Mr Barker, after examining her accounts, and praising the accuracy with which they were kept, congratulated her on the result. “I am glad, my dear,” said he, “that the first year has been so smooth an one. I hope you find it an encouragement, and that you will not be dismayed if you should meet with a few rubs before long. We all meet with rubs, and you must expect your share.”
“Certainly,” replied Jane. “I am only surprised that we have done well so far. We owe it to your help, Sir. We could have done nothing without you.”
“You can do some things without me, though, Jane. Remember you earned five guineas, without my knowing any thing of the matter. I cannot tell you how glad I am that Isabella is likely to prove a good help to you. She is a sweet girl, and will do us honour, when a few years have brought out her talents. But, my dear, she works very hard, and she is too young to work all day long. My wife is going to take the children to the sea, in July: if you will spare Isabella, a fortnight’s run by the sea will bring more colour into her cheeks, and make her ready to begin school with new spirit.”
Jane was beyond measure gratified by the indulgence offered to Isabella. She most thankfully accepted the kindness; and we cannot better close this part of our little history than by leaving our readers to imagine the actual happiness and hopeful anticipations of Jane, her sisters and brother, at the close of the first year, which had bound them together in those ties, the tenderness and strength of which only the fatherless can understand.
Chapter Three.
Few events worth recording happened during the next summer, autumn, and winter. The return of Mr Rathbone to London, which did not take place till the month of May, was the first remarkable circumstance which I have to relate. He asked Charles to dine at his house the Sunday after his arrival at home, and various and most kind were the enquiries he made about the whole family. He saw some specimens of Isabella’s drawings, which pleased him much, and he expressed great satisfaction when he heard that Harriet was making excellent progress in music. He listened with benevolent interest when Charles spoke of Jane’s exertions, of the mother’s care which she bestowed on those who stood almost in the place of children to her. This was a subject on which Charles loved to speak, when he could find an auditor who could comprehend and would sympathise with his feelings. Such a listener he was aware that he now had, and his heart warmed more and more towards his benefactor with each moment in which he was