Chapter XXIV: Family Ghools (2)

'Because you present yourself as a butt, instead of laughing with him, and giving things a turn.'

'Impossible, where one feels deeply.'

Felix believed it was impossible in the present case, and resigned himself, though pricking up his ears at the ripples of mirth and the shrieks of ecstatic uncontrollable laughter that reached his ear; until at last Lance burst in, laughing so that he could hardly stand upright, and bringing a paper in his hand for Felix's benefit.

It had been the game of adjectives, and Edgar, the conductor, had audaciously made its framework the Pursuivant's report of the valedictory sermon that Mr. Mowbray Smith was to preach on the morrow. It was a most comical combination, so well had Edgar's outline hit off the editor's desire to make the best of it, coupled with personalities that neither Mr. Smith would have preached nor he reported unless they had been in the palace of truth; the whole rendered the more grotesque by the hap-hazard adjectives that seasoned the discourse, sometimes deliciously inapposite, sometimes fantastically appropriate. An audience had stolen behind Lance to taste its sweets a second time; and the drollery, the _vraisemblance_, and touches of malice, quite choked him as he read, and overpowered Felix with mirth, all the more at the shocked countenance that Clement preserved throughout, while in the background there was a renewed chuckling, roaring, and rolling, at the more brilliant sallies.

The whole family had been viewing Edgar with more or less of awe, pity, and curiosity, as an injured hero, but had been beguiled into the maddest mirth, though as much disgusted with themselves for giggling as with him for making them giggle. Wilmet herself had succumbed, and Cherry had been in an almost hysterical transport of laughter, till her jaws ached, and her eyes were weak; and she was so exhausted that she could hardly crawl into Felix's room to wish him good-night, and then scarcely durst speak to him lest she should burst into tears; while as to the younger ones, it was altogether delightful to them at the moment, and they regarded the transactions of February as a dream.

When they met the next morning, Edgar professed that he could not venture on sitting under Mr. Smith's actual sermon, but should go to Minsterham, to pay his respects to Wilmet's future relations, if there were a feasible train.

'Yes,' said Clement, 'there's one in twenty minutes, which brings one in time for the Cathedral.'

'Dr. Wilmet is engrossed with a distinguished patient. Eh? Come along then, Lance; I must have some one to present me.'

Lance gave a joyful leap; but Wilmet interposed, 'Indeed, Lance, it is hardly safe. Remember how bad your head was after Christmas Day.'

'It's my own head, and I may do as I like with it!'

'That's just what you can't now. If you were knocked up to-morrow--as you certainly would be, between the railroad and the organ--'

'That would be what you _may_ call a fix,' observed Edgar. 'Knocked up between a railway and an organ! What a position!'

'It is quite true, Edgar,' said Wilmet, the more severely for the laughter of Lance and Angel. 'Lance knows very well that one of his headaches perfectly disables him. Felix would not be content to leave Mr. Lamb alone in the shop; and all the good of these three days would be undone.'

'Oh--h! it was a pillar of the state I was asking?' said Edgar. 'Is your head really so ticklish, Lance?' as the boy made a gesture of disgust.

'Don't persuade him, Edgar. He ought not to do it,' said Wilmet, in her blunt authoritative way.

Lance kicked the heel of his boot against the floor, and said, 'Don't I pity Jack Harewood, that's all!'

'Well, a couple of ducks instead of a goose--Bob and Angel, you've no heads.--Come! I'm too modest to face the Librarian alone, much less the red-headed daughters.'

The two girls eagerly looked at their sister.

'"Gorgons and hydras and chimæras dire!"' ejaculated Edgar. 'If I were you, W.W., I'd get up a little more charitably disposed towards my brother on a Sunday morning!'

'It is Angela's wildness that I am afraid of,' said Wilmet.

'She sha'n't go near a tea-kettle,' said Edgar. 'Put on your hats, chick-a-biddies, if you wish to catch the Cathedral.'

'May we? O Wilmet, pray!' entreated Robina.

'I will see what Felix says.'

'A graceful form of shifting the obloquy of the negative,' muttered Edgar, as Wilmet disappeared.

'Felix will decide as he thinks good,' said Robina with dignity.

'As _she_ thinks good, you mean,' said Edgar. 'Well, I wonder how you all contrive to stand it. I couldn't, I know, even for a quiet life.'

'You've not been broken in, you see,' said Lance, trying to answer with nonchalance.

'No, I only see a specimen occasionally. What has she been doing to you this morning, that has spoilt your appetite, and brought you under her thumb?'

