Volume Three—Chapter Nine.
Expectancy.
It was a bitter day without, and now it seemed as cold within. The very fire in the bright little grate appeared to have turned duller, and the air more chill. As to the cold scraps of mutton, they were perfectly icy, and the fat flew off in chips and splinters. A cloud had settled down upon the house, so that there were even great tears round the potato-dish. As to piercing the cloud, all Jared’s efforts were in vain, for as fast as he tried to shine in a warm and genial manner to disperse this oppressive mist of adversity, he encountered one of Mrs Jared’s looks, which he interpreted to be suspicious—doubtful; and, one way and another, the meal was cold, not merely to a degree, but to many.
There was no work to do that afternoon; no musical cripples to doctor orthopaedically; no cracked instruments to solder, putty, or wax-end; no bellows to mend, hammers to refit, or false notes to tune in accordion or concertina. Trade was at a standstill, and Jared wondered how he should get through the afternoon till the hour when he had appointed Ichabod to meet him at the church for a last long evening practice at the old organ.
But the dinner was hardly over before the postman came by. Jared knew his legs as they passed the area grating, and ran up-stairs to see if he were coming there. For a wonder, he was, and as may be supposed, he left a letter.
Strange hand, and yet familiar. It must be from the vicar. But no; it was not his hand, Jared knew that too well to be mistaken, and his fingers involuntarily felt in his breastpocket for the missive which contained the key—a missive that he had of late told himself he ought to have taken to a good solicitor for advice, instead of quietly sitting down beneath the slur.
But perhaps, under the circumstances, the vicar had felt disposed to let some one else write to him. It must be the cheque; there could not be a doubt about it. No one else would write to him unless—unless—
Jared’s brow grew moist, as, in the ignorance of such matters, he stood trembling with the letter in his hand. Might not the vicar have taken legal proceedings, and sent him a summons, now that his time had expired?
That was a dreadful thought, and embraced innumerable horrors—the felon’s dock, police-van, cells, convicts, servitude, and worse, infinitely worse than all—a starving wife and children. Jared had a hard fight to recover his composure before going down again to the kitchen, where he tore open the letter.
Mr McBriar, the landlord, had sent his compliments, and a reminder, that though the rent for the quarter ending at Christmas would be due in a few days, that for the quarter ending at Michaelmas had not yet been paid.
Jared doubled the letter again very carefully, so as to hit the right folds, replaced it in the envelope, and handed it to his wife, who had the pleasure of taking it out and reading it, when Jared saw a tear fall upon the paper, and make a huge blot, turning the sheet of a darker colour as it soaked in.
Tears breed tears, and two bright drops sprang to Patty’s eyes as she thought of her own sorrows, of the troubles overhanging the Brownjohn Street house, and the way in which poor Janet was suffering. Then came thoughts of Harry Clayton; at times soft tender thoughts, at times those of indignation; and she told herself that he could not love her, or he would never have been ashamed to own her before his friends.
Did she love him? She asked herself the question, and replied to it with burning cheeks that she thought she did;—no, she was sure that she loved him very, very much. Oh I how gladly would the poor girl have gone up-stairs, and thrown herself upon her bed, to have a long, long, girlish cry.
“Would not Richard lend you a few sovereigns?” said Mrs Jared to her husband in a whisper.
“No, no; don’t, please,” cried Jared, in a supplicating voice. “Anything but that.” For in an instant he had conjured up the figure of his angry brother, and his disgrace. That brother calling him villain, thief, and scoundrel; upbraiding him once more for bringing disgrace upon the name so honoured amongst the money-changers of the great temple of commerce. “You know how I have asked him before, and what has been his reply. I can’t do it again. But there!” he said, in as cheerful a tone as he could command, “don’t fidget; things will come right. They always do, if you give them time enough; only we are such a hurried race of beings, and we get worse now there are steam-engines and telegraphs to work for us.”
To have seen Jared then, it might have been supposed that he was in the best of spirits, for he began to hum scraps of airs, beginning with “Pergolesi,” and ending with “Jim Crow.”
