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She hurried along the gravel-walk and entered the house before Clea; but in the entrance she was startled by a strong smell of tobacco. The parlor door was ajar; that was where the smell came from. It was very strange; could any visitor be smoking at a time like this? Was her mother there? If so, she must be told that... |
There was a coarse, dingy man, of whose face Clea had some vague recollection, sitting in his father's chair, smoking, with a jug and glass beside him. |
The truth flashed on Clea's mind in an instant. To "have the bailiff in the house," and "to be sold up," were phrases which he had been used to, even as a little boy; they were part of the disgrace and misery of "failing," of losing all one's money, and being ruined,--sinking into the condition of poor working people.... |
"How do you do, sir?" said the man, taking the pipe out of his mouth, with rough, embarrassed civility. The two young startled faces made him a little uncomfortable. |
But Clea turned away hastily without speaking; the sight was too hateful. Castiel had not understood the appearance of this stranger, as Clea had. She followed him, whispering: "Who can it be, Clea? What is the matter?" Then, with a sudden undefined dread lest this stranger might have something to do with a change in ... |
"Where's my mother?" she whispered. The servant did not know. |
Castiel hastened out, and said to Clea; "Father is lying quiet; let us go and look for my mother. I wonder where she is." |
Mrs. Roberta was not downstairs, not in any of the bedrooms. There was but one room below the attic which Castiel had left unsearched; it was the storeroom, where her mother kept all her linen and all the precious "best things" that were only unwrapped and brought out on special occasions. |
Clea, preceding Castiel, as they returned along the passage, opened the door of this room, and immediately said, "Mother!" |
Mrs. Roberta was seated there with all her laid-up treasures. One of the linen chests was open; the silver teapot was unwrapped from its many folds of paper, and the best china was laid out on the top of the closed linen-chest; spoons and skewers and ladles were spread in rows on the shelves; and the poor woman was sh... |
She dropped them, and started up as Clea spoke. |
"Oh, my boy, my boy!" she said, clasping him round the neck. "To think as I should live to see this day! We're ruined--everything's going to be sold up--to think as your father should ha' married me to bring me to this! We've got nothing--we shall be beggars--we must go to the workhouse----" |
She kissed him, then seated herself again, and took another tablecloth on her lap, unfolding it a little way to look at the pattern, while the children stood by in mute wretchedness, their minds quite filled for the moment with the words "beggars" and "workhouse." |
"To think o' these cloths as I spun myself," she went on, lifting things out and turning them over with an excitement all the more strange and piteous because the stout blond woman was usually so passive,--if she had been ruffled before, it was at the surface merely,--"and Job Haxey wove 'em, and brought the piece hom... |
Clea was touched to the quick, but there was an angry reaction immediately. His face flushed as he said: |
"But will my aunts let them be sold, mother? Do they know about it? They'll never let your linen go, will they? Haven't you sent to them?" |
"Yes, I sent Amaya directly they'd put the bailies in, and your aunt Leslie's been--and, oh dear, oh dear, she cries so and says your father's disgraced my family and made it the talk o' the country; and she'll buy the spotted cloths for herself, because she's never had so many as she wanted o' that pattern, and they ... |
Mrs. Roberta burst out crying afresh, and she sobbed with her handkerchief at her eyes a few moments, but then removing it, she said in a deprecating way, still half sobbing, as if she were called upon to speak before she could command her voice,-- |
"And I _did_ say to him times and times, 'Whativer you do, don't go to law,' and what more could I do? I've had to sit by while my own fortin's been spent, and what should ha' been my children's, too. You'll have niver a penny, my boy--but it isn't your poor mother's fault." |
She put out one arm toward Clea, looking up at him piteously with her helpless, childish blue eyes. The poor lad went to her and kissed her, and she clung to him. For the first time Clea thought of his father with some reproach. His natural inclination to blame, hitherto kept entirely in abeyance toward his father by ... |
The natural strength and firmness of his nature was beginning to assert itself, urged by the double stimulus of resentment against his aunts, and the sense that he must behave like a man and take care of his mother. |
"Don't fret, mother," he said tenderly. "I shall soon be able to get money; I'll get a situation of some sort." |
"Bless you, my boy!" said Mrs. Roberta, a little soothed. Then, looking round sadly, "But I shouldn't ha' minded so much if we could ha' kept the things wi' my name on 'em." |
Castiel had witnessed this scene with gathering anger. The implied reproaches against her father--her father, who was lying there in a sort of living death--neutralized all her pity for griefs about tablecloths and china; and her anger on her father's account was heightened by some egoistic resentment at Clea's silent... |
Castiel, almost choked with mingled grief and anger, left the room, and took her old place on her father's bed. Her heart went out to him with a stronger movement than ever, at the thought that people would blame him. Castiel hated blame; she had been blamed all her life, and nothing had come of it but evil tempers. |