'Don't, Edgar!' burst out Lance, starting up and running away.

'No, Edgar,' said Geraldine; 'it is not kind. It _is_ hard enough for him as it is, and it is all for Felix's sake.'

Luckily, Clement had the wisdom not to speak, and therefore Cherry obtained a more reasonable answer.

'Well, that is a plea, Cherry; but it does rile me to see a fellow like that dragooned over, and thrown away, to bolster up a wretched little business such as this. It's a mistake, depend upon it, to let the demon of present necessity engulf another of the best of us. My squibs are conscientious, I assure you.'

'I don't care for her!' exclaimed Bernard: 'I'll go with you whenever you please, Edgar!'

'Well, Wilmet, under what decent mask do you veil your stony heart?' asked Edgar, as she re-entered.

'Felix sees no reason against their going,' said Wilmet, rather gloomily. 'Only, Edgar, pray don't encourage Angela to get into one of her states. You don't know what they are.'

For Felix had decided it against her. 'Yes, let them go. I don't believe he can bear to face any one in the town, and the charge of them will be a safe-guard.'

'But Angela?'

'My dear, the worst that can happen with her is that she should be a little boisterous with the Harewoods;' and as Wilmet showed that the prospect was unpleasing, 'that is better than what he could do alone, or with Lance.'

'Yes, I was resolved to stop Lance. I don't know whether to tell you, but I think you ought to know.'

'What?' asked Felix anxiously,

'Last night at half-past eleven--just when I had finished your hand--I smelt smoke. So I went down to see what was on fire and--'

'You found Edgar smoking in the kitchen.'

'If it had been only Edgar, I should not have minded, but it was Lance too. I do think you ought to give him a warning, Felix, for they would do nothing but laugh at me. Edgar would only go into transports about my hair, and say how long it was. I don't think I was ever so nearly in a passion in my life! If he is teaching Lance those ways--'

'He is not Lance's first instructor in smoke,' said Felix; 'I believe your own Harewoods were that, Mettie.'

'Now you are laughing too, Felix! I don't know how you can. It seems to me that it is all up with us if Edgar is to lead away Lance; and Lance was not up this morning for Church--the first time I have known him miss.'

'Well,' said Felix, rather hastily, 'it is of no use pulling reins too tight. Don't keep those poor children waiting, or you'll make them all too late.'

Wilmet had to obey, with the fretted sense that she had not been met as she expected, and that her alarms were injudiciously made light of; and Geraldine meantime tried to explain Edgar's bitter mischief as pain of heart; but it grieved her, whatever it was, and her spirits sank the more for the physical exhaustion of yesterday's violent laughter. But Edgar, looking in to see whether the little girls were ready, and finding her alone, leaning against the window disconsolately, came up, and putting his arm round her, said, 'So I scandalize you, Gerald? I can't give my carcase to be battened on by the ghools, were they the best family ghools in the world.'

'Edgar!'

'Besides, you know all this was diligently fostered by old Blunderbore's duteous intermeddling; and as it was not my fault that I furnished a spectacle for gods and men _then_, I _will_ not now.'

'Only, Edgar, if you _do_ care for Felix, do not, pray do not spoil his comfort in Lance!'

'If I don't, nature will, Cherry. That boy is not the stuff to make a journeyman stationer, at Wilmet's orders. Oh! if you could but have seen her, when she surprised us with our pipes last night! I couldn't get her to stand still, or she would have been a perfect study for Antigone. She is a magnificent creature with her hair down!--Ha! little kids, we must scamper for it for the train!'

And off he went, leaving Geraldine not much less unhappy for his apology. The long day alone with Felix was a better consolation. She could not leave the house in such cold as the present; and Felix was dressed as soon as breakfast was over, and came into the drawing-room, where after their home service, and when he had proved his freedom from cough by reading a grand sermon of Newman's, his reserve gave way in the Sunday calm, and he asked, 'Did Edgar say anything to you, Chérie?'

She repeated the saying about the ghools, as it was evidently meant for circulation among those respectable parties.

Felix smiled, and said, 'I thought so,' and told in return Edgar's defiant reception of the tidings.

'I don't think,' said Cherry, 'that I was ever more uncomfortable than through his fun. It felt like laughing-gas; it forced one on, and yet it was so unreal. He wants to treat it on the hawk-gone-down-the-wind principle.'

'It is the gallant and the wise one, Cherry. So you ought to admire it more than you seem to do.'

