Volume Two—Chapter Four.
A Brothers’ Quarrel.
Maximilian Shingle was a heavy, broad-faced man, very cleanly shaven, and with grey hair very smoothly brushed. His black suit was as glossy as a first-class undertakers, and he always wore an old-style bunch of seals beneath his vest, with which he played as he spoke, spinning them round, while his other hand flourished a black ebony stick, with a gold top and a good deal of tassel.
Metaphorically speaking, there was a good deal of tassel all about Maximilian, for he swung and flourished about in his words and deeds, and always seemed to be more showy than substantial; and even now, when he was very white, and evidently in a towering passion, he flourished his seals and stick, and turned threateningly upon his brother; whilst the boy, who seemed to see in him a workhouse official or Poor-law guardian, softly stole into the back room, and surveyed the proceedings through the crack of the door.
In fact, the moment you saw Max Shingle, you said to yourself, “What a splendid man for a beadle!” And so he was: put him in uniform, and he would have been simply perfect—from the soft roll of fat under his chin to the well-rounded calf of his leg, which showed so prominently through his well-cut trousers. His very appearance aggravated you, and caused an itching beneath the nail of your right toe; for he was one of those men whom nature out of pure beneficence moulded to be kicked as a relief to abnormal irritation. His appearance at every turn suggested it, inasmuch as he was padded with tissue of the most elastic nature, such as would yield easily to the foot; and thus the kicker would run no risks either of hurting himself or committing homicide, while he obtained the satisfaction all the same.
“Now, sir,” began Max, fiercely addressing his brother, “what have you to say?”
“Well, I don’t know yet,” said Dick, looking in a puzzled way from one to the other. “What is it?”
“Don’t know!” cried Max. “Didn’t I speak to you, sir, an hour or two back?”
“Was it an hour or two back?” said Dick, who still held and soothed Jessie, as she clung to him.
“Yes, it was, sir!” cried Max, who was surprised that his brother did not cower, according to his wont. “I told you an hour or two ago that I would not have these disgraceful proceedings.”
“What disgraceful proceedings?” said Dick sullenly.
“These,” cried Max, pointing with his stick first at Jessie and then at Tom. “I speak to you, and warn you—”
“Let me say a word,” began Tom.
“Hold your tongue, sir!” cried Max, holding up his stick; but the young man did not flinch. “I say, I speak to you and warn you, and directly after I find your girl arm-in-arm with this foolish son of mine in the open street, sir—in the open street.”
“Well, Max, you can’t have the streets shut up,” said Dick quietly.
“How dare you address me, sir, like that?” cried Max. “Will you listen, Mr Shingle?” cried Tom, who was losing patience—“it was all my fault.”
“Silence, sir! I will not hear a word. Your conduct is disgraceful, and after the Christian example that has been set you—”
“I don’t see anything unchristianlike in loving a good, sweet girl, sir,” said the young man stoutly. “I cannot stand here and let you speak like this.”
“Then go, sir, go; and never dare to enter beneath this roof again while these people are here,” cried Max. “I suppose you have had baits set to coax you into the trap, you silly pigeon?”
“Indeed—”
“But let me tell them all,” said Max, looking round with supreme disgust, “that if their nefarious scheme had succeeded, you would not have received a shilling from me.” Dick broke in here. He had been ready to explode several times, but had been kept back by wife and child. Now he could contain himself no longer.
“Here, let me say a word,” he exclaimed. “He hasn’t been coaxed here, nor anything of the sort, Mr Max. We don’t want him, and won’t have him; so there now.”
“Oh, father!” exclaimed Jessie.
“You hold your tongue, miss,” cried Dick, “and just try and have some pride in you.”
“How dare you speak to me like that, sir!” cried Max, frowning portentously—“how dare you! You, whom I’ve tried to raise out of the mud, but who always would persist in grovelling!”
“I shouldn’t have had to grovel so much if people paid me for the boots they ordered,” said Dick.
“You contemptible wretch!” cried Max. “You cloven-hoofed viper, who persists in turning and biting the hand that helped you! And after all we meant to do for you to try and raise you!—to endeavour to clothe and educate your neglected child, whose conduct as a work-girl is most reprehensible.”
“Look here,” cried Dick, whose face was working with anger.
“Silence, sir!” cried Max, thumping his stick upon the floor. “You grow lower and lower year by year, and now try to reward me by making this despicable plan to drag yourself up to my level. Now, look here. I’ve warned you, and it has been of no use. I have let you occupy this house, when I might have had a better tenant, and you have got in arrears.”
“Only two weeks,” cried Mrs Shingle indignantly.
“Silence, woman!” cried Max.
“Don’t bully her, Max, or there’ll be a row,” exclaimed Dick fiercely.
“Silence, both of you! I say I’ve let you get in arrears of rent for my property; and now you shall leave it. I’ll let the house to honest people who will pay—”
“Oh, Mr Max!” cried Mrs Shingle imploringly.
“And then I shall see the last of you, and have no more of these disgraceful meetings.”
“Mr Shingle, this is too bad,” cried Tom.
“Silence, boy!” said Max, placing one hand in the breast of his glossy frock-coat, and scowling round at all in turn. “Does any one here think I’d disgrace my honourable wife by permitting such an alliance?”
“Nice brotherly behaviour, this!” cried Dick indignantly.
“Brotherly?” cried Max. “Sir, I disown all relationship with you. You’ve hung on to my skirts too long, and now I’ll be free of you. Miserable, grovelling beggar!”
“I never begged or borrowed of you,” said Dick.
“No; because I checked the impulse, or I should have had to keep you. And now you want to disgrace me and mine.”