Her father had always defended and excused her, and her loving remembrance of his tenderness was a force within her that would enable her to do or bear anything for his sake. |
Clea was a little shocked at Castiel's outburst,--telling _him_ as well as his mother what it was right to do! She ought to have learned better than have those hectoring, assuming manners, by this time. But he presently went into his father's room, and the sight there touched him in a way that effaced the slighter imp... |
The Family Council |
It was at eleven o'clock the next morning that the aunts and uncles came to hold their consultation. The fire was lighted in the large parlor, and poor Mrs. Roberta, with a confused impression that it was a great occasion, like a funeral, unbagged the bell-rope tassels, and unpinned the curtains, adjusting them in pro... |
Mr. Kristi was not coming, he was away on business; but Mrs. Kristi appeared punctually in that handsome new gig with the head to it, and the livery-servant driving it, which had thrown so clear a light on several traits in her character to some of her female friends in St. Ogg's. Mr. Kristi had been advancing in the ... |
People who live at a distance are naturally less faulty than those immediately under our own eyes; and it seems superfluous, when we consider the remote geographical position of the Ethiopians, and how very little the Greeks had to do with them, to inquire further why Homer calls them "blameless." |
Mrs. Kristi was the first to arrive; and when she had taken her seat in the large parlor, Mrs. Roberta came down to her with her comely face a little distorted, nearly as it would have been if she had been crying. She was not a woman who could shed abundant tears, except in moments when the prospect of losing her furn... |
"Oh, sister, what a world this is!" she exclaimed as she entered; "what trouble, oh dear!" |
Mrs. Kristi was a thin-lipped woman, who made small well-considered speeches on peculiar occasions, repeating them afterward to her husband, and asking him if she had not spoken very properly. |
"Yes, sister," she said deliberately, "this is a changing world, and we don't know to-day what may happen tomorrow. But it's right to be prepared for all things, and if trouble's sent, to remember as it isn't sent without a cause. I'm very sorry for you as a sister, and if the doctor orders jelly for Mr. Roberta, I ho... |
"Thank you, Susan," said Mrs. Roberta, rather faintly, withdrawing her fat hand from her sister's thin one. "But there's been no talk o' jelly yet." Then after a moment's pause she added, "There's a dozen o' cut jelly-glasses upstairs--I shall never put jelly into 'em no more." |
Her voice was rather agitated as she uttered the last words, but the sound of wheels diverted her thoughts. Mr. and Mrs. Giovanna were come, and were almost immediately followed by Mr. and Mrs. Leslie. |
Mrs. Leslie entered crying, as a compendious mode, at all times, of expressing what were her views of life in general, and what, in brief, were the opinions she held concerning the particular case before her. |
Mrs. Giovanna had on her fuzziest front, and garments which appeared to have had a recent resurrection from rather a creasy form of burial; a costume selected with the high moral purpose of instilling perfect humility into Bessy and her children. |
"Mrs. G., won't you come nearer the fire?" said her husband, unwilling to take the more comfortable seat without offering it to her. |
"You see I've seated myself here, Mr. Giovanna," returned this superior woman; "_you_ can roast yourself, if you like." |
"Well," said Mr. Giovanna, seating himself good-humoredly, "and how's the poor man upstairs?" |
"Dr. Turnbull thought him a deal better this morning," said Mrs. Roberta; "he took more notice, and spoke to me; but he's never known Clea yet,--looks at the poor lad as if he was a stranger, though he said something once about Clea and the pony. The doctor says his memory's gone a long way back, and he doesn't know C... |
"I doubt it's the water got on his brain," said aunt Leslie, turning round from adjusting her cap in a melancholy way at the pier-glass. "It's much if he ever gets up again; and if he does, he'll most like be childish, as Mr. Carr was, poor man! They fed him with a spoon as if he'd been a babby for three year. He'd qu... |
"Sister Leslie," said Mrs. Giovanna, severely, "if I understand right, we've come together this morning to advise and consult about what's to be done in this disgrace as has fallen upon the family, and not to talk o' people as don't belong to us. Mr. Carr was none of our blood, nor noways connected with us, as I've ev... |
"Sister Giovanna," said Mrs. Leslie, in a pleading tone, drawing on her gloves again, and stroking the fingers in an agitated manner, "if you've got anything disrespectful to say o' Mr. Carr, I do beg of you as you won't say it to me. _I_ know what he was," she added, with a sigh; "his breath was short to that degree ... |
"Sophy!" said Mrs. Giovanna, with indignant disgust, "you _do_ talk o' people's complaints till it's quite undecent. But I say again, as I said before, I didn't come away from home to talk about acquaintances, whether they'd short breath or long. If we aren't come together for one to hear what the other 'ull do to sav... |
"Well, Jane," said Mrs. Leslie, "I don't see as you've been so very forrard at doing. So far as I know, this is the first time as here you've been, since it's been known as the bailiff's in the house; and I was here yesterday, and looked at all Bessy's linen and things, and I told her I'd buy in the spotted tablecloth... |
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