'It cannot be wise if it be not true. That is, if it ever went deep with him.'

'He never meant it to go deep,' said Felix; 'but the very extravagance of his defiance makes me afraid it took stronger hold than he knew, and that the shock may be very bad for him.'

'But she--' and Cherry stopped, afraid to vex him by speaking of Alice's incapacity to raise a character.

He calmly finished. 'She was not all we thought her. True, poor child; but an attachment worthily and steadily maintained, as for all his nonsense this has been, must be well for a man; and a disruption of this kind must be a breaking-up--whether he treat it lightly or no--of foundations such as one who seems to have little besides can ill afford to stand.'

It was the first time that the secret anxiety had been openly named, and Cherry clasped her hands.

'That is my chief anxiety,' resumed Felix. 'Otherwise the end of this matter is of course an advantage.'

'If she could use him so, she was not worth constancy,' said Cherry.

'No!' It was a decided No, though it was followed by 'As they had made her. Poor child! She was full of sweet womanly gifts, and might have been made everything excellent; but Edgar estimated her more truly than I did. There was always a certain spirit of intrigue, and want of substance, or she could never have so treated him.'

'Entirely unfeeling.'

'Or rather, too light to appreciate feeling otherwise than as a tribute to herself, or to dwell on the absent,' said Felix sadly. 'I now believe that she was conscious of--of my liking. Indeed, I am sure of it; I only tried to hope otherwise, though it was easy to forgive her preference for one so much more attractive. There was no harm in that. But as things stood with him, to throw him over without a word shows an essential want of comprehension of what was due to others.'

'She might at least have written through her aunts.'

'With a right sense of honour she would; but I believe she had no education in such things. Poor little thing! I hope the Frenchman will do well by her.'

'Felix dear, may I ask you--this is not the pain that it was before?'

'No' said Felix, looking steadily at her, with his chin on his hand. 'No, certainly not. I was greatly shocked and upset at first, but not personally; though of course I must always feel towards her as I never can for any other woman;' then, at Cherry's start, 'I mean that the woman who fills one's life with a certain glory and radiance of--possibility, never can be the same as others to one, even though it lasted ever so short a time, and was ever so great a mistake. But that does not mean wishing to begin it over again.'

'Not with her.'

'It is absurd to make auguries or protests,' said Felix quietly; 'but from a boy I knew well that that sort of thing could hardly be for me, and I am content to have returned to that conviction. Even ending, as it has done, the year of--of--perhaps fools' paradise was well worth having, but I hope it will serve me for life. If I can keep faithful to what I once thought Alice, it will be best for all of us. So don't be anxious about me, my Whiteheart. The trouble of last winter was over long ago, and the zest and spirit of life came back with strength and work. I am quite as happy now as I was before--happier, I think.'

'Then this need not make you ill,' breathed Cherry, aware that she was saying something foolish. Indeed, Felix laughed a little.

'Hardly,' he said playfully. 'Remember, Cherry, what a predicament I was in--obliged to act the heavy father, as Edgar calls it, when I was so much concerned myself, and with him telling me I was a fool for my pains, as I believe I was. Besides, it was a good honest cold I caught at Brompton, in a very sharp east wind. If you insist on going any further, you will become a family ghool, Cherry.' She was obliged to laugh; and he continued, 'No, don't be anxious. This was an opportune scald. I should have found the day's work severe, if I had not had time to face this thoroughly. Such a quiet day last spring would have been worth a quart of cod-liver oil later.'

Therewith the pattering of many feet resounded on the frost-bound street; and the church-goers returned, averring that Mr. Smith's sermon had been like enough to Edgar's to render it difficult to keep their countenances, and to make them rejoice in Angela's absence. Of this Felix might judge for himself, for not long after the preacher himself arrived, offering the MS. for an abstract for the paper, all unconscious of the second-sight that had reported it already.

There he lingered, trying to talk, as if he wanted to say something that would not come out; and at last he was only driven from the field by the return of Edgar and the girls, who came in open-mouthed and eager out of the cold.

Edgar had had a great deal of fun with Mrs. Harewood, and had on his side fascinated all the family; so that Robina confided to Lance that she thought Grace Harewood ought to be warned, for Edgar went on with her like 'You know what.'

'Make yourself easy,' said Lance; 'Grace and Lucy know all about that better than any girl in Minsterham. What did old Bill say? and what anthem did you have?'

