by her child’s reproachful looks when she told her that it might be but a passing fancy, that their position was so different, that years and distance generally wrought changes, and she must learn to govern her heart.

Just as if it were possible that such a man as Harry Clayton—so bold, so frank, so handsome, so—so—so—so—everything—could ever alter in the least. So Patty cried and then laughed, and said she was foolish, and then cried again, and behaved in a very extravagant way, hoping that Harry would write and tell her, if only just once more, that he loved her.

But Harry did not write, for he was a man of honour, and he had promised that he would not until he had permission; while Jared, thinking all this over again and again in his musing moods when sitting before his reflector, felt convinced that he had acted justly, and time alone must show what the young people’s future was to be.

The breach remained wider than ever between the brothers; for Richard Pellet said grandly to his wife—standing the while with his back to the fire, and chinking sovereigns in his pockets—that it was quite impossible to do anything for people who were such fools, and so blind to their own interests; and Mrs Richard, who was on the whole a good-natured woman, but had not room in her brain for more than one idea at a time, thought her new relatives very dreadful people, for they had driven her poor boy away a month or two sooner than he would have gone, though in that respect Richard did not show much sympathy, since he was rather glad to be rid of his stepson.

Volume One—Chapter Eight.

Little Pine and her Teacher.

Carnaby Street, Golden Square, where the private doors have their jambs ornamented with series of bell-pulls like the stops of an organ, and the knockers seem intended to form handles that shall lift up and display rows of keys; but generally speaking, the doors stand open, and the sills bear a row of as many children as can squeeze themselves in. The population is dense and the odours are many, but the prevailing smell is that described by a celebrated character as of warm flat-irons, the ear corroborating nose and palate, for an occasional chink hints that the iron—not a flat one—has been placed upon its stand, while the heavy dull thump, thump, tells that some garment is being pressed. For this is one of the strongholds of the London tailors, and the chances are that the cloth cut upon the counter of Poole has been built into shape in Carnaby Street.

It was in the first floor back, and in two small rooms, that Tim Ruggles—always Tim, though christened Timothy—a steady-going, hard—working, Dutch clock kind of man, carried on the trade popular in the district, with his family of a wife and a little girl. He considered the two rooms ample—the larger serving for parlour, kitchen, workshop, and bedroom for little Pine, the other being devoted exclusively to sleeping purposes.

But you might have entered Tim’s room a score of times without detecting little Pine’s bed, which was an ingeniously contrived affair like a cupboard, that doubled up and doubled down, and creaked and groaned and sprawled about when in use, and had a bad habit of bursting open its doors when closed, and coming down when least expected in the shape of a bedding avalanche. But these accidents only occurred when Mrs Ruggles had ventured upon the doubling up of that piece of furniture, for Tim was the only person who thoroughly understood its idiosyncrasies, and possessed the skill and ingenuity to master its obtrusiveness. In effect, the first thing to be done was to make the bed, which Tim did regularly; then when all was well tucked in, to double back clothes and mattress, and with one rapid acrobatic evolution, performed in all its intricacies without a moment’s hesitation, to kick its legs from beneath it as you seized it at the foot, force your knee vigorously into its stomach, and then, as it folded, to drive all before you back into a state of collapse, banging to and bolting the doors in its face before it had time to recover; for if you were not rapid in your motions, down you went with the recoil, to be pinned to the floor by an incubus of wood and sacking. But, manage the matter as did Tim Ruggles, taking care that no corners of sheet, blanket, or quilt stood out between cracks, and to all appearance that bed might have been a secretary.

Tim was not a large man, either in person or ways; in fact, cross-legged upon his board, he often seemed half lost in the garment he was making. Dry he was, and shrunken, as if overbaked—a waster, in fact, from Nature’s pottery. The effect of the shrinking was most visible in his face, whose skin seemed not to fit, but fell into pucker, crease, and fold, above which shone, clear, white, and firm, his bald forehead and crown, fringing which, and standing out on either side, was a quantity of grizzled, frizzly, tufty hair, imparting a fierce look that was perfectly unreal.

Tim had just fetched his hot iron from the fire, and gone back to press off the garment he was completing; he had run his finger along the bars of a canary cage, and had it pecked by the bird within; gazed at the eternal prospect of back windows, cisterns, and drying clothes; sighed, wiped his nose upon a piece of cloth kept for the purpose, and then sat, sleeve-board in one hand, sponge in the other, the image of despair, as smothered cries, the pattering of blows, and half-heard appeals, as of one who dared not cry out, fell upon his ear.

