After a Lapse.
“Do, sir?” exclaimed old Matt, pausing in his occupation of pulling the string to make a lathen figure throw out arms and legs for the delectation of little Tom,—“do, sir? Why, what I’ve always told you, and you say the parson’s told you,—go in for it, you’ve nothing to lose; so if anything happens, you must win. A year last spring now since I come running in here with that para thinking I’d made your fortune for you, sir; and now—Look there, what you’ve done, you’ve pulled one of his legs off!”—This in a parenthesis to the little boy between his knees.—“And where are you? Certainly, you get on a bit with the writing, sir; but if it was me I couldn’t have settled down without making him prove his words.”
“But, you see,” said Septimus, looking up from his copying, “I’m not clever, I’m not a business man; and what could I do without money for legal advice? It’s a sad life this; and ours is, and always was, a miserable family, and my uncle’s too. Look at him: his children are always away, while Agnes came to us through some love-affair with the assistant, and soon after I came away she disappeared, and has never been heard of since. Did you speak?”
“No,” said Matt, whose face was puckered up, while he had been trying to catch the eye of Lucy, who sat at the window busily preparing some work for a bright new sewing-machine which had lately been supplied to her from the warehouse where she was employed.
“He has the money,” continued Septimus, “but that can’t compensate for the loss of his child. Poor Agnes!”
“Don’t speak of her,” exclaimed Mrs Septimus angrily, “she was a very weak, bad woman, and—”
“Hush!” said Septimus sternly, “we are all weak; and who made us judges?”
Mrs Septimus fidgeted about in her easy-chair, looking nettled and angry as she sat near the window, while with flushed cheek Lucy bent lower and lower over her work, once only catching Matt’s eye, when the old man looked so alarmingly mysterious that the flush upon her face deepened, and she rose and left the room.
“You see, sir,” said Matt, continuing a conversation that had evidently been broken off, “it’s been let go by so long now, when steps ought to have been taken at once. No offence meant—you won’t be put out if I speak plain?”
Septimus shook his head, and went on copying.