"Oh, you silly girl, do you think she would come? you should have seen her at the ball. She knew everybody, and had such quant.i.ties of partners. Mr. Clarence Copperhead was always dancing with her. Fancy her coming to tea with us." But Ursula herself was somewhat breathless with the suggestion. When a thing has been once said, there is always a chance that it may be done, and the two girls walked up very quickly into the High Street after this, silent, with a certain awe of themselves and their possibilities. It might be done, now that it had been said.

CHAPTER XV.

A DOMESTIC CRISIS.

The interest shown by the two girls in the stranger whom they had noted with so much attention was not destined to meet with any immediate reward. Neither he, nor "the young lady in black," whom he hurried across the street to meet, could be heard of, or was seen for full two days afterwards, to the great disappointment of the young Mays. Ursula, especially, who had been entertaining vague but dazzling thoughts of a companions.h.i.+p more interesting than Janey's, more novel and at the same time more equal than that which was extended to her by the Miss Griffiths in Grange Lane, who were so much better off and had so much less to do than she. Ursula did not recollect the name of the fortunate girl who was so much in the ascendant at Mr. Copperhead's ball, though Phoebe had been introduced to her; but she did recollect her popularity and general friendliness, and the number of partners she had, and all those delightful signs of greatness which impress a poor little stranger, to whom her first dance is not unmingled pleasure. She whispered to Janey about her even in the drawing-room when all the family were a.s.sembled.

"Do you think she will call?" said Ursula, asking counsel even of Janey's inexperience, of which she was so contemptuous on other occasions.

"Call! how can she, if she is a stranger?" said Janey.

"As if you knew anything about it!" Ursula retorted with great injustice.

"If I don't know, then why do you ask me?" complained Janey with reason.

The room looked more cheerful since Ursula had come home. The fire, no longer choked with cinders, burned clear and red. The lamp, though it was a cheap one, and burned paraffin oil, did not smell. The old curtains were nicely drawn, and the old covers smoothed over the chairs.

All this did not make them look less old; but it made their antiquity natural and becoming. Johnnie, the school-boy, was learning his lessons on the rug before the fire. Reginald sat writing, with a candle all to himself, at a writing-table in a corner. Ursula and Janey were working at the centre table by the light of the lamp. They had no time, you may imagine, for fancy-work. Janey, with many contortions of her person, especially of her mouth, with which she seemed to follow the movements of her needle, was st.i.tching up a sleeve of her new frock which Miss Dorset had sent her, and which a poor dress-maker, who "went out," was at this moment making up in the schoolroom; while Ursula was still busy with the basket of stockings which she had found awaiting her on their return. What Reginald was doing at the writing-table was probably a great deal less useful, but the girls respected his occupation as no one ever thought of respecting theirs, and carried on their conversation under their breath, not to interrupt him. The little children had gone to bed, tea was over, and several hours of the long winter evening still before them. Janey had given over lessons, partly because there was no one to insist upon her doing them. Once in a week or so her father gave her a lecture for her ignorance, and ordered her into his study to do a long sum in arithmetic out of the first old "Colenso" that could be picked up; and about once a week too, awakening suddenly to a sense of her own deficiencies, she would "practise" energetically on the old piano. This was all that was being done for Janey in the way of education. She was fifteen, and as Johnnie, and Amy, and Robin were at an age when school is a necessity, the only retrenchment possible was to keep Janey at home. Ursula had got what education she possessed in the same irregular way. It was not much. Besides reading and writing, she had pretty manners, which came by nature like those other gifts. A girl is not so badly off who can read and write and has pretty manners. Janey possessed the two first faculties, but neither had nor apparently could acquire the third. The two dark brown heads were close together as they worked--Ursula's s.h.i.+ning and neat, and carefully arranged, Janey's rough with elf-locks; but they were more interesting than Reginald, though he was so much better informed. As for Johnnie, he lay extended on the rug, his head slightly raised on his two hands, his book on a level with the rest of his person, saying over his lesson to himself with moving lips.

And now and then, when the girls' whispered chatter was silent, the sound of Reginald's pen scratching across the paper would fill up the interval; it was a sound which filled them all with respect.

This peaceful domestic scene was broken in upon by the entry of Mr. May.

From the moment that he closed the hall-door behind him, coming in, a little thrill ran through the family party. The girls looked at each other when they heard that sound, and Johnnie, without stopping his inward repet.i.tion, s.h.i.+fted himself and his book adroitly, with the cleverness of practice, to the side instead of the front of the fire.

Reginald's pen stopped its scratching, and he wheeled round on his chair to give an appealing glance at his sisters.

