BOOK THE SECOND -- BIRDS OF A FEATHER
Chapter 1
OF AN EDUCATIONAL CHARACTER
The school at which young Charley Hexam had first learned from abook--the streets being, for pupils of his degree, the great PreparatoryEstablishment in which very much that is never unlearned is learnedwithout and before book--was a miserable loft in an unsavoury yard. Itsatmosphere was oppressive and disagreeable; it was crowded, noisy,and confusing; half the pupils dropped asleep, or fell into a state ofwaking stupefaction; the other half kept them in either condition bymaintaining a monotonous droning noise, as if they were performing, outof time and tune, on a ruder sort of bagpipe. The teachers, animatedsolely by good intentions, had no idea of execution, and a lamentablejumble was the upshot of their kind endeavours.
It was a school for all ages, and for both sexes. The latter were keptapart, and the former were partitioned off into square assortments. But,all the place was pervaded by a grimly ludicrous pretence that everypupil was childish and innocent. This pretence, much favoured by thelady-visitors, led to the ghastliest absurdities. Young women old inthe vices of the commonest and worst life, were expected to professthemselves enthralled by the good child's book, the Adventures ofLittle Margery, who resided in the village cottage by the mill; severelyreproved and morally squashed the miller, when she was five and he wasfifty; divided her porridge with singing birds; denied herself a newnankeen bonnet, on the ground that the turnips did not wear nankeenbonnets, neither did the sheep who ate them; who plaited straw anddelivered the dreariest orations to all comers, at all sorts ofunseasonable times. So, unwieldy young dredgers and hulking mudlarkswere referred to the experiences of Thomas Twopence, who, havingresolved not to rob (under circumstances of uncommon atrocity) hisparticular friend and benefactor, of eighteenpence, presently came intosupernatural possession of three and sixpence, and lived a shining lightever afterwards. (Note, that the benefactor came to no good.) Severalswaggering sinners had written their own biographies in the same strain;it always appearing from the lessons of those very boastful persons,that you were to do good, not because it WAS good, but because you wereto make a good thing of it. Contrariwise, the adult pupils were taughtto read (if they could learn) out of the New Testament; and by dint ofstumbling over the syllables and keeping their bewildered eyes on theparticular syllables coming round to their turn, were as absolutelyignorant of the sublime history, as if they had never seen or heard ofit. An exceedingly and confoundingly perplexing jumble of a school,in fact, where black spirits and grey, red spirits and white, jumbledjumbled jumbled jumbled, jumbled every night. And particularly everySunday night. For then, an inclined plane of unfortunate infants wouldbe handed over to the prosiest and worst of all the teachers with goodintentions, whom nobody older would endure. Who, taking his stand onthe floor before them as chief executioner, would be attended by aconventional volunteer boy as executioner's assistant. When and where itfirst became the conventional system that a weary or inattentive infantin a class must have its face smoothed downward with a hot hand, or whenand where the conventional volunteer boy first beheld such system inoperation, and became inflamed with a sacred zeal to administer it,matters not. It was the function of the chief executioner to hold forth,and it was the function of the acolyte to dart at sleeping infants,yawning infants, restless infants, whimpering infants, and smooth theirwretched faces; sometimes with one hand, as if he were anointing themfor a whisker; sometimes with both hands, applied after the fashion ofblinkers. And so the jumble would be in action in this department for amortal hour; the exponent drawling on to My Dearert Childerrenerr, letus say, for example, about the beautiful coming to the Sepulchre; andrepeating the word Sepulchre (commonly used among infants) five hundredtimes, and never once hinting what it meant; the conventional boysmoothing away right and left, as an infallible commentary; the wholehot-bed of flushed and exhausted infants exchanging measles, rashes,whooping-cough, fever, and stomach disorders, as if they were assembledin High Market for the purpose.
Even in this temple of good intentions, an exceptionally sharp boyexceptionally determined to learn, could learn something, and, havinglearned it, could impart it much better than the teachers; as beingmore knowing than they, and not at the disadvantage in which they stoodtowards the shrewder pupils. In this way it had come about that CharleyHexam had risen in the jumble, taught in the jumble, and been receivedfrom the jumble into a better school.
'So you want to go and see your sister, Hexam?'
'If you please, Mr Headstone.'
'I have half a mind to go with you. Where does your sister live?'
'Why, she is not settled yet, Mr Headstone. I'd rather you didn't seeher till she is settled, if it was all the same to you.'
