Eli's Children: The Chronicles of an Unhappy Family
“Your daughter was very rude, very inattentive, refused to learn the lesson I set, and incited some of the older girls to insubordination, Mrs Searby, so that I was compelled, most reluctantly, to punish her as an example.”
The old master went on carving the quill to pieces, making and remaking it, till the amount of useful pen was getting very short, chuckling the while, and evidently enjoying the sidewise compliments directed at him and his old system by the irate woman.
“My gal not behaving herself! Why, she’s as good in school as her brothers is. She’s the best o’ gals at home; and poor old Mrs Marley, who used to keep the school here, said as my gal was one of the best behaved and nicest children she ever see.”
“Then she must have altered very much in her opinion, Mrs Searby,” said a quiet, deep, rich voice; and the woman and the old schoolmaster started to see the Rector standing in the open door. “Mrs Marley consulted me several times upon the advisability of expelling your child from the school, and, for my part, I must say that she is the most tiresome girl that attends the Sunday classes.”
“My gracious, sir!” exclaimed the woman, curtseying humbly.
“Leave her a little more to Miss Portlock here, and don’t interfere,” continued the Rector. “Elizabeth Searby, you had better go to your class. Mr Bone, I have been waiting in the boys’ school to see you. Mrs Searby’s two sons are heading a sort of insurrection there, and the boys, when I went in, were pelting each other with pieces of coke from the stove.”
“Let ’em,” said Humphrey Bone, snapping his fingers in defiance, as Miss Elizabeth Searby took the opportunity of her elders’ backs being turned to put out her tongue at them, as if for medical inspection, and then sought her class, while her mother beat a hasty retreat from the Rector’s presence.
“Let ’em!” said Humphrey Bone again; “I’ve done with ’em all. I defy you all I’ve worked for this school,” he cried, raising his voice, “for thirty years, and trained boys to make good men. As for you, Rev. Eli Mallow, head of the parish as you call yourself, you haven’t.”
“Don’t be foolish, Humphrey Bone,” said the Rector, with a grave smile. “Don’t try to quarrel about the past. What I did was as my duty; and when you are calm you must know that it was inevitable. Forbearance has its limits.”
“Quarrel! Forbearance!” cried the old schoolmaster, furiously. “How have you done your duty? I’m not afraid of you; you shan’t kill me like you did old Warmoth; and I’ll speak now.”
“My duty? Not so well as I should,” said the old clergyman, sadly. “We all have our regrets, Bone, for the past.”
“Yes, for what you’ve neglected,” cried the master, furiously. “You’re not pitched out of your living in your old age; I am. I trained my boys well. How about the training of yours, Rev. Eli – old prophet? How about your boys? Say, if you can, they are not a disgrace.”
The old clergyman started as if he had been stung; his handsome, florid face turned deadly pale, but the next moment the hot flush of indignation suffused his countenance, mounting right up amongst the roots of his silver hair.
“How dare – ” he began; but he checked himself by an effort, and the colour faded slowly from his face.
“Bone,” he said, sadly, “you are angry, and in no fit state, mental and bodily, to talk about these matters. I will forget what you have just said. Now, back to your school; but before you go, let me tell you that I am not the enemy you seem to think. I have here,” he said, drawing a blue envelope from his breast, “a list of contributions, which I am getting towards a testimonial to our old schoolmaster for his long services. I hope to make it reach a handsome sum.”
Humphrey Bone’s lips were parted to speak, but these words disarmed him, and, muttering and shaking his head, he turned and left the place.
“Poor fellow!” said the Rector, calmly. “I fear that at times he hardly knows what he says.”
Sage Portlock looked at him wonderingly for a few moments, and he stood gazing at her, his countenance growing less troubled the while; and no wonder, for Sage Portlock’s was a pleasant face. She was not handsome, but, at the same time, she was far from plain; and there was something attractive about her broad forehead, with its luxuriant, smoothly-braided hair crossing each temple – for young ladies in those days had not taken to either cutting their hair short, or to wearing fringes or hirsute hysterics on their fronts. There was a pleasant regularity in her by no means classical features; her eyes were large and winning, and her well-cut mouth, if too large according to an artists ideal, curved pleasantly, and displayed on parting the whitest of teeth.