“I’m sure no man could have been more industrious,” put in Mrs Shingle.
“Industrious?” cried Max, looking round at the shabby half workshop, half sitting-room. “Industrious? Yes, always idling in his wretched slough, instead of trying to improve his position—to get on. But I’ll have no more of it: leave this place you shall at once.”
“Oh, Mr Shingle—Uncle Max!” cried Jessie piteously, “it was all my fault: I ought to have known better. Don’t turn poor father and mother out. They work and try so hard.”
“Bah!” ejaculated Max contemptuously; while Tom made for Jessie, but a heavy arm was laid across his chest.
“Don’t—pray don’t,” sobbed Jessie, joining her hands and looking piteously up in the smooth, smug face. “Don’t do that, and I’ll promise never to see—never to see Tom. No, no: I can’t—I can’t—I can’t!” she cried, bursting into an agony of weeping.
“You shall promise no such thing, Jessie—dear cousin,” cried Tom, in a manly way, as, extricating himself, he stepped up to her side and tried to take her hand; but she shrank from him and clung to her mother. “Jessie,” he exclaimed, “as I’m a man, I’ll be true to you in spite of everything.”
“This is your work,” cried Max furiously, as he turned to his brother. “Do you see now what you have done?”
“That was well spoke, Tom, and I never thought better of you than I do now,” said Dick, rousing himself, though his face looked more perplexed than ever. “But I’ve had enough of this here. You and your father belong to the swells, and I’m a poor working man. You two are ile, and floats on the top—we’re only water, and goes to the bottom. But p’r’aps the water’s got as much pride in it as the ile; and so’s my poor girl, when she’s got her bit of sorrow over. You’re no match for her.”
Max gave a loud, contemptuous laugh, which made Mrs Shingle look up as if she would wither him.
“Not,” continued Dick, “but what she’s the best girl in the whole world, though I as her father says it.”
Dick took up his hammer in a helpless, meaningless way, and turned it over and over, examining the handle and the head, and gazed from one to the other, as if asking their opinion about the quality of the tool.
“I don’t think I was ever so hard up in my life,” continued Dick—“and mother here will bear me out if I don’t speak what’s good as Gorspel; but afore I’d stay under your roof I’d try the workus. You needn’t be afraid, Mr Maximilian Shingle, as your poor shoemaker of a brother, as has been unlucky all his life, a and never see the way to get up the ladder without shouldering and pulling some one else down—which wasn’t his way—will ever trouble you again, nor let your wife’s boys come hanging about after his poor dear gal. I never encouraged it, and never shall. Some day, p’r’aps, you’ll come yourself and ask for it to be.”
“I ask!” cried Max—“a common sempstress, an impudent drab!”
“Mr Shingle!” cried Tom furiously.
“Silence, sir!” shouted Max, who, roused by the opposition he had received, struck at his step-son with his tasselled cane. “I said an impudent, bold-faced drab!”
“Stop!” roared Dick, from whose face the puzzled look seemed to have departed, to give place to one of angry decision; and he stepped, hammer in hand, close up to his brother. “Look here, Max,” he cried, in a low, hoarse voice, “I don’t want to play Cain, and there ain’t much of the Abel about you; but my poor gal here,”—he placed his arm round her as he spoke, and she hid her hot, indignant face upon his shoulder—“my poor gal here, I say, once read to me when she was a little un about a blacksmith knocking a man down with his hammer because he insulted his daughter. Now, you’ve insulted my dear, sweet gal, as the very poorest and lowest labourer about here has a respectful word for, and even the very costers at the stalls; and you’ve made my blood bile—poor, and thin, and beggarly as it is. So, now then, this is my house till I leaves it. I ain’t Wat Tyler, and you ain’t a tax-gatherer, but if you ain’t gone in half a moment I’ll give you what for.”
“You scoundrel—you shall repent this!” cried Max.
But Dick made at him so menacingly that he hurried out of the house.
“Uncle,” began Tom, who had stopped behind.
“Off with you!” cried Dick sternly. “I won’t hear a word. No: nor you sha’n’t touch her. Jessie, say good-bye to him, and there’s an end of it. We’ll emigrate.”
“Oh, father, what have I done?” cried Jessie.
“Nothing, Jessie, but what is right, my own darling; and here, before your father and mother—”
“Tom!” shouted Max from without.
“I swear,” continued Tom, “that I’ll never give you up.”
“That’ll do,” said Dick, uncompromisingly. “He’s calling you. Out of my house!”
“Uncle,” said Tom, “when you are cooler you’ll think better of me, I hope. I can’t help this. I do love Jessie dearly.”
“I won’t hear a word,” cried Dick.
“But you’ll shake hands with me?”
“No: I’m a poor shoemaker, and you’re a gentleman. Be off!”
“Oh, father! father!” cried Jessie; and she flung her arms round his neck.
“No, I won’t give way,” cried Dick; but he was patting and soothing his child as he spoke.
“Shake hands with him, Dick,” whispered Mrs Shingle. “It ain’t his fault.”
“I won’t!” cried Dick. “It is his fault. He had no business to come.”
“No, father, it was my fault,” sobbed Jessie. “Shake hands with him—please do!”
All this while Tom was standing with extended hand; and at last Dick’s went out to join it for a moment, and was then snatched away.
“Good-bye, dear Jessie,” said Tom then; “but mind, I shall keep to my word.”
“Is that scoundrel coming?” said Max from without. Dick made a vicious “offer,” as if to throw his hammer at the door; but Mrs Shingle took it from his hand.
“I’m coming,” said Tom loudly; and then, taking Jessie’s hand, he kissed it tenderly, and, as the poor girl began to sob piteously, he hurried out of the house and was gone.