'Look here, Hexam.' Mr Bradley Headstone, highly certificatedstipendiary schoolmaster, drew his right forefinger through one of thebuttonholes of the boy's coat, and looked at it attentively. 'I hopeyour sister may be good company for you?'
'Why do you doubt it, Mr Headstone?'
'I did not say I doubted it.'
'No, sir; you didn't say so.'
Bradley Headstone looked at his finger again, took it out of thebuttonhole and looked at it closer, bit the side of it and looked at itagain.
'You see, Hexam, you will be one of us. In good time you are sure topass a creditable examination and become one of us. Then the questionis--'
The boy waited so long for the question, while the schoolmaster lookedat a new side of his finger, and bit it, and looked at it again, that atlength the boy repeated:
'The question is, sir--?'
'Whether you had not better leave well alone.'
'Is it well to leave my sister alone, Mr Headstone?'
'I do not say so, because I do not know. I put it to you. I ask you tothink of it. I want you to consider. You know how well you are doinghere.'
'After all, she got me here,' said the boy, with a struggle.
'Perceiving the necessity of it,' acquiesced the schoolmaster, 'andmaking up her mind fully to the separation. Yes.'
The boy, with a return of that former reluctance or struggle or whateverit was, seemed to debate with himself. At length he said, raising hiseyes to the master's face:
'I wish you'd come with me and see her, Mr Headstone, though she is notsettled. I wish you'd come with me, and take her in the rough, and judgeher for yourself.'
'You are sure you would not like,' asked the schoolmaster, 'to prepareher?'
'My sister Lizzie,' said the boy, proudly, 'wants no preparing, MrHeadstone. What she is, she is, and shows herself to be. There's nopretending about my sister.'
His confidence in her, sat more easily upon him than the indecision withwhich he had twice contended. It was his better nature to be true toher, if it were his worse nature to be wholly selfish. And as yet thebetter nature had the stronger hold.
'Well, I can spare the evening,' said the schoolmaster. 'I am ready towalk with you.'
'Thank you, Mr Headstone. And I am ready to go.'
Bradley Headstone, in his decent black coat and waistcoat, and decentwhite shirt, and decent formal black tie, and decent pantaloons ofpepper and salt, with his decent silver watch in his pocket and itsdecent hair-guard round his neck, looked a thoroughly decent young manof six-and-twenty. He was never seen in any other dress, and yet therewas a certain stiffness in his manner of wearing this, as if there werea want of adaptation between him and it, recalling some mechanics intheir holiday clothes. He had acquired mechanically a great store ofteacher's knowledge. He could do mental arithmetic mechanically, singat sight mechanically, blow various wind instruments mechanically, evenplay the great church organ mechanically. From his early childhood up,his mind had been a place of mechanical stowage. The arrangement ofhis wholesale warehouse, so that it might be always ready to meet thedemands of retail dealers history here, geography there, astronomy tothe right, political economy to the left--natural history, the physicalsciences, figures, music, the lower math
ematics, and what not, all intheir several places--this care had imparted to his countenance a lookof care; while the habit of questioning and being questioned had givenhim a suspicious manner, or a manner that would be better described asone of lying in wait. There was a kind of settled trouble in the face.It was the face belonging to a naturally slow or inattentive intellectthat had toiled hard to get what it had won, and that had to hold it nowthat it was gotten. He always seemed to be uneasy lest anything shouldbe missing from his mental warehouse, and taking stock to assurehimself.
Suppression of so much to make room for so much, had given him aconstrained manner, over and above. Yet there was enough of what wasanimal, and of what was fiery (though smouldering), still visible inhim, to suggest that if young Bradley Headstone, when a pauper lad, hadchanced to be told off for the sea, he would not have been the last manin a ship's crew. Regarding that origin of his, he was proud, moody, andsullen, desiring it to be forgotten. And few people knew of it.
In some visits to the Jumble his attention had been attracted to thisboy Hexam. An undeniable boy for a pupil-teacher; an undeniable boyto do credit to the master who should bring him on. Combined with thisconsideration, there may have been some thought of the pauper lad nownever to be mentioned. Be that how it might, he had with pains graduallyworked the boy into his own school, and procured him some offices todischarge there, which were repaid with food and lodging. Such were thecircumstances that had brought together, Bradley Headstone and youngCharley Hexam that autumn evening. Autumn, because full half a year hadcome and gone since the bird of prey lay dead upon the river-shore.