“Well, Miss Portlock,” said the Rector, smiling, “what a bad mistress you must be!”
“Indeed, sir,” she exclaimed, colouring, “I try very hard to – ”
“Of course – of course,” he said, laughing, as he walked up the schoolroom by her side. “My dear child, it is the old story.”
“But was Mrs Marley so good a mistress, sir?” asked Sage, eagerly.
“My dear Miss Portlock, she was one of the most amiable of old women; but it was quite shocking to see the state of the school. ‘Steeped in ignorance’ is about the best description I can give you of its condition. Such encounters as you have had this morning fall of necessity to the lot you have embraced, and, as you see, one of my cloth is not exempt from such troubles.”
The old man started and frowned, for just then the door was once more opened in reply to a summons, and the gentleman who had troubled Polly entered the school, took off his hat politely to the mistress, replaced it, and then, apparently feeling that he had done wrong, took it off once more.
“I heard you had come to the school,” he said, “and I thought I would follow you.”
“You might have known, Cyril, that I should not be long,” said the Rector coldly. “Good-morning, Miss Portlock,” and without another word he went to the door, pausing to hold it open while the new-comer passed out, saluting the mistress as he did so; and then Sage Portlock was left to continue her task.
Part 1, Chapter V.
One of the Boys
“Mr Mallow seemed displeased with Mr Cyril,” thought Sage Portlock, as she went on with her duties. “He must have done something to annoy his father.”
Her thoughts left the subject the next moment, as she casually glanced at the window, through which the sun was streaming, for it was one of those glorious days when the dying year seems to flicker up, as it were, into a hectic glow, and for the time being it seems as if summer has come again.
In the schoolroom there was the busy hum of some sixty girls, reading, repeating, answering questions, and keeping up that eternal whispering which it is so hard to check, and the sun’s rays as they streamed across the room made broad, bold bars full of dancing dust. Outside there was the pleasant country, and, in spite of herself, the thoughts of the young mistress strayed away a couple of miles to her home, where on such a day she knew that they would be busy gathering the late apples, those great, red-streaked fellows, which would be laid in the rack and covered with straw till Christmas. The great baking-pear tree, too, would be yielding its bushels of heavy hard fruit, and the big medlar tree down by the gate – she seemed to see it, as she thought – would be one blaze of orange and red and russet gold.
It would be delicious, she thought, to run home at once instead of being busy there; but the next moment a calm, satisfied smile came across her face, as she recalled the long tedious days she had passed the year before at Westminster, and began thinking and wondering about some one else.
“I wonder how he is getting on?” she thought; “and whether he will get one of the highest certificates. He tries so hard, I should think it is almost certain.”
There was a pause here – a busy pause, during which a change of duty was instituted in two or three classes; but Sage Portlock’s thoughts went back soon after, in spite of herself, to the progress of Luke Ross at the London training college.
As she thought her cheeks reddened slightly, and she could not help recalling the spiteful words of the old master; and, as thoughts will, hers bounded on ahead faster and faster, till in effect she did see the day when her old friend and companion would be settled at Lawford, and perhaps a closer connection than that of master and mistress of the schools have come to pass.
Meanwhile the look of displeasure upon the Rev. Eli Mallow’s countenance had grown deeper and more marked as he walked away from the school with his son, and angry words had taken place.
“Why, what nonsense, father!” exclaimed the young man. “I heard that you had just entered the schoolroom, and I followed to speak to you, that’s all; and here you turn rusty about it. Hang it all, a fellow comes home for a little peace, and the place is made miserable.”
“By you, Cyril,” retorted his father, sharply. “Home is a calm and peaceful place till you come back, and then – I grieve to say it – trouble is sure to begin.”
“Why, what have I done now?”
“Done?” said his father, bitterly, as they walked up the long town street. “Why, given up another chance in life. Here, at the expense of a thousand pounds, you are started upon this Australian expedition, to become a settler, but at the end of two years you are back home, with the money gone, and as unsettled as ever.”
“Well, we had all that over last night and the night before. You need not bring it up again. That is not why you have turned rusty,” said the young man, sulkily.
“I think I will ask you to speak respectfully to me, Cyril,” said his father, with dignity.
“Respectfully!” said Cyril, with a mocking laugh. “Why, I’m behaving wonderfully. If I had stayed out at the sheep farm for another year I should have been a perfect boor.”