"What is it now?" he said hurriedly. Every one knew that when the door was closed like that it meant something like a declaration of war. But they had not much time to wait and wonder. Mr. May came in, pus.h.i.+ng the door wide open before him, and admitting a gust of chill air of the January night. He looked at the peaceable domestic scene with a "humph"

of dissatisfaction, because there was nothing to find fault with, which is as great a grievance as another when one is in the mood for grievances. He had come in cross and out of sorts, with a private cause for his ill-temper, which he did not choose to reveal, and it would have been a relief to him had he found them all chattering or wasting their time, instead of being occupied in this perfectly dutiful way--even Johnnie at his lessons, repeating them over under his breath. What was the world coming to? Mr. May was disappointed. Instead of leading up to it gradually by a general _battue_ of his children all round, he had to open upon his chief subject at once, which was not nearly so agreeable a way.

"What are you doing, Reginald?" he asked, roughly, pulling his chair to the other side of the fire, opposite the corner to which Johnnie had scuffled out of the way. "I have come in especially to speak to you. It is time this s.h.i.+lly-shallying was done with. Do you mean to accept the College chaplaincy or not? an answer must be given, and that at once.

Are you so busy that you can't attend to what I say?"

"I am not busy at all, sir," said Reginald, in a subdued voice, while his sisters cast sympathetic looks at him. Both the girls, it is true, thought him extremely foolish, but what of that? Necessarily they were on his side against papa.

"I thought as much; indeed it would be hard to say what you could find to be busy at. But look here, this must come to an end one way or another. You know my opinion on the subject."

"And you know mine, sir," said Reginald, rising and coming forward to the fire. "I don't say anything against the old College. For an old man it might be quite a justifiable arrangement--one who had already spent his strength in work--but for me--of course there is nothing in the world to do."

"And two hundred and fifty a year for the doing of it--not to speak of the house, which you could let for fifty more."

"Father! don't you see that is just the very thing that I object to, so much for nothing."

"You prefer nothing for nothing," said Mr. May, with a smile; "well, I suppose that is more fair, perhaps--to the public;--but how about me? A son of three-and-twenty depending upon me for everything, useless and bringing in nothing, does not suit me. You are all the same," he said, "all taking from me, with a thousand wants, education, clothes, amus.e.m.e.nt--"

"I am sure," said the irrepressible Janey, "it is not much clothes we get, and as for amus.e.m.e.nts--and education!"

"Hold your tongue," cried her father. "Here are six of you, one more helpless than another, and the eldest the most helpless of all. I did not force you into the Church. You might have gone out to James if you had liked--but you chose an academical career, and then there was nothing else for it. I gave you a t.i.tle to orders. You are my curate just now--so called; but you know I can't pay a curate, and you know I can't afford to keep you. Providence--" said Mr. May, sitting up in his chair, with a certain solemnity, "Providence itself has stepped in to make your path clear. Here is better than a living, a provision for you.

I don't bid you take it for life; take it for a year or two till you can hear of something better. Now what on earth is your objection to this?"

The girls had both turned their faces towards their brother. Janey, always the first in action, repeated almost unconsciously. "Yes, what on earth, Reginald, can be your objection to this?"

Reginald stood in the middle of the room and looked helplessly at them.

Against his father alone he might have made a stand--but when the united family thus gazed at him with inquiring and reproachful looks, what was he to say?

"Objection!" he faltered, "you know very well what my objection is. It is not honest work--it is no work. It is a waste of money that might be better employed; it is a sinecure."

"And what do you call your nominal curates.h.i.+p," said his father, "is not that a sinecure too?"

"If it is," said Reginald, growing red, but feeling bolder, for here the family veered round, and placed itself on his side, "it is of a contrary kind. It is _sine_ pay. My work may be bad, though I hope not, but my pay is nothing. I don't see any resemblance between the two."

"Your pay nothing!" cried the father, enraged; "what do you call your living, your food that you are so fastidious about, your floods of beer and all the rest of it--not to speak of tailors' bills much heavier than mine?"

"Which are never paid."

"Whose fault is it that they are never paid? yours and the others who weigh me down to the ground, and never try to help or do anything for themselves. Never paid! how should I have gone on to this period and secured universal respect if they had never been paid? I have had to pay for all of you," said Mr. May, bitterly, "and all your vagaries; education, till I have been nearly ruined; dresses and ribbons, and a hundred fooleries for these girls, who are of no use, who will never give me back a farthing."

"Papa!" cried Ursula and Janey in one breath.

"Hold your tongues! useless impedimenta, not even able to scrub the floors, and make the beds, which is all you could ever be good for--and you must have a servant forsooth to do even that. But why should I speak of the girls?" he added, with a sarcastic smile, "they can do nothing better, poor creatures; but you! who call yourself a man--a University man, save the mark--a fine fellow with the Oxford stamp upon you, twenty-three your next birthday. It is a fine thing that I should still have to support you."

