[CHAPTER XI.]
THE CHORAL FESTIVAL.
'And with ornaments and banners,
As becomes gintale good manners,
We made the loveliest Tay room upon Shannon shore.'
Thackeray.
'Of course, after this,' said Lady Price, 'Miss Underwood did not expect to be visited.'
Otherwise the gain was great. The amusement of looking out of window into the High Street was alone a perpetual feast to the little ones, and saved Geraldine worlds of anxiety; and the garden where they could be turned out to play was prized as it only could be by those who had never had any outlet before. It was a pleasant little long narrow nook, between the printing-house on the west, and such another garden on the east, a like slip, with a wall masked by ivy and lilacs, and overshadowed by a horse-chestnut meeting it on the south. It was not smoky, and was quite quiet, save for the drone and stamp of the steam-press; there was grass, a gum-cistus and some flower-beds in the centre, and a gravel-walk all round, bordered by narrow edgings of flowers, and with fruit trees against the printing-house wall, and a Banksia and Wisteria against that of the house. Mr. Froggatt was quite touched at the reverence with which Angela and Stella regarded even the daisies that had eluded his perpetual spud; and when he found out the delight it was to Cherry to live with flowers for the first time in her life, he seldom failed to send her a bunch of violets or some other spring beauty as soon as he arrived in the morning, and kept the windows constantly supplied with plants.
The old bookseller was at first very much afraid of his new inmates. To Felix he was used, but he looked on the sisters as ladies, and to ladies except on business-terms he was much less accustomed than to gentlemen. Besides, being a thorough gentleman himself at heart, he had so much delicacy as to be afraid of hurting their feelings by seeming at home in his own house; and he avoided being there at luncheon for a whole week, until one afternoon Felix ran up to say that he was sure Mr. Froggatt had a cold, and would be glad if a cup of tea appeared in his parlour. Gratitude brought him in to face the enemy; and after he had been kept at home for a day or two by the cold, his wife's injunctions and Felix's entreaties brought him to the dinner.
It happened to be one of Wilmet's favourite economical stews; but these were always popular in the family, though chiefly composed of scraps, pot-liquor, rice, and vegetables; and both for its excellence and prudence it commanded Mr. Froggatt's unqualified approbation. All that distressed his kind heart was to see no liquor but water, except Cherry's thimbleful of port; he could not enjoy his glass of porter, and shook his head—perhaps not without reason—when he found that his young assistant's diet was on no more generous scale, and was not satisfied by Felix's laughing argument that it was impossible to be more than perfectly healthy and strong. 'False economy,' said the old man in private; but Felix was not to be persuaded into what he believed to be an unnecessary drain on the family-finances, and was still more stout against the hint that if Redstone discovered this prudential abstinence, it might make him 'disagreeable.' Felix had gone his way regardless of far too many sneers for poverty and so-called meanness to make any concession on their account, though the veiled jealousy and guarded insolence of that smart 'gent' the foreman had been for the last three years the greatest thorn in his side. And at least he made this advance, that the errand-boy cleaned the shoes!
Geraldine, though shy at first from the utter seclusion in which she had lived, put forth a pretty bashful graciousness that perfectly enchanted Mr. Froggatt, who was besides much touched by her patient helplessness. He became something between her grandfather and her knight, loading her with flowers, giving her the run of the circulating library, and whenever it was fine enough, taking her for a mile or two in his low basket-carriage either before or after his day's business in the shop. It was not exactly like being with her only other friend, Mr. Audley; but he was a thoroughly kind, polite, and by no means unlettered old man; and Geraldine enjoyed and was grateful, while the children were his darlings, and were encouraged to take all manner of liberties with him.