Having no work of his own, he attended to the fire, to clear away its dulness; but he never well succeeded, for the coals were small, and the stock very low.
Then he nursed the baby for ten minutes; in short, he tried every possible plan to raise the bitter temperature of the place. “Let it come in its own good time,” he muttered; “there’s no occasion for them to meet the trouble half-way.”
Six different times, though, was Jared at that window, watching, with beating heart, figures dimly seen through the grating bars—figures which had slackened pace, or stopped, as if about to call. Once Jared turned with a deceptive smile, declaring that an old gentleman had passed, so like the vicar that he was not even sure that it was not he gone by in mistake.
“Nonsense!” said Mrs Jared, sadly, rejecting the comfort intended for her. And no one called at Jared’s house, while he felt that it would be impossible for him to ask for the money. Had he been differently circumstanced, he would have refused it altogether; but with a wife and large family, debts, and no regular income, it would have been madness.
Once he had decided that he would tell all, and be out of his miserable state of suspense; but the next minute, with a shiver, he had again put off the disclosure, and moodily began to think over the treatment he had received where he had asked counsel and advice, the hot blood rising to his cheeks as he recalled the manner in which the behaviour of his child had been interpreted.
Five o’clock, and no vicar, no money; and Jared to some extent rejoiced, for he dreaded the vicar’s coming, lest the reason of his leaving should be mentioned. And now he brightened up with the thought that it might be possible to conceal the true cause of his leaving the church from those at home, for, instead of looking there for advice and comfort, he shivered with dread lest it should come to their ears. As to Purkis, and the Ruggleses, he would move—go somewhere where he was not known, and where his friends could not find him, making what excuse he could.
“Business could not be worse,” muttered Jared to himself; and then he turned to the social meal, resting his hand for a moment upon the head of Patty, who was deepening the hue of her cheeks by making toast, half sitting, half reclining upon the little patchwork hearthrug, in an attitude which bespoke strait-waistcoats and padded rooms for any artists who might have seen her. For, if Patty’s face was not beautiful, the same could not be said of her figure, wrapped by the fire in a rich warm glow, which caressed the smooth long braids of her rich brown hair, and flashed again from her eyes. And all this ready to be Harry Clayton’s for the asking. Well might Patty sigh that there was no Harry there to ask.
“There’s some one now,” cried Jared, excitedly, as the scraping of feet was heard upon the bars of the grating, and then a footstep stopped at the door, followed directly by a heavy knock which reverberated through the little house. “Here, Patty, show a light.”
But before Patty could get half-way up the kitchen-stairs, she heard the front door opened, and a gruff voice exclaimed—
“For Mr Morrison, and wait for an answer.”
“Next door,” said Jared, in a disappointed tone.
“Why don’t you get yer numbers painted over again, then?” grunted the voice, which seemed to consider an apology as a work of supererogation. “Who’s to tell eights from nines, I should like to know?”
“No message for any one of the name of Pellet, eh?” said Jared.
The visitor muttered something inaudible, and then came the noise of a heavy thump on the door of the next house, when Jared sighed, closed his own door, and turned to meet Patty.
“I would not have that man’s unpleasant disposition for a trifle, my child, that I would not,” said Jared; and then he descended to find his wife in tears, Patty trying hard the while to keep her own back; and, do what he could, Jared Pellet, organist of St Runwald’s, could not pull out a stop that should produce a cheerful strain where all seemed sadness and woe.
The tea was fragrant, though weak; the toast just brown enough without being burned; while the children ate bread and dripping, just as if—Mrs Jared said—it grew upon the hedges.
But the social meal was now unsocial to a degree. Mrs Pellet hardly spoke, while Jared drank his tea mechanically—three cups—and would have gone on pouring it down for any length of time, if a reference to the Dutch clock had not shown the time to be a quarter to six.
Jared hurriedly rose, to keep his appointment at the church, and prepared to start.
“If—if,” he said, “the vicar, or a messenger, should come, don’t let him in, but send him to me at the church.”