As Tim Ruggles sat over his work with a shudder running through his frame, there rang out, at last, in thrilling tones—

“Oh! oh! oh! please not this time—not this time. Oh! don’t beat me.” Now louder, now half smothered, till Tim twisted, and shuffled, and writhed as if the blows so plainly to be heard were falling upon his own shoulders; each stroke making him wince more sharply, while his face grew so puckered and lined as to be hardly recognisable.

“I can’t stand it,” he groaned at last; and then he gave a start, for he had inadvertently placed his hand upon his hot iron.

Then came again the anguished appeal for pardon, accompanied by cry after cry that seemed to have burst forth in spite of the utterer’s efforts to crush them down, till Tim, as he listened to the wailing voice, the whistling of stick or cane, and the dull thud of falling blows, seemed to shrink into himself as he turned his back to the sounds, stopped his ears with his finger and a wet sponge, and then sat crouched together regardless of trickling water making its way within his shirt-collar.

At last the cries ceased, and the silence was only broken by an occasional suppressed sob; but Tim moved not, though the door opened, and from the inner room came a tall, hard, angular woman, rigid as the old whalebone umbrella rib she held in one hand, leading, or rather dragging in a child with the other. She was a woman of about forty, such as in a higher class of life would have been gifted with a mission, and let people know of the fact. As it was, she was but a tailor’s wife with a stiff neck: not the stiff neck of a cold which calls for hartshorn, friction, and flannel, but a natural rigidity which caused her to come round as upon a pivot when turning to address a speaker, at a time when with other people a movement of the head would have sufficed.

“Tim!” she cried, as she stepped into the room, opening and closing her cruel-looking mouth with a snap.

Tim heard the meaning cry, and, starting quickly, the next moment he was busily at work as if nothing had happened.

Mrs Ruggles said no more, but proceeded to place her whalebone rod upon a perch over the fire-place. Her back was turned while doing this, a fact of which Tim took advantage to kiss his hand to the cowering child, when, save at distant intervals, she ceased to sob.

“I don’t think you need beat poor Pine so,” said Tim at last, in a hesitating way, “What was it for?”

“Come here,” shouted Mrs Ruggles to the child; “what did I whip you for?”

With the cowering aspect of a beaten dog, the child came slowly forward into the light: sharp-featured, tangled of hair, red-eyed, cheek-soiled with weeping. Tim Ruggles winced again as he looked upon her thin bare arms and shoulders, lined by the livid weals made by the sharp elastic rod of correction, ink-like in its effects, the dark marks seeming to run along the flesh as the vicious blows had fallen. The poor child crept slowly forward, as if drawn by some strange influence towards Mrs Ruggles, her eyes resting the while upon Tim, whose face was working, and whose fingers opened and closed as if he were anxious to snatch the child to his heart.

“Now, ask her what she was whipped for,” shouted Mrs Ruggles. “Tell him. What was it for?”

“For—for—taking—”

“Ah! what’s that? For what?” shouted Mrs Ruggles.

“For—for—for stealing—for—for—oh!—oh!—oh!” cried the child, bursting into an uncontrollable fit of sobbing, “I didn’t do it—I didn’t do it!”

And there she stopped short: the words, the sobs, the wailing tone, all ceased as if by magic, as Mrs Ruggles snatched the whalebone from its supporting nails.

“Yes, yes,” the child shrieked in haste, as the rigid figure and the instrument of torture approached—“for stealing the cake from the cupboard.” And then teeth were set fast, lips nipped together, hands clenched, and eyes closed, and the whole of the child’s nine years’ old determination seemed to be summoned up to bear the blow she could hear about to descend. The whalebone whistled through the air, and, in spite of every effort, the cut which fell upon the bare shoulders elicited a low wail of suffering.

A deep sigh burst from Tim Ruggles’ breast, and he bent lower over his work, moving his iron, but over the wrong places, as he closed his eyes not to see the child fall upon her knees and press both hands tightly over her lips to keep back the cry she could not otherwise conquer; her every act displaying how long must have been the course of ill-treatment that had drawn forth such unchildlike resolution and endurance.

“Now,” cried Mrs Ruggles, “no noise!” though her own sharp unfeminine tones must have penetrated to the very attics as she spoke. “There, that will do. Now get up this minute.”

“But,” said the little tailor, humbly, “you should always ask before you punish, Mary. I—I took the piece of cake out of the cupboard, because I hardly ate any breakfast.”

