Mrs. Morland’s fretting and the children’s divided interests made of Elveley a different home. The three members of the little family were drifting apart slowly and steadily. During Austin’s short illness, mother and daughter drew nearer in the press of a common anxiety; but as soon as the boy was about again, and galloping his pony to and from Rowdon Smithy, he seemed to become once more a being outside Frances’s world.
CHAPTER X.
TROUBLE AT ELVELEY.
It was August, and the evenings were sultry and oppressive after burning summer days. At Rowdon Smithy there was always some coolness, borrowed from the adjacent moorland, and helped by a situation exposed on northern and eastern sides. So, when dusk drew on, and Jim’s work might, as a rule, be considered over, the young smith used to sit in his trellised porch, with book in hand or violin on shoulder, and enjoy such breezes as were to be had. The place pleased him for several reasons. It had been a favourite resting-spot of his grandfather’s, it caught the latest beams of the sun setting across the Common, and it commanded a fair stretch of the road by which Austin might be expected to come.
Austin came now oftener than of old. Jim sometimes wondered why: he had, as it seemed to him, so little entertainment to offer to his brother.
On a particular evening of this sunny August, Jim sat, as usual, in the cottage-porch. His hands were busy with his fiddle, his eyes were bent over a sheet of music which Austin had lent to him. Jim had changed much during the last few months. His face and figure had matured and grown manlier; he was dressed with more care, and had the fresh, “clean” look peculiar to upper-class Englishmen. There was but slight trace of the peasant about him, and his homely language sounded pleasantly enough in his soft, clear voice—which even to Austin’s ears was quaintly reminiscent of Frances’s sweet tones. His manners and bearing were seldom at fault; for old William East had known something of the ways of gentle-people, and, acknowledging within himself a duty owed to the lad’s deceived father, had taken pains to shield Jim from bad example and to encourage his natural refinement. The sorrow of his bereavement, and the keen pain of his rejection at the hands of his sister and stepmother, had indeed saddened his young face; but they had also deepened and strengthened his character, in teaching him to stand alone.
The sound of a trotting pony advancing along the hard, white country road broke in on Jim’s peaceful studies and caught his attention. Hoping that the nearing rider might be Austin, Jim sprang to his feet, laid aside his fiddle, and swung briskly down the garden-path to the gate. As he went, he saw that his young brother was putting his pony to the gallop, with evident impatience to reach his journey’s end. Jim threw wide the gate, and stepped out on to the roadway in time to wave a welcome to his visitor. Then he saw that Austin’s sunburnt cheeks had lost their ruddy colour, and that his eyes looked scared and strange as from a nervous shock.
“Why, Austin! What’s up, lad?” asked the elder brother anxiously. “There’s surely something wrong.”
“Everything’s wrong, Jim! Everything’s dreadful! You’d never guess what’s happened at home! Don’t try: I’d rather tell straight out. Perhaps I shall feel better when you know, too!”
“It’s no harm to Madam or Missy?”
“Harm to all of us, I think, Jim. At least, Mother says we’re beggars! Isn’t that harm enough? Jim, don’t stand and stare like that!”