The schools--for they were twofold, as the sexes--were down in thatdistrict of the flat country tending to the Thames, where Kent andSurrey meet, and where the railways still bestride the market-gardensthat will soon die under them. The schools were newly built, and therewere so many like them all over the country, that one might have thoughtthe whole were but one restless edifice with the locomotive gift ofAladdin's palace. They were in a neighbourhood which looked like a toyneighbourhood taken in blocks out of a box by a child of particularlyincoherent mind, and set up anyhow; here, one side of a new street;there, a large solitary public-house facing nowhere; here, anotherunfinished street already in ruins; there, a church; here, an immensenew warehouse; there, a dilapidated old country villa; then, a medleyof black ditch, sparkling cucumber-frame, rank field, richly cultivatedkitchen-garden, brick viaduct, arch-spanned canal, and disorder offrowziness and fog. As if the child had given the table a kick, and goneto sleep.
But, even among school-buildings, school-teachers, and school-pupils,all according to pattern and all engendered in the light of the latestGospel according to Monotony, the older pattern into which so manyfortunes have been shaped for good and evil, comes out. It came out inMiss Peecher the schoolmistress, watering her flowers, as Mr BradleyHeadstone walked forth. It came out in Miss Peecher the schoolmistress,watering the flowers in the little dusty bit of garden attached to hersmall official residence, with little windows like the eyes in needles,and little doors like the covers of school-books.
Small, shining, neat, methodical, and buxom was Miss Peecher;cherry-cheeked and tuneful of voice. A little pincushion, a littlehousewife, a little book, a little workbox, a little set of tables andweights and measures, and a little woman, all in one. She could writea little essay on any subject, exactly a slate long, beginning at theleft-hand top of one side and ending at the right-hand bottom of theother, and the essay should be strictly according to rule. If Mr BradleyHeadstone had addressed a written proposal of marriage to her, she wouldprobably have replied in a complete little essay on the theme exactly aslate long, but would certainly have replied Yes. For she loved him. Thedecent hair-guard that went round his neck and took care of his decentsilver watch was an object of envy to her. So would Miss Peecher havegone round his neck and taken care of him. Of him, insensible. Becausehe did not love Miss Peecher.
Miss Peecher's favourite pupil, who assisted her in her littlehousehold, was in attendance with a can of water to replenish her littlewatering-pot, and sufficiently divined the state of Miss Peecher'saffections to feel it necessary that she herself should love youngCharley Hexam. So, there was a double palpitation among the doublestocks and double wall-flowers, when the master and the boy looked overthe little gate.
'A fine evening, Miss Peecher,' said the Master.
'A very fine evening, Mr Headstone,' said Miss Peecher. 'Are you takinga walk?'
'Hexam and I are going to take a long walk.'
'Charming weather,' remarked Miss Peecher, 'FOR a long walk.'
'Ours is rather on business than mere pleasure,' said the Master. MissPeecher inverting her watering-pot, and very carefully shaking out thefew last drops over a flower, as if there were some special virtue inthem which would make it a Jack's beanstalk before morning, called forreplenishment to her pupil, who had been speaking to the boy.
'Good-night, Miss Peecher,' said the Master.
'Good-night, Mr Headstone,' said the Mistress.
The pupil had been, in her state of pupilage, so imbued with theclass-custom of stretching out an arm, as if to hail a cab or omnibus,whenever she found she had an observation on hand to offer to MissPeecher, that she often did it in their domestic relations; and she didit now.
'Well, Mary Anne?' said Miss Peecher.
'If you please, ma'am, Hexam said they were going to see his sister.'
'But that can't be, I think,' returned Miss Peecher: 'because MrHeadstone can have no business with HER.'
Mary Anne again hailed.
'Well, Mary Anne?'
'If you please, ma'am, perhaps it's Hexam's business?'
'That may be,' said Miss Peecher. 'I didn't think of that. Not that itmatters at all.'
Mary Anne again hailed.
'Well, Mary Anne?'
'They say she's very handsome.'
'Oh, Mary Anne, Mary Anne!' returned Miss Peecher, slightly colouringand shaking her head, a little out of humour; 'how often have I told younot to use that vague expression, not to speak in that general way? Whenyou say THEY say, what do you mean? Part of speech They?'
Mary Anne hooked her right arm behind her in her left hand, as beingunder examination, and replied:
'Personal pronoun.'
'Person, They?'
'Third person.'
'Number, They?'
'Plural number.'
'Then how many do you mean, Mary Anne? Two? Or more?'
'I beg your pardon, ma'am,' said Mary Anne, disconcerted now she cameto think of it; 'but I don't know that I mean more than her brotherhimself.' As she said it, she unhooked her arm.
'I felt convinced of it,' returned Miss Peecher, smiling again. 'Nowpray, Mary Anne, be careful another time. He says is very different fromthey say, remember. Difference between he says and they say? Give itme.'