“And I must request, finally, that you interfere no more in any of the parish matters.”
“Well, who has interfered, father?”
“To put it plainly, then, my boy, I insist upon your keeping away from that school.”
“And for goodness’ sake, father, why?”
“I will tell you,” said the old clergyman, with no small show of excitement. “I have been reviled this morning, and accused of being wanting in duty, especially in the management of my sons.”
“Who dared to be so insolent?” cried the young man.
“I was compared to Eli of old, my boy; and I fear only too justly.”
“Let’s see; Eli’s sons were very naughty boys, weren’t they?” said the young man, laughing.
“Silence, sir!” cried his father, flushing; “these are not matters for your idle jests. I acknowledge that, for your poor mother’s sake, I have given way, and been weak and indulgent to the boy she, poor invalid, has ever worshipped; but the time has come now for me to make a stand, ere worse befall our house.”
“Why, father, what do you mean?”
“This, my son,” cried the old clergyman, sternly. “You left home two years ago, wild and fighting against restraint. You have come back now rougher in your ways – ”
“No wonder. You should have led such a life as I have amongst sheep farmers and roughs, and you wouldn’t wonder at my ways.”
“And far less amenable to discipline.”
“Why, what do you want, father?” cried the young man, impatiently.
“Strict obedience in all things, but more especially in those where any lapse might reflect upon my conduct as the clergyman of this parish.”
“Why, of course, father – what do you suppose a fellow is going to do?”
“Do you think I’m blind, Cyril?” said his father, sternly.
“Not I, father. Why do you ask?”
“Answer me this question. Why did you follow me to the school?”
“To have a chat with you. It was precious dull at home.”
“Very. It must be,” said the old clergyman, ironically. “You have been away from home two years, and after a few days’ return, its calm and peaceful life is found dull.”
“Well, so it is; plaguy dull.”
“Your mother has been confined to her couch ever since Cynthia was born, Cyril. I have never yet heard her complain of home being dull, or repine at her lot.”
“Ah, well, I know all that! Poor mamma!” exclaimed the young man.
“And you make that pitiful excuse to me, Cyril,” cried his father: “you stoop to deceit already.”
“Who does?” cried the young man fiercely.
“You do, sir, and I tell you this shall not be. Sage Portlock is a pure, sweet-minded girl, in whom both your sisters and I take the greatest interest; and I tell you that, if not engaged, there is already a very great intimacy existing between her and Luke Ross.”
“Phew!” whistled Cyril. “What, that young prig of a fellow! I say, father, he’s turning schoolmaster, isn’t he?”
“It is settled that he shall succeed Mr Bone as soon as he has finished his training,” said Mr Mallow, quietly.
“Poor old Bone! – dry Bone, as we used to call him, because he was such a thirsty soul. And so Luke Ross is to be the new man, eh? I congratulate Lawford,” he added, with a sneer.
“You have never liked Luke Ross since he gave you so sound a thrashing,” said his father, quietly.
“He? Thrash me? Absurd, father! Pooh! the fellow is beneath my notice.”
“I think we understand each other now,” said Mr Mallow, with quiet firmness. “While you stay here, Cyril, there is to be no trifling with any one. You can share our home for the present – that is, until you obtain some engagement.”
“Oh, hang engagements!” cried the young man, impatiently. “You have plenty of money, father, both in your own right and mamma’s. Why should I be constantly driven from home to some menial work?”
“Because it is time that your spoiled life of indulgence should cease. There is nothing degrading in work; it is idleness that degrades.”
“Oh, yes; you’ve lectured me enough about that,” said the young man, rudely.
“And you may take it for granted that as soon as an opening can be made for you – ”
“Opening wanted for a pushing young man,” cried Cyril, mockingly.
“I shall ask you to leave home and try to do your duty in this busy world.”
“Thanks, father,” said the young man, roughly. “What am I to be?”
“Three years ago I felt that I was doing wrong in keeping you in idleness at home.”
“Idle? Why, I was always busy, father.”
“Yes – hunting, shooting, fishing, and the like; but you did not stop there.”
“Oh, nonsense?”
“To-day I feel certain that I should be doing a great injustice to the parish – to your mother – to your sisters – ”
“Any one else?” said the young man, mockingly.
