Lucy looked up in the curate’s subdued face with a grateful smile; and then there was a faint blush upon her cheek as she looked down again.
“No, it’s not a nice place—not at all nice,” said Septimus drearily; “but then it seemed right in the thick of the law-writing, which I’m trying to acquire; but it’s very hard work—it’s so crooked and crabbed and hard to make out. One ought to have begun young. I’ve been trying for weeks now; but they all find fault with my hand.”
“It is too good—too flowing and clear,” said the curate, looking at some sheets of foolscap Septimus laid before him. “But patience, and you will do it. Keep your elbow more away from your side—so.” And he leaned over the paper, and wrote a couple of lines so rapidly, and exactly in the style required, that Septimus looked on in admiration, but only to sigh directly after for his own want of skill.
“Never mind,” he said, “I shall manage it some day;” and he smiled cheerfully, for he had just caught sight of the worn face of his wife. “’Tis a bad neighbourhood this, sir,” he said, to change the conversation; “but it’s cheap for London, I suppose.”
“Doubtless—doubtless,” said the curate; “but it is a sad place; and I know it well, as you may easily suppose. And now, Mr Hardon,” he said as he rose to leave, “do not let me be so great a stranger to you. Ask my advice on matters, and take me into your counsels at all times. Come; you promise?”
Septimus Hardon did not speak, but wrung the curate’s hand; and in the future he did precisely what might have been expected of him—let matters get from bad to worse, and never once spoke to the visitor upon his dreary prospects—prospects that from delicacy the curate forbore to inquire into, while to old Matt, Septimus was openness itself.
One day Septimus sat gnawing his nails in despair, for some law-copying that he had hoped would bring him in a few shillings had been thrown back upon his hands, with some very sharp language from the keen, business-like law-stationer who, after many solicitations, had employed him.
“Don’t grieve, papa,” whispered Lucy, looking up from the paid warehouse needlework she was employed upon—“don’t grieve, papa, they will pay me for this when I take it home;” and the words were spoken in a sweet soothing strain that comforted the poor fellow in his trouble.
“He said I must be a fool to undertake work I could not perform,” said Septimus lugubriously; “and I suppose I must be.”
“Don’t, don’t talk so, dear,” whispered Lucy, glancing uneasily at the door of the back-room. “Don’t let her hear you.”