Mary Anne immediately hooked her right arm behind her in her lefthand--an attitude absolutely necessary to the situation--and replied:'One is indicative mood, present tense, third person singular, verbactive to say. Other is indicative mood, present tense, third personplural, verb active to say.'
'Why verb active, Mary Anne?'
'Because it takes a pronoun after it in the objective case, MissPeecher.'
'Very good indeed,' remarked Miss Peecher, with encouragement. 'In fact,could not be better. Don't forget to apply it, another time, Mary Anne.'This said, Miss Peecher finished the watering of her flowers, andwent into her little official residence, and took a refresher of theprincipal rivers and mountains of the world, their breadths, depths, andheights, before settling the measurements of the body of a dress for herown personal occupation.
Bradley Headstone and Charley Hexam duly got to the Surrey side ofWestminster Bridge, and crossed the bridge, and made along the Middlesexshore towards Millbank. In this region are a certain little streetcalled Church Street, and a certain little blind square, called SmithSquare, in the centre of which last retreat is a v
ery hideous churchwith four towers at the four corners, generally resembling somepetrified monster, frightful and gigantic, on its back with its legsin the air. They found a tree near by in a corner, and a blacksmith'sforge, and a timber yard, and a dealer's in old iron. What a rustyportion of a boiler and a great iron wheel or so meant by lyinghalf-buried in the dealer's fore-court, nobody seemed to know or to wantto know. Like the Miller of questionable jollity in the song, They caredfor Nobody, no not they, and Nobody cared for them.
After making the round of this place, and noting that there was a deadlykind of repose on it, more as though it had taken laudanum than falleninto a natural rest, they stopped at the point where the street and thesquare joined, and where there were some little quiet houses in a row.To these Charley Hexam finally led the way, and at one of these stopped.
'This must be where my sister lives, sir. This is where she came for atemporary lodging, soon after father's death.'
'How often have you seen her since?'
'Why, only twice, sir,' returned the boy, with his former reluctance;'but that's as much her doing as mine.'
'How does she support herself?'
'She was always a fair needlewoman, and she keeps the stockroom of aseaman's outfitter.'
'Does she ever work at her own lodging here?'
'Sometimes; but her regular hours and regular occupation are at theirplace of business, I believe, sir. This is the number.'
The boy knocked at a door, and the door promptly opened with a springand a click. A parlour door within a small entry stood open, anddisclosed a child--a dwarf--a girl--a something--sitting on a little lowold-fashioned arm-chair, which had a kind of little working bench beforeit.
'I can't get up,' said the child, 'because my back's bad, and my legsare queer. But I'm the person of the house.'
'Who else is at home?' asked Charley Hexam, staring.
'Nobody's at home at present,' returned the child, with a glib assertionof her dignity, 'except the person of the house. What did you want,young man?'
'I wanted to see my sister.'
'Many young men have sisters,' returned the child. 'Give me your name,young man?'
The queer little figure, and the queer but not ugly little face, withits bright grey eyes, were so sharp, that the sharpness of the mannerseemed unavoidable. As if, being turned out of that mould, it must besharp.
'Hexam is my name.'
'Ah, indeed?' said the person of the house. 'I thought it might be. Yoursister will be in, in about a quarter of an hour. I am very fond of yoursister. She's my particular friend. Take a seat. And this gentleman'sname?'
'Mr Headstone, my schoolmaster.'
'Take a seat. And would you please to shut the street door first? Ican't very well do it myself; because my back's so bad, and my legs areso queer.'
They complied in silence, and the little figure went on with its work ofgumming or gluing together with a camel's-hair brush certain piecesof cardboard and thin wood, previously cut into various shapes. Thescissors and knives upon the bench showed that the child herself had cutthem; and the bright scraps of velvet and silk and ribbon also strewnupon the bench showed that when duly stuffed (and stuffing too wasthere), she was to cover them smartly. The dexterity of her nimblefingers was remarkable, and, as she brought two thin edges accuratelytogether by giving them a little bite, she would glance at the visitorsout of the corners of her grey eyes with a look that out-sharpened allher other sharpness.
'You can't tell me the name of my trade, I'll be bound,' she said, aftertaking several of these observations.
'You make pincushions,' said Charley.
'What else do I make?'
'Pen-wipers,' said Bradley Headstone.
'Ha! ha! What else do I make? You're a schoolmaster, but you can't tellme.'
'You do something,' he returned, pointing to a corner of the littlebench, 'with straw; but I don't know what.'