Reginald began to walk up and down the room, stung beyond bearing--not that he had not heard it all before, but to get accustomed to such taunts is difficult, and it is still more difficult for a young and susceptible mind to contradict all that is seemly and becoming in nature, and to put forth its own statement in return. Reginald knew that his education had in reality cost his father very little, and that his father knew this. He was aware, too, much more distinctly than Mr. May knew, of James's remittances on his account; but what could he say? It was his father who insulted him, and the young man's lips were closed; but the effort was a hard one. He could not stand still there and face the man who had so little consideration for his feelings. All he could do was to keep his agitation and irritation down by that hurried promenade about the room, listening as little as he could, and answering not at all.

"Oh, papa! how can you?" cried Janey, seizing the first pause. Janey was not old enough to understand the delicacy that closed Reginald's lips, and the impulse of self-defence was stirring in her; "how dare you talk to Ursula so? I mayn't be much use, but Ursula! nice and comfortable you were when she was away! as if you didn't say so ten times in a morning; to be sure that was to make me feel uncomfortable. Scrub floors!" cried Janey, in the violence of her resentment. "I'll go out and be a maid-of-all-work whenever you please. I am sure it would be much happier than here."

"Hold your tongue," said Mr. May, "you scolding and Ursula crying; that's the beauty of the feminine element in a house. I ought to be very thankful, oughtn't I, that I have girls to furnish this agreeable variety? But as for you, Reginald," his father added, "mark my words, if you determine to reject this windfall that Providence has blown into your hands, it must be done at once. No further play of I would and I would not, if you please, here; and if it does not suit you, you will please to understand that I have no further need for a curate that suits me still less. I want your room. If nothing else can be done, I must try to take a pupil to add a little to the income which has so many claims upon it; and I don't mean to go on keeping you--this is plain enough, I hope."

"Very plain, sir," said Reginald, who had grown as pale as he was red before.

"I am glad to hear it; you will write to the Corporation at once, accepting or rejecting at your pleasure; but this must be done to-night.

I must insist on its being done to-night; and if you find yourself sufficiently bold to reject an income," said Mr. May with emphasis, "and go off into the world without a penny in your pocket, I wash my hands of it; it is nothing to me."

Then there was a pause. The father of the family sat down in his chair, and looked round him with the happy consciousness that he had made everybody miserable. The girls were both crying, Reginald pale and desperate, coming and going through the room. No one had escaped but Johnnie, who, happy in insignificance, lay all his length on the other side of the fire, and lifted his face from his book to watch the discomfiture of the others. Johnnie had no terrors on his own account.

He had done nothing to call forth the paternal wrath. Mr. May could not resist this temptation.

"Is that a way to learn lessons as they ought to be learnt?" he cried suddenly, throwing one of his darts at the unthinking boy. "Get up this moment, and sit down to a table somewhere. Your own room, where there is n.o.body to disturb you, is better than amid the chit-chat here; do you hear me? get up, sir, and go."

Johnnie stumbled to his feet appalled; he was too much startled to say anything. He took his books across the room to the writing-table which Reginald had abandoned in a similar way. But by the time he reached that haven, he came to himself, and recovering his courage muttered something about the hards.h.i.+p to which he was thus exposed, as boys have a way of doing; upon which Mr. May got suddenly up, seized him by the shoulders and turned him out of the drawing-room. "I said your own room, sir,"

cried this impartial father, distributing to all alike an equal share of his urbanities. When he had accomplished this, he stood for a moment and looked at the rest of his confused and uncomfortable family. "There is not much cheerful society to be had here this evening, I perceive," he said. "It is pleasant to come in from one's cares and find a reception like this, don't you think? Let some one bring me some coffee to my study. I am going to write."

"Whose fault is it that he gets such a reception?" burst forth Janey, the moment her father had closed the door. "Who does it all, I wonder?

Who treats us like a set of wretches without any feeling? I can't hush, I won't hus.h.!.+ Oh, shouldn't I be glad to go out as a housemaid, to do anything!"

"Oh, Janey, hus.h.!.+ we can't help ourselves, we are obliged to put up with it," said Ursula; "but Reginald, he is not obliged, he can save himself when he likes. Oh, I know, I know papa is unreasonable; but, Reginald, aren't you a little bit unreasonable too?"

"Don't you begin to reproach me," cried the young man, "I have had enough for one day. Have I been such a charge upon him, Ursula? What has he spent upon me? Next to nothing. That tailor's bill he spoke of, he knew as well as I do that I paid it by the tutors.h.i.+p I had in the vacation. It is his bill that is not paid, not mine. And then James's money--"

"Oh, never mind that, never mind the past," cried Ursula, "think of the present, that's what you ought to do. Oh, Reginald, think; if _I_ had the chance of two hundred and fifty pounds a year! there is nothing I would not do for it. I would scrub floors, as he said, I would do anything, the dirtiest work. You will be independent, able to do what you please, and never to ask papa for anything. Reginald, think! Oh, dear, dear, I wish I knew how to talk to you. To be independent, able to please yourself!"