“Tim—Tim—Tim!” cried Mrs Ruggles; and as she spoke, she looked at him sideways, her eyes gleaming sharply out of the corners. “You false man, you! but the more you try to screen her that way, the more I’ll punish. How many times does this make that I’ve found you out?”

“Times—found out?” stammered Tim.

“Yes—times found out,” retorted Mrs Ruggles. “But I’ll have no more of it, and so long as she’s here, she shall behave herself, or I’ll cut her thievish ways out of her.”

“But, indeed,” said Tim, pitifully, “it was me, upon my word. It was me, Mary. Just look—here’s some of the crumbs left now;” and he pointed to a few splintery scales of paste lying upon the board.

Mrs Ruggles gave a nod that might have meant anything.

“I am sure you should not beat her so,” whimpered Tim. “Beating does no good, and may hurt—”

“Didn’t I say I wouldn’t have her talked about?” exclaimed Mrs Ruggles, in threatening tones. “And how do you know? If she didn’t want whipping this time, it will do for next. Children are always doing something, and a good beating sometimes loosens their skins and makes ’em grow. You never had children to teach.”

“’Tain’t my dooty to have children,” muttered Tim.

“What’s that?” shouted Mrs Ruggles. “Now don’t aggravate, you know I can’t abear nagging.”

“I only said, my dear, that it wasn’t my dooty to have children, but yours.”

Mrs Ruggles gave her husband a look composed of half scorn, half contempt—a side look, which, coming out of the corners of her eyes, was so sharpened in its exit that though Tim would not look up and meet it, he could feel it coming, and shivered accordingly.

Meanwhile Mrs Ruggles took a bonnet from a peg, and putting it on, tied the strings tightly as if in suicidal intent, snatched herself into a shawl, and rummaged out a basket, preparatory to starting upon a marketing expedition.

“Now then, don’t grovel there, but go to your work,” she shouted to the kneeling child, who bent before her as if she were the evil deity presiding over her fate.

Then the child’s hands dropped from before her mouth, as she flinchingly rose, and taking a copper lid from a side table, began with a piece of dirty rag to rub and polish the already bright metal, giving at the same time stealthy, furtive glances, first at Tim and then at Mrs Ruggles; while, in spite of every effort, a sob would swell her little breast, beat down her puny efforts, and burst forth, to make her shiver in dread of further blows.

Volume One—Chapter Nine.

The Ninth Part of a Man.

The room door closed upon Mrs Ruggles’ rigid figure, her loud step, indicative of the woman’s firmness, was heard upon the stairs, and then Tim and little Pine ceased from their tasks, and listened till an echoing bang announced the shutting of the front door, when, half rising and leaning forward, Tim dashed down the garment he was making, opened his arms—the child gave a series of bounds, and the next moment had buried her face in Tim’s breast, winding her little bare arms about his neck, wringing her thin fingers as she clasped and unclasped them, moaning piteously the while.

“Just what I expected,” exclaimed Mrs Ruggles, in hard, sharp tones; and starting up, the guilty couple found that she had stolen back and softly opened the door. But the next instant the child had seized lid and rag, and Tim was busily stitching away at a piece of lining which belonged nowhere, as he looked confusedly in his wife’s face.

“Call yourself a man!” exclaimed Mrs Ruggles, with that peculiar bitterness so much used by women of her class. “Ah! I’ve a great mind to!” she exclaimed again, looking sideways at little Pine, and making a dash at the whalebone; “but I don’t know which deserves it most.”

The child set her teeth hard, and shrank towards the wall, while Tim drew a long breath, and clutched the big iron by his side, though without the slightest intention of using it for offence or defence.

Mrs Ruggles again spoke—

“Don’t let me come back again, that’s all,” she exclaimed; and if his looks were a faithful index of Timothy Ruggles’ mind, his heart evidently just then whispered, “I wish to goodness I could take you at your word.”

Then the door was once more closed, the step heard again, the bang down-stairs, and then there was silence in the room, broken only by the half-suppressed sobs of little Pine, and the impatient, restless pecking of the bird in the cage.

Five minutes passed, and still there was silence, when Tim softly took up a yard-measure from the board, stole nimbly off on to his shoeless feet, opened the door, and peered through the crack, and then, reaching out one hand, he touched a bell with the yard-measure, making it ring loudly twice over. Then he softly closed the door, replaced himself and his measure upon the board, before leaping boldly and noisily off to cross the room, open the door loudly, and trot down-stairs to answer the bell, the child earnestly watching his motions the while.