'Well done you!' cried the person of the house. 'I only make pincushionsand pen-wipers, to use up my waste. But my straw really does belong tomy business. Try again. What do I make with my straw?'
'Dinner-mats?'
'A schoolmaster, and says dinner-mats! I'll give you a clue to my trade,in a game of forfeits. I love my love with a B because she's Beautiful;I hate my love with a B because she is Brazen; I took her to the sign ofthe Blue Boar, and I treated her with Bonnets; her name's Bouncer, andshe lives in Bedlam.--Now, what do I make with my straw?'
'Ladies' bonnets?'
'Fine ladies',' said the person of the house, nodding assent. 'Dolls'.I'm a Doll's Dressmaker.'
'I hope it's a good business?'
The person of the house shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. 'No.Poorly paid. And I'm often so pressed for time! I had a doll married,last week, and was obliged to work all night. And it's not good for me,on account of my back being so bad and my legs so queer.'
They looked at the little creature with a wonder that did not diminish,and the schoolmaster said: 'I am sorry your fine ladies are soinconsiderate.'
'It's the way with them,' said the person of the house, shrugging hershoulders again. 'And they take no care of their clothes, and theynever keep to the same fashions a month. I work for a doll with threedaughters. Bless you, she's enough to ruin her husband!' The person ofthe house gave a weird little laugh here, and gave them another look outof the corners of her eyes. She had an elfin chin that was capable ofgreat expression; and whenever she gave this look, she hitched this chinup. As if her eyes and her chin worked together on the same wires.
'Are you always as busy as you are now?'
'Busier. I'm slack just now. I finished a large mourning order the daybefore yesterday. Doll I work for, lost a canary-bird.' The person ofthe house gave another little laugh, and then nodded her head severaltimes, as who should moralize, 'Oh this world, this world!'
'Are you alone all day?' asked Bradley Headstone. 'Don't any of theneighbouring children--?'
'Ah, lud!' cried the person of the house, with a little scream, asif the word had pricked her. 'Don't talk of children. I can't bearchildren. I know their tricks and their manners.' She said this with anangry little shake of her tight fist close before her eyes.
Perhaps it scarcely required the teacher-habit, to perceive that thedoll's dressmaker was inclined to be bitter on the difference betweenherself and other children. But both master and pupil understood it so.
'Always running about and screeching, always playing and fighting,always skip-skip-skipping on the pavement and chalking it for theirgames! Oh! I know their tricks and their manners!' Shaking the littlefist as before. 'And that's not all. Ever so often calling names inthrough a person's keyhole, and imitating a person's back and legs. Oh!I know their tricks and their manners. And I'll tell you what I'd do, topunish 'em. There's doors under the church in the Square--black doors,leading into black vaults. Well! I'd open one of those doors, and I'dcram 'em all in, and then I'd lock the door and through the keyhole I'dblow in pepper.'
'What would be the good of blowing in pepper?' asked Charley Hexam.
'To set 'em sneezing,' said the person of the house, 'and make theireyes water. And when they were all sneezing and inflamed, I'd mock 'emthrough the keyhole. Just as they, with their tricks and their manners,mock a person through a person's keyhole!'
An uncommonly emphatic shake of her little fist close before her eyes,seemed to ease the mind of the person of the house; for she addedwith recovered composure, 'No, no, no. No children for me. Give megrown-ups.'
It was difficult to guess the age of this strange creature, for her poorfigure furnished no clue to it, and her face was at once so young and soold. Twelve, or at the most thirteen, might be near the mark.
'I always did like grown-ups,' she went on, 'and always kept companywith them. So sensible. Sit so quiet. Don't go prancing and caperingabout! And I mean always to keep among none but grown-ups till I marry.I suppose I must make up my mind to marry, one of these days.'
She li
stened to a step outside that caught her ear, and there was a softknock at the door. Pulling at a handle within her reach, she said,with a pleased laugh: 'Now here, for instance, is a grown-up that's myparticular friend!' and Lizzie Hexam in a black dress entered the room.
'Charley! You!'
Taking him to her arms in the old way--of which he seemed a littleashamed--she saw no one else.
'There, there, there, Liz, all right my dear. See! Here's Mr Headstonecome with me.'
Her eyes met those of the schoolmaster, who had evidently expectedto see a very different sort of person, and a murmured word or twoof salutation passed between them. She was a little flurried by theunexpected visit, and the schoolmaster was not at his ease. But he neverwas, quite.
'I told Mr Headstone you were not settled, Liz, but he was so kind as totake an interest in coming, and so I brought him. How well you look!'