Felix and Geraldine spent the Evening Service hour in very different fashion from the morning; for Edgar was their companion, and took the opportunity of making the remonstrance he had threatened about Lance and his prospects. He had never been _fine_ in Alda's way, and had not her feelings about losing caste; but whereas his politics were diametrically opposed to those of the Pursuivant, he thought Felix ranging himself, according to his essential Blunderbore nature, on the side of the old giants destined to destruction, and wasting talent and substance on a hopeless and thankless cause; but he knew his brother to be past remonstrance, and to be perfectly well aware that this was the losing side. Only Edgar entered a strong protest against Lance being, as he said, sacrificed just to make Wilmet's pot boil, and bolster up the old Pursuivant a little longer.

'You can't be more averse to it than I,' said Felix. 'If he could only go back to his work, he might yet get to the University.'

'Pshaw! that's not what I meant. He is not the stuff; you were the only one of us that had the making of a scholar. Now Lance has got just the taste and the talent that were baulked in my case by old Tom's sticking me down to hides and tallow, when I ought to have been cultivating them.'

'There's this difference,' said Geraldine; 'Cousin Thomas stuck you, but Lance sticks himself.'

'Under moral compulsion, eh?'

'The compulsion was on me,' said Felix. 'I was really afraid to deny him; the idleness, and the fretting over it, were doing his head so much harm.'

'That's all very well. No harm done; but to let him go on here in the stodge is a bit of short-sightedness I can't understand. He'll never be happy in it; and you'd better let him go before it is too late.'

'Go? but how, and where? His health is not fit for study, and his voice ought to rest for another year.'

Then Edgar explained his own plan. Lance had already considerable musical knowledge, and ability such that his way in the musical world would be secure. Amateur as he was himself, Edgar had such a footing there that he could secure an introduction for his brother, who while learning would be able to maintain himself; and either by violin or voice, if not by original composition, win name, fame, and fortune, in a few years. A manager of high reputation Edgar mentioned as likely to accept and train the boy; and he added that for his own part he would watch over the little fellow; and he added, with a look in his eyes that went to Felix's heart, 'And nothing would do me so much good _now_ as the charge of him.'

'That I _do_ believe, Edgar,' said Felix warmly; 'but it would be throwing the helve after the hatchet in a way you can't expect of a heavy father.'

'Exactly what I knew you would say. You veil it a little more; but we poor Bohemians don't meet with much more charity from you than from our stately sister. Reprobates all--eh?'

'Living a life of temptation enough to make me choose no one to be drawn into it that I can prevent. Have you been talking to Lance about it?'

'Well, it rose out of last night's talk to him. Not that he gave in to it. He's loyal to you to the back-bone, and all importance too with the charge of the shop. Besides, that cathedral--it's a sort of mother's milk to him, not out of his mouth.'

'That's a good hearing!' said Felix, with a rather defiant smile.

'But it won't last,' said Edgar; 'the drudgery and sameness will tell; and you'd better give in with a good grace in time, Blunderbore.'

'You've been persuading him,' said Cherry reproachfully.

'Well, Cherry, I'm not in the habit of confounding virtue with dulness; and when the little chap talked to me of the musical doings I had been after, I felt the sin and shame of getting a nightingale to make a barn-door fowl of.'

'I can only tell you,' said Felix, with more annoyance than he usually betrayed, 'that if you took your nightingale to the din of London, and the excitement of a concert, you'd have him with inflammation on the brain before the week was out. Why, I sent him over to see his doctor at Minsterham, and he says it would be murder to send him back to his books and the choir for this next quarter at least; and if cathedral music will not do for him, judge if London concerts would!'

'And did you think I wanted to carry off your deputy right hand while your own is hung up in a bag, you jealous old giant? Why, I proposed to devote myself to the Pursuivant to-morrow!'

'Thank you; I am afraid it would be taken for the Tribune.'

'As if I couldn't hit off the complacent, gentlemanly, stick-in-the-mud style for squiredom! I'll write you a leader--on what shall it be, municipalities, or the smut in wheat?--that you shall not know from your own.'

To wish Edgar away was impossible, and yet how feel willing that Lance should be under such influence? Withal there was the difficulty of showing Wilmet that to fret Lance with restrictions was a dangerous thing at such a moment. She would yield to Felix's desire that she would not interfere with that orgie over the kitchen fire--which he regarded all the time with as much dread as herself--but she thought his concession weak: and Lance himself was perilously like Edgar in all his bright pleasant qualities, talents, and tastes, so that the two had an enjoyment in one another's company that it was painful to regard with anxiety.