“To you,” replied his father, sternly.
“Any one else?”
“And to Miss Portlock and Luke Ross by allowing you to stay here.”
They had reached the rectory, and the Rev. Eli Mallow, who had paused with one hand upon the oaken bar to finish his sentence, now pushed open the quaintly-made gate, held it for a moment as if for his son to follow; but as he did not, the Rector allowed it to close, and, placing his hands behind him, walked slowly up the well-kept gravel walk, too intent upon his thoughts to give heed to his favourite flowers, or to enter the conservatory, according to his custom, on his way to his own snug room, whose walls were well stored with works on botany and his favourite pursuit, gardening.
Cyril Mallow gave his long moustache a tug as he watched his father’s bent back till it disappeared amongst the choice shrubs and evergreens; then, taking out his cigar-case, he selected one from its contents, bit off the end viciously, and there was the petulance of a spoiled child in his action as he struck one of the old-fashioned flat fusees upon the rough oaken gate-post till he had torn the match to rags without obtaining a light, another and another following before he could ignite his cigar.
“Confound the place!” he exclaimed. “It’s as dull as ditch water. Pretty state of affairs, indeed! One can’t look at a soul without being jerked up short. Luke Ross, eh? I’d like to – ”
He did not say what, but he gave his teeth a grind, and, thrusting his hands deep down into his pockets, he walked on towards the fields beyond the little town.
“I declare everybody’s hard on me,” he said aloud. “Just because I’m a bit unlucky and want change. Here’s the governor rolling in riches, and might make me a handsome allowance, and yet I’m always to be driven out into the world. Hanged if it isn’t too bad.”
He leaped over a stile and strolled a little way on across a field, beyond which was a patch of woodland, all aglow with the rich tints of autumn, but Cyril Mallow saw them not, his thoughts being elsewhere.
“I won’t stand it,” he cried suddenly, as he stopped short. “A man can’t always be in leading-strings, and I’m old enough now, surely, to strike for my liberty, and – ”
His hand went involuntarily to his vest pocket, from which he drew a delicately-made lady’s gold watch, whose presence was accounted for by the fact that Cyril’s own stout gold watch had passed into the hands of a station shepherd out at a place called Bidgeewoomba, in Queensland, and Cyril’s indulgent mother had insisted upon his using hers until it was replaced.
“Beastly dull place!” he muttered, gazing at the watch. “It’s of no use to go across to the ford; ‘our master’ will be coming in to dinner. Little fool! why did she go and marry that great oaf?”
He turned the watch over and over, laughing unpleasantly.
“Pretty Polly!” he said out aloud, but ended by opening and snapping to the back of the watch.
“Five minutes to twelve,” he exclaimed, involuntarily. “The children will be coming out of school directly.”
He made a sharp movement in the direction of the town – stopped short – went on again – stopped to think of the words he had had with his father, and then, with an impatient “pish!” thrust his hands into his pockets, and walked quickly in the direction that he knew Sage Portlock would take on leaving the school, bent on the mission of causing misery and dissension between two young people just making their first start in life, and sowing the seed of certain weeds that would spring up to the overtopping of much goodly grain.
He paused again, hesitating as he neared the rectory gates, and for a moment he seemed as if he would enter.
But just then the church clock struck twelve, and the deep-toned bell, as it slowly gave forth, one by one, the tale of strokes announcing that the day had climbed to its greatest height, seemed to bring before Cyril Mallow the scene of the schoolgirls racing out, panting and eager, while Sage Portlock was putting on that natty little hat and long silk scarf she wore when going to and fro.
“Oh, what nonsense!” ejaculated Cyril. “What harm? Perhaps I shan’t see her after all.”
He strode off hastily back towards the town, for it was now five minutes past twelve, and just at this time Sage was locking the school door, and enjoying the fresh air, as she thought of Luke Ross with a pleasant little smile upon her lip, and a ruddy tint on the cheek; while just a hundred and twenty miles away Luke Ross had shouldered a spade on his way to the great garden for the hour’s manual labour prescribed by the rules of the training school; and, oddly enough, he was not thinking of the piece of earth he was about, in company with many more, to dig, but of Sage Portlock, and the pleasant days when he should be down in the country once again.