Bradley seemed to think so.
'Ah! Don't she, don't she?' cried the person of the house, resuming heroccupation, though the twilight was falling fast. 'I believe you shedoes! But go on with your chat, one and all:
You one two three, My com-pa-nie, And don't mind me.'
--pointing this impromptu rhyme with three points of her thinfore-finger.
'I didn't expect a visit from you, Charley,' said his sister. 'Isupposed that if you wanted to see me you would have sent to me,appointing me to come somewhere near the school, as I did last time.I saw my brother near the school, sir,' to Bradley Headstone, 'becauseit's easier for me to go there, than for him to come here. I work aboutmidway between the two places.'
'You don't see much of one another,' said Bradley, not improving inrespect of ease.
'No.' With a rather sad shake of her head. 'Charley always does well, MrHeadstone?'
'He could not do better. I regard his course as quite plain before him.'
'I hoped so. I am so thankful. So well done of you, Charley dear! It isbetter for me not to come (except when he wants me) between him and hisprospects. You think so, Mr Headstone?'
Conscious that his pupil-teacher was looking for his answer, that hehimself had suggested the boy's keeping aloof from this sister, now seenfor the first time face to face, Bradley Headstone stammered:
'Your brother is very much occupied, you know. He has to work hard. Onecannot but say that the less his attention is diverted from his work,the better for his future. When he shall have established himself, whythen--it will be another thing then.'
Lizzie shook her head again, and returned, with a quiet smile: 'I alwaysadvised him as you advise him. Did I not, Charley?'
'Well, never mind that now,' said the boy. 'How are you getting on?'
'Very well, Charley. I want for nothing.'
'You have your own room here?'
'Oh yes. Upstairs. And it's quiet, and pleasant, and airy.'
'And she always has the use of this room for visitors,' said theperson of the house, screwing up one of her little bony fists, like anopera-glass, and looking through it, with her eyes and her chin in thatquaint accordance. 'Always this room for visitors; haven't you, Lizziedear?'
It happened that Bradley Headstone noticed a very slight action ofLizzie Hexam's hand, as though it checked the doll's dressmaker. And ithappened that the latter noticed him in the same instant; for she madea double eyeglass of her two hands, looked at him through it, and cried,with a waggish shake of her head: 'Aha! Caught you spying, did I?'
It might have fallen out so, any way; but Bradley Headstone also noticedthat immediately after this, Lizzie, who had not taken off her bonnet,rather hurriedly proposed that as the room was getting dark they shouldgo out into the air. They went out; the visitors saying good-night tothe doll's dressmaker, whom they left, leaning back in her chair withher arms crossed, singing to herself in a sweet thoughtful little voice.
'I'll saunter on by the river,' said Bradley. 'You will be glad to talktogether.'
As his uneasy figure went on before them among the evening shadows, theboy said to his sister, petulantly:
'When are you going to settle yourself in some Christian sort of place,Liz? I thought you were going to do it before now.'
'I am very well where I am, Charley.'
'Very well where you are! I am ashamed to have brought Mr Headstone withme. How came you to get into such company as that little witch's?'
'By chance at first, as it seemed, Charley. But I think it must havebeen by something more than chance, for that child--You remember thebills upon the walls at home?'
'Confound the bills upon the walls at home! I want to forget the billsupon the walls at home, and it would be better for you to do the same,'grumbled the boy. 'Well; what of them?'
'This child is the grandchild of the old man.'
'What old man?'
'The terrible drunken old man, in the list slippers and the night-cap.'
The boy asked, rubbing his nose in a manner that half expressed vexationat hearing so much, and half curiosity to hear more: 'How came you tomake that out? What a girl you are!'
'The child's father is employed by the house that employs me; that's howI came to know it, Charley. The father is like his own father, a weakwretched trembling creature, falling to pieces, never sober. But a goodworkman too, at the work he does. The mother is dead. This poor ailinglittle creature has come to be what she is, surrounded by drunken peoplefrom her cradle--if she ever had one, Charley.'
'I don't see what you have to do with her, for all that,' said the boy.
'Don't you, Charley?'
The boy looked doggedly at the river. They were at Millbank, andthe river rolled on their left. His sister gently touched him on theshoulder, and pointed to it.
'Any compensation--restitution--never mind the word, you know mymeaning. Father's grave.'
But he did not respond with any tenderness. After a moody silence hebroke out in an ill-used tone:
'It'll be a very hard thing, Liz, if, when I am trying my best to get upin the world, you pull me back.'
'I, Charley?'