Down the stairs trotted Tim, and along the passage to the front door, to open it, look out, and peer up and down the street, when, apparently satisfied, he closed the door once more, his face wearing an aspect of full belief as he muttered, “A runaway ring.”

Had Tim Ruggles made his descent a minute sooner, he would have seen the graceful form of his lady some half-a-dozen doors lower down, as she stood in conversation with a neighbour; but now, no one being in sight, he hurried up-stairs again, climbed upon his board, placed his work ready to hand, and then, and then only, he held out his arms to the child, who was sobbing the next instant upon his breast.

“Don’t—don’t cry, my pet,” he whispered, puzzling the while a couple of real tears which had escaped from his eyes, and finding no friendly handkerchief at hand, were dodging in and out amongst the main lines and sidings and crossings and switches of the course of life as mapped out in Tim’s face, till one tear was shunted into his left ear, and the other paused by the corner of his mouth.

“Don’t cry, my pet,” said Tim again, caressing the child with all a woman’s tenderness. “But come, I say, you must cheer up, for see what I’ve been making for you. But there, don’t cry, my darling;” and he pressed his cool, soft, womanly hand upon weal and burning sore. “Now look,” he continued, and from under a heap of cloth patches he produced a quaint-looking rag doll, evidently the work of many a stolen five minutes. “Now, then!” he cried, in the tone people adopt towards children, “what do you think of that?”

Then there was silence, while Tim eagerly watched the child, whose little mind seemed to be struggling hard between the ideas natural to its age, and those of a forced and premature character. First she looked at the doll, then at its donor, and then, half laughing, half crying, she looked pitifully in Tim’s face, before once more throwing herself, sobbing loudly, in his arms, where she clung tightly, as the little man patted her head, and smoothed and caressed her.

“I thought she’d have liked it,” muttered Tim, looking down upon the little head in a disconcerted way, his face growing more and more puckered as he rocked himself to and fro, humming the snatch of some old ditty, treating the suffering little one as though she were a baby. By slow degrees the sobs ceased, and Tim seemed more puzzled than ever, when the child raised her head, and gazed in his face, her little wan aspect seeming to make her years older as she kissed him, saying—

“Please put it away now.”

Tim stared hard at the little thin face, as with one hand he reluctantly placed the doll beneath the cloth shreds, holding her tightly with the other, till, in a strange old-fashioned way, she kissed him again, saying—

“It was very kind of you.” And then she slipped out of his arms, crossed the room to the glass, and smoothed her hair, wetted Tim’s sponge, and removed the tear marks from her face, placing too the cool grateful water against the smarting weals upon her arms. Afterwards she returned to her task and went on polishing the metal lid, a sob rising at intervals to make Tim Ruggles flinch.

Tim’s work was again in hand, but progressing very, very slowly as he then sat musing, and wondering whose child the little one was; also whether she would be fetched away, a proceeding which he dreaded, in spite of the pain it gave him to see her suffer. “I’ve no spirit to stop it,” he muttered, “though it nips me horribly. I suppose it’s from stitching so much that I ain’t like most men. It’s all right though, I s’pose; she knows best.—Here, I say, though, my wig and pickles, we shall have the missus home directly,” he cried, fiercely, “and no work done. Now then, bustle; polish away;” and he set the example of industry by snatching up the trousers in course of making, and sewing more fiercely than ever.

Volume One—Chapter Ten.

My Duty towards my Neighbour.

“Now then,” said Tim Ruggles, “we mustn’t have no more sobbing and sighing, you know, but get on with working, and eddication, and what not, before some one comes home, and goes off. Now what were we doing last, my pretty?”

“Reading,” said little Pine, absently.

“Mistake,” said Tim. “It was cate—cate—well, what was it?”

“Chism,” said the child; “catechism.”

“Right,” said Tim. “Now, let’s see; it was duty towards my neighbour, and if we don’t look sharp as a seven—between we shall never get through that beautiful little bit. Eddication, my pretty, is the concrete, atop of which they build society; and if I’d been an eddicated man and known a few things—”

“But you know everything, don’t you?” queried Pine.

“Well, no, my dear, not quite,” said Tim, rubbing one side of his nose, and gazing in a a comical way at the child.

“But you are very clever, ain’t you.”

“Oh, dear me, no; not at all,” said Tim; “leastwise, without it’s in trousis, and there I ain’t so much amiss. But come, I say, this won’t do; this is catechism wrong side out, so go on.”