Part 1, Chapter VI.
Magisterial Functions
People had always said that the Rev. Eli Mallow was a most fortunate man, but somehow fate gave him his share of reverses. He had been born with the customary number of bones in his vertebra, wonderfully joined together after Dame Nature’s regular custom and good style of workmanship, with suitable muscle and nerve to give proper pliability. The nurse who used to wash and wipe and then powder his delicate young skin considered that he was a beautiful baby, and certainly he had grown up into a very handsome man, an ornament, with his portly form and grey head, to the county bench, to his seat on which he was warmly welcomed back by his neighbours, for however unpopular he might be in the dissent-loving town of Lawford, the Rev. Eli Mallow was a favourite in his part of the county.
The late Lord Artingale had always been one of the loudest in his praise.
“He is a man of breed, sir,” his lordship would say. “There’s blood and bone in the man. I wish we had more clergymen of his kind. There’d be less poaching in the country, I can tell you, and fewer empty bags.”
For the Rev. Eli Mallow worked by rule, that is to say, by law. Secular and ecclesiastical law were to be obeyed to the letter, and he was most exacting in carrying out what he considered to be his mission, with the result that, however well he stood in favour with his friends, his popularity did not increase.
He was not a bad man, for he was strictly moral and self-denying, fairly charitable, had prayers morning and evening, always walked to church on Sundays, kept a good table, and was proud of having the best horses in the neighbourhood. He did his duty according to his light, but that light was rather a small one, and it illumined a very narrow part of the great book of life. There were certain things which he considered duties, and his stern obedience to cut-and-dried law, rule, and regulation made him seem harsher than he really was.
During his absence from Lawford something approaching to economy had been practised, and his wife’s and his own property had been nursed; but now the family had returned there was no sign of saving, for, in addition to being a clergyman, the Rector devoted himself largely to the carrying out of what he called his rôle as a country gentleman, and at whatever cost to his pocket and general strain upon the property, this he did well as a rule. Now, for reasons of his own relating to his two daughters, he was launching out to an extent that made a second visit to the Continent a very probable matter before many years were past.
Breakfast was over at the rectory. There had been words between master and Mr Cyril, the butler said, and master had been very angry, but, as was usually the case, Mr Cyril had come off victorious; and now, as it was market-day at Lawford, the bays were at the door, champing their bits, the butler and footman were in the hall waiting, and punctual to the moment the young ladies came hurrying down the oak staircase just as the Rev. Eli received his gloves from the butler and put them on, the domestic waiting to hand him his hat. This was carefully placed upon his head, and then there was a little ceremony gone through of putting on the glossy black overcoat, as if it were some sacred garment.
The Rev. Eli did justice to his clothes, looking a thoroughly noble specimen of his class, and once ready he unbent a little and smiled at his pretty, ladylike daughters, whom he followed down to the handsome barouche, which it had always been a custom to have out on bench days, the appearance of the stylish turn-out lending no little éclat to the magisterial proceedings.
It was certainly not a mile and a half to the market-place, but though that distance might be traversed again and again upon ordinary days, this was out of the question when the magistrates were about to sit.
So the steps were rattled down, the young ladies handed in, Cyril Mallow, with a cigar in his mouth, watching the proceedings from his bedroom window. The Rev. Eli followed and took his seat with dignity; the steps were closed, the door shut, the footman mounted to the box beside the coachman, both stretched their legs out rigidly, and set their backs as straight as their master’s, and away the carriage spun, through the avenue, and out at the lodge gates, where the gardener’s wife was ready to drop a curtsey and close them afterwards, and then away through the lanes by the longest way round, so as to pass Portlock’s farm and enter Lawford by the London road.
Market-day was a busy day at Lawford, and the ostler at the King’s Head had his hands full attending to the gigs of the farmers and the carts of the clergy and gentry round.
The word “cart” seems more suggestive of the vehicle of the tradesman; but it was the custom around Lawford for the clergy to use a capacious kind of spring cart, neatly painted and padded within, but in other respects built exactly on the model of an ordinary butcher’s or grocer’s trap, save that it had a door and step behind for access to the back seats, while, below the door, painted in regular tradesman style for the evasion of tax, would be, in thin white letters, the owners name and address, as in the case of the vicar of Slowby, whose cart was lettered —