'Yes, you, Liz. Why can't you let bygones be bygones? Why can't you, asMr Headstone said to me this very evening about another matter, leavewell alone? What we have got to do, is, to turn our faces full in ournew direction, and keep straight on.'
'And never look back? Not even to try to make some amends?'
'You are such a dreamer,' said the boy, with his former petulance. 'Itwas all very well when we sat before the fire--when we looked into thehollow down by the flare--but we are looking into the real world, now.'
'Ah, we were looking into the real world then, Charley!'
'I understand what you mean by that, but you are not justified in it. Idon't want, as I raise myself to shake you off, Liz. I want to carry youup with me. That's what I want to do, and mean to do. I know what I oweyou. I said to Mr Headstone this very evening, "After all, my sister gotme here." Well, then. Don't pull me back, and hold me down. That's all Iask, and surely that's not unconscionable.'
She had kept a steadfast look upon him, and she answered with composure:
'I am not here selfishly, Charley. To please myself I could not be toofar from that river.'
'Nor could you be too far from it to please me. Let us get quit of itequally. Why should you linger about it any more than I? I give it awide berth.'
'I can't get away from it, I think,' said Lizzie, passing her handacross her forehead. 'It's no purpose of mine that I live by it still.'
'There you go, Liz! Dreaming again! You lodge yourself of your ownaccord in a house with a drunken--tailor, I suppose--or something of thesort, and a little crooked antic of a child, or old person, or whateverit is, and then you talk as if you were drawn or driven there. Now, dobe more practical.'
She had been practical enough with him, in suffering and strivingfor him; but she only laid her hand upon his shoulder--notreproachfully--and tapped it twice or thrice. She had been used todo so, to soothe him when she carried him about, a child as heavy asher
self. Tears started to his eyes.
'Upon my word, Liz,' drawing the back of his hand across them, 'I meanto be a good brother to you, and to prove that I know what I owe you.All I say is, that I hope you'll control your fancies a little, on myaccount. I'll get a school, and then you must come and live with me,and you'll have to control your fancies then, so why not now? Now, say Ihaven't vexed you.'
'You haven't, Charley, you haven't.'
'And say I haven't hurt you.'
'You haven't, Charley.' But this answer was less ready.
'Say you are sure I didn't mean to. Come! There's Mr Headstone stoppingand looking over the wall at the tide, to hint that it's time to go.Kiss me, and tell me that you know I didn't mean to hurt you.'
She told him so, and they embraced, and walked on and came up with theschoolmaster.
'But we go your sister's way,' he remarked, when the boy told him he wasready. And with his cumbrous and uneasy action he stiffly offered herhis arm. Her hand was just within it, when she drew it back. He lookedround with a start, as if he thought she had detected something thatrepelled her, in the momentary touch.
'I will not go in just yet,' said Lizzie. 'And you have a distancebefore you, and will walk faster without me.'
Being by this time close to Vauxhall Bridge, they resolved, inconsequence, to take that way over the Thames, and they left her;Bradley Headstone giving her his hand at parting, and she thanking himfor his care of her brother.
The master and the pupil walked on, rapidly and silently. They hadnearly crossed the bridge, when a gentleman came coolly saunteringtowards them, with a cigar in his mouth, his coat thrown back, and hishands behind him. Something in the careless manner of this person,and in a certain lazily arrogant air with which he approached, holdingpossession of twice as much pavement as another would have claimed,instantly caught the boy's attention. As the gentleman passed the boylooked at him narrowly, and then stood still, looking after him.
'Who is it that you stare after?' asked Bradley.
'Why!' said the boy, with a confused and pondering frown upon his face,'It IS that Wrayburn one!'
Bradley Headstone scrutinized the boy as closely as the boy hadscrutinized the gentleman.
'I beg your pardon, Mr Headstone, but I couldn't help wondering what inthe world brought HIM here!'
Though he said it as if his wonder were past--at the same time resumingthe walk--it was not lost upon the master that he looked over hisshoulder after speaking, and that the same perplexed and pondering frownwas heavy on his face.
'You don't appear to like your friend, Hexam?'
'I DON'T like him,' said the boy.
'Why not?'
'He took hold of me by the chin in a precious impertinent way, the firsttime I ever saw him,' said the boy.
'Again, why?'
'For nothing. Or--it's much the same--because something I happened tosay about my sister didn't happen to please him.'
'Then he knows your sister?'
'He didn't at that time,' said the boy, still moodily pondering.
'Does now?'
