My husband was clerk in a London mercantile house. His father, old Mr. Hazel, had been a farmer in one of the midland counties. Had Robert taken to the same line, he might have done well. But neither my Robert nor his brother Churton seemed to have anything of the farmer in them. Robert came to London, expecting to make his fortune. He was fond of books, and his own family thought him clever; only there are so many clever men in the great city. He managed to get a small clerkship, and there he remained year after year.
Once or twice he had a slight rise, and that was all. When Robert fell in love with me, and we married, both of us were young, and life looked hopeful, and we expected all kinds of good things to happen. But by the time of which I am writing, Robert and I had pretty well left off looking for any change, except of course that by-and-by some of our boys would be out in the world. The difficulty was, how to get them out, and where to place them.
Robert’s position did not imply much money for a family of nine. We had no regular servant, beyond a girl in three times a week for half-a-day, to do some of the cleaning. Even this help we sometimes talked of giving up altogether.
My husband and eldest boy had not yet returned from the City, nor Cresswell and Owen from school. The three younger boys, Frederick, Robert, and Edmund, varying in ages from ten to seven, were learning their lessons in the basement-room. I could trust them all, even my little Ted, to keep to their work till it was done.
That was one comfort about our poverty, I had always spoken frankly to the children of our circumstances; and even the younger boys seemed to understand how, by care and steadiness, they might be a help instead of a hindrance to their father and me. Cresswell was the one exception. I should not like to say that he loved us less,—but—well, he certainly loved himself more; and that comes to the same thing.
Cress was clover and handsome. He knew this well, and always seemed to expect to be treated differently from the other boys. He was bent upon being some day rich and distinguished; yet he was not really fond of hard work, and without hard work how can one hope to succeed? I think he inherited something of Robert’s early wish to strike out a new line for himself, and to rise in the world. And Cress was not willing to learn from his father’s failure. It was useless to speak of that to him. He never could see why he might not do well; whether or no his father had so done. And of course no one could say that he might not; only we had no money to throw away upon doubtful experiments.
So Cress was a care to us all; not least to Cherry and me.
Jack, our eldest, my dear good Jack, was a year and a half older than Cresswell; and was in every way a contrast to him. Jack was a fine well-grown lad, strong and active enough in body, but not very quick in mind. At least, he had not the quickness which would have helped him on in the line of life open to him.
Poor Jack! his slowness was a terrible worry to himself. He did so long to assist us all.
But at school he had always been the lowest in his class. And now he had left school, the same sort of thing went on. His handwriting was altogether at fault; he seldom spelt the same word twice alike; and he could make nothing of arithmetic. Naturally these things told against him. My husband’s employers would willingly have taken Jack on; and they did make trial of him: but it was of no use. They had to tell us kindly that Jack was not fitted for that sort of thing.