Perhaps; if he had only known how miserable it made me, we might have moved to a healthier place; but after that one time, I never could vex him or trust myself. To hear him console me and grieve for me, was worst of all.'
Constance began to see how the whole woman, brought up to affluence, had been suddenly crushed by the change; and almost the more so for her husband's high and cheerful resolution, which had forced back her feelings into herself. Her powers had barely sufficed for the cares of her household and her numerous family, and her endurance had consisted in 'suffering, and being still.' No murmur had escaped, but only by force of silence. She had not weakened his energies by word or look of repining; but while his physical life was worn out by toil and hardship, her mental life had almost been extinguished in care, drudgery, and self-control; and all his sweetness, tenderness, and cheerfulness had not been able to do more than just to enable her to hold out, without manifesting her suffering. Enid had been a very suitable name for her; though without a Geraint in any respect to blame for what she underwent, she had borne all in the same silent and almost hopeless spirit, and with the same unfailing calm temper: but outside her own house, she had never loved nor taken real interest in anything since the day she drove from the door of Vale Leston; she had merely forced herself to seem to do so, rather than disappoint her eager husband and children.
And now, how much of her torpor had been collapse, how much the effect of the accident, could not be guessed. She herself was greatly roused for the present, dwelt on the necessity of trying to get up the next day, and was altogether in a state excitable enough to make the Sister anxious.
Other troubles too there were that evening, which made all feel that even though Mr. Audley was to live to himself, his presence in the house would be no small comfort.
Fulbert, never the most manageable of the party, had procured a piece of wood from the good-natured carpenter, and was making a sparrow-trap on an improved plan, when Wilmet, impatient to have the room clear for Mr. Audley to come for the final decision-as he was to do in the evening-anxious to clear away the intolerable litter, and with more anxiety for Fulbert's holiday task than for the sparrows, ordered him to bed ten minutes too early, and in too peremptory a tone.
Fulbert did not stir.
'Fulbert, I say, clear up that litter, and go to bed.'
'Don't you hear, Fulbert?' said Felix, looking up from his book.
Fulbert gave a pull to the newspaper that was spread under his works on the table, and sent all his chips and sawdust on the ground.
'O Fulbert! how naughty!' broke out Alda.
'Fulbert, are you going to mind?' asked Wilmet. 'Please remember.'
'I shall go in proper time,' growled Fulbert.
'That is not the way to speak to your sister,' interposed Felix, with authority.
Fulbert eyed him defiantly all over.
Felix rose up from his chair, full of wrath and indignation. There was quite difference enough in their size and strength to give him the complete mastery, for Fulbert was only ten years old; but Wilmet, dreading nothing so much as a scuffle and outcry, sprang up, imploring, 'O Felix! remember, Mamma is wide awake to-night. Let him alone-pray, let him alone.'
Felix was thoroughly angry, and kept his hands off with exceeding difficulty. 'Little sneak,' he said; 'he chooses to take advantage.'
'He always was a sneak; his nose is the shape of it,' said Edgar.
As Felix and Wilmet had the sense to let this amiable observation drop, Edgar contented himself with making some physiognomical outlines of sneaks' noses on a slate; and silence prevailed till the church clock struck the half-hour, when Clement got up, and taking the slate, where he had been solacing himself with imitating Edgar's caricatures, he was about to make it an impromptu dust-pan, and went down on his knees to sweep up Fulbert's malicious litter, but was rewarded with a vicious kick on the cheek. It was under the table, out of sight; and Clement, like a true son of his mother, made no sign, but went off to bed like a Spartan.
'Fulbert,' said Lance, rising to follow his example, 'it is time now.'
He still sat on; and Felix, in intolerable wrath and vexation, found himself making such deep bites into a pencil, that he threw it from him with shame, just as Mr. Audley's bell sounded, and he ran down to let him in.
'Now, Ful,' said Wilmet coaxingly, 'please go-or Mr. Audley will see.'
'Let him.'
Mr. Audley was there in a moment, and the next, Alda, in all the ruffle of offended dignity, was telling him that Fulbert was in one of his tempers, and would attend to nobody. Fulbert's back looked it. It evidently intended to remain in that obstinate curve till midnight.
'I am sorry,' said Mr. Audley, 'I thought no one would have added to the distress of the house! What is it, Fulbert?' he added, laying his hand on his shoulder, and signing to Alda to hold her peace.
'They bother,' said Fulbert, in the sulky tone; but still, as he regarded the newcomer as less of an enemy than the rest-'I'd have gone at half-past eight if they would let a fellow alone.'
'Then the fellow had better give them no right to bother,' said Mr. Audley. 'Come, Fulbert, no ship can sail unless the crew obey. No mutiny. Here's your captain ready to shake hands and wish you good- night.'
Fulbert could not face Mr. Audley's determined look, but he was not conquered. He took up his tools and his trap, gave a final puff to spread his sawdust farther, and marched off without a single good- night.
'He has the worst temper of us all,' cried Alda.
'You should be very cautious of provoking him, said Mr. Audley.
'I am afraid it was my fault,' sighed Wilmet.
'Nonsense,' said Felix; 'he is an obstinate little dog. I wish I was licking him. I hope he is not pitching into Clem!'
'Clem is the biggest,' said Alda.
'Yes, but he is much the meekest,' added Wilmet.
'Tina's meek sauce is aggravation, itself,' observed Edgar. 'I should hope he was catching it!'
'He is certainly not slow to put in his oar,' said Mr. Audley; 'did you hear of his performance in the vestry the other day?'
'No. I hope he did not make an unusual ass of himself,' said Felix.
'He and Mowbray Smith had last Tuesday's Evensong nearly to themselves, when Master Clem not only assisted Smith in putting on his hood, but expressed his doubts as to the correctness of it (never, of course, having seen any bachelor's but Oxford or Cambridge), and further gave him some good advice as to his manner of intoning.'
'I hope he won't go on in that way at St. Matthew's!' exclaimed Wilmet.
'It is lucky he is going so soon,' said Mr. Audley. 'I doubt if Mowbray Smith will ever get over it!'
'Regular snob that he is,' said Edgar; 'just one of my Lady's sort! What did he do? Go crying to her?'
'O Edgar!' remonstrated Wilmet.
'Well, Mettie, if even our spiritual pastors will be snobs, one must have the relief of expressing one's opinion now and then.'
'I should say it was better to keep any such fact out of one's mind as much as might be,' said Mr. Audley, feeling himself unable to deny what had been so broadly expressed.
'And we, at any rate, had better drop talking of snobs,' said Felix.
'Hollo, Felix! I am sure you for one would not be a snob if you had turned chimney-sweeper, and let Tom Underwood nail me to his office; he'll never make one of me!'
'I trust so,' said Felix; 'but it is not the way to keep from it to throw about the word at other folks.'
'What's that?' cried Alda. 'Really, that boy must be falling upon some of them.'
It was Lance, in great deshabille, who, opening a crack of the door, called cautiously, 'Wilmet, please come here.'
Wilmet hastily obeyed, saying anxiously, as the door was shut, 'Never mind, dear Lance, he's in a horrid mood; but do bear it, and not make Felix more in a rage.'
'Bosh about Ful,' said Lance unceremoniously. 'It is Cherry; she is crying so upstairs, and Clem and I can't get a word out of her.'