Then slowly on to the accompaniment of the metal polishing—the lid being by this time succeeded by a brass candlestick—and the sharp click of Tim’s needle, the portion of catechism under consideration progressed till it was brought to a full stop over the words, “Succour my father and mother,” when Tim was, to use his own words, quite knocked off his perch by the child’s question—

“Who is my mother?”

“Why—er—er—why, mother, you know,” replied Tim.

The child shook her head thoughtfully, and now speaking, now stopping to rub at the bright metal, said—

“No, no! not her—not her! My own—my own dear mother could not, would not beat me so. I think it must be some one who comes when I’m half asleep, and I can see her blue eyes, and feel her long curls round my face when she kisses me, and then it is that I wake up; and,” she continued dreamily, “I’m not sure whether she does come, for she is not there then, and when I whisper, no one answers; and do you know whether she comes, or whether I dream she does, that must be my mother, for no one else would come and kiss me like that.”

“Why, I do,” remonstrated Tim, “lots o’ times.”

“Yes, yes! you do!” said the child, smiling, “but I know when it’s you, and I can’t help thinking—”

“Here, I say,” exclaimed Tim, “this isn’t catechism. This won’t do, my pretty, you mustn’t talk like that. Now, then, go on,—‘Succour my father’—”

“Succour—succour,” continued the child, “my father and mother. Is she gone to heaven, and does she come to look at me in the night, and kiss me? I don’t think that she would whip me so, and—and—oh! pray don’t beat me for it. I can’t help it. Oh! I can’t help it,” and then once again, the little thin hands were pressed upon the quivering lips to thrust back the bitter heart-wrung wail that would make itself heard. No child’s cry; but the moaning of a bruised heart, forced and rendered premature in its feelings by the long course of cruelty to which it had been subjected. A stranger might have listened, and then have gone away believing that his feelings had been moved to pity by the anguished utterances of a woman in distress.

Tim hopped from his board, half bewildered, and quite in trouble, to kiss and caress the child, smoothing her hair, patting her cheeks, and holding her tightly to his breast.

“Come, my pretty,” he whispered, “you mustn’t, you know. It does hurt me so, and ain’t I as good as a father? And didn’t you promise me as you’d love me very, very much? And now you’re raining down tears, and melting all the sugar out of a fellow’s nature till you’ll make him cross as—Polish away, my pretty.”

With two bounds Tim was back in his place, and little Pine again bent over her task; for there was a heavy step upon the staircase, and as it stopped at the door, Tim grunted, and slowly shuffled off his board to replace his iron in the fire after giving it a loud clink upon the stand.

“Now, my dear,” said Tim, loudly, “we ain’t getting on so fast as we oughter. ‘Bear no malice.’”

“‘Bear no malice,’” repeated the child, looking up at him, with a quaint smile upon her little pinched lips.

“‘Nor hatred in my heart,’” said Tim; and then dolefully, “why don’t you look at your work?”

“‘Nor hatred in my heart,’” said the child, whose little face, then again upturned, showed that, if there were truth in looks, malice or hatred had never entered her breast.

“Louder, ever so much,” whispered Tim, “and don’t yer get whipped whilst I’m at Pellet’s, there’s a pet. ‘Keep my hands from picking and stealing,’” he continued, aloud.

“‘From picking and stealing,’” said the child, softly.

“She’d better, that’s all I can say,” came from the doorway; and Mrs Ruggles closed the portal, and then swung round again, right about face, and confronted her husband, “perhaps some one else will keep his tongue from evil-speaking, lying, and so on.”

“I’m blessed,” muttered Tim, “that’s rather hot.”

“Of course it is,” exclaimed Mrs Ruggles, who only caught the latter part of the sentence, and applied it to the fire. “Such waste of coals. I suppose that girl’s been shovelling them on as if they cost nothing.”

“No, my dear—me—it was me,” said Tim, who well enough knew that the fire had been made up by Mrs Ruggles herself: but he was a terrible liar.

“Then you ought to have known better.”

“Yes, my dear,” said Tim, humbly, glad to have averted the current of his lady’s wrath.

“Are those trousers nearly done?” said Mrs Ruggles.

“Very nearly, my dear,” replied Tim, throwing his iron duster, and some more scraps over the spot where lay the doll.

“Because you have to go to Pellet’s, mind, this afternoon.”

“Thinking about ’em when you was on the stairs, my dear,” said Tim, and this time he spoke the truth.

Volume One—Chapter Eleven.