The boy had so lost himself that he looked at Mr Bradley Headstoneas they walked on side by side, without attempting to reply until thequestion had been repeated; then he nodded and answered, 'Yes, sir.'
'Going to see her, I dare say.'
'It can't be!' said the boy, quickly. 'He doesn't know her well enough.I should like to catch him at it!'
When they had walked on for a time, more rapidly than before, the mastersaid, clasping the pupil's arm between the elbow and the shoulder withhis hand:
'You were going to tell me something about that person. What did you sayhis name was?'
'Wrayburn. Mr Eugene Wrayburn. He is what they call a barrister, withnothing to do. The first time he came to our old place was when myfather was alive. He came on business; not that it was HIS business--HEnever had any business--he was brought by a friend of his.'
'And the other times?'
'There was only one other time that I know of. When my father was killedby accident, he chanced to be one of the finders. He was mooning about,I suppose, taking liberties with people's chins; but there he was,somehow. He brought the news home to my sister early in the morning, andbrought Miss Abbey Potterson, a neighbour, to help break it to her.He was mooning about the house when I was fetched home in theafternoon--they didn't know where to find me till my sister could bebrought round sufficiently to tell them--and then he mooned away.'
'And is that all?'
'That's all, sir.'
Bradley Headstone gradually released the boy's arm, as if he werethoughtful, and they walked on side by side as before. After a longsilence between them, Bradley resumed the talk.
'I suppose--your sister--' with a curious break both before and afterthe words, 'has received hardly any teaching, Hexam?'
'Hardly any, sir.'
'Sacrificed, no doubt, to her father's objections. I remember them inyour case. Yet--your sister--scarcely looks or speaks like an ignorantperson.'
'Lizzie has as much thought as the best, Mr Headstone. Too much,perhaps, without teaching. I used to call the fire at home, her books,for she was always full of fancies--sometimes quite wise fancies,considering--when she sat looking at it.'
'I don't like that,' said Bradley Headstone.
His pupil was a little surprised by this striking in with so suddenand decided and emotional an objection, but took it as a proof of themaster's interest in himself. It emboldened him to say:
'I have never brought myself to mention it openly to you, Mr Headstone,and you're my witness that I couldn't even make up my mind to take itfrom you before we came out to-night; but it's a painful thing to thinkthat if I get on as well as you hope, I shall be--I won't say disgraced,because I don't mean disgraced-but--rather put to the blush if it wasknown--by a sister who has been very good to me.'
'Yes,' said Bradley Headstone in a slurring way, for his mind scarcelyseemed to touch that point, so smoothly did it glide to another, 'andthere is this possibility to consider. Some man who had worked his waymight come to admire--your sister--and might even in time bring himselfto think of marrying--your sister--and it would be a sad drawback and aheavy penalty upon him, if; overcoming in his mind other inequalities ofcondition and other considerations against it, this inequality and thisconsideration remained in full force.'
'That's much my own meaning, sir.'
'Ay, ay,' said Bradley Headstone, 'but you spoke of a mere brother.Now, the case I have supposed would be a much stronger case; because anadmirer, a husband, would form the connexion voluntarily, besides beingobliged to proclaim it: which a brother is not. After all, you know, itmust be said of you that you couldn't help yourself: while it would besaid of him, with equal reason, that he could.'
'That's true, sir. Sometimes since Lizzie was left free by father'sdeath, I have thought that such a young woman might soon acquire morethan enough to pass muster. And sometimes I have even thought thatperhaps Miss Peecher--'
'For the purpose, I would advise Not Miss Peecher,' Bradley Headstonestruck in with a recurrence of his late decision of manner.
'Would you be so kind as to think of it for me, Mr Headstone?'
'Yes, Hexam, yes. I'll think of it. I'll think maturely of it. I'llthink well of it.'
Their walk was almost a silent one afterwards, until it ended at theschool-house. There, one of neat Miss Peecher's little windows, like theeyes in needles, was illuminated, and in a corner near it sat Mary Annewatching, while Miss Peecher at the table stitched at the neat littlebody she was making up by brown paper pattern for her own wearing. N.B.Miss Peecher and Miss Peecher's pupils were not much encouraged in theunscholastic art of needlework, by Government.
Mary Anne with her face to the window, held her arm up.
'Well, Mary Anne?'
'Mr Headstone coming home, ma'am.'
In about a minute, Mary Anne again hailed.
'Yes, Mary Anne?'
'Gone in and l
ocked his door, ma'am.'
Miss Peecher repressed a sigh as she gathered her work together for bed,and transfixed that part of her dress where her heart would have been ifshe had had the dress on, with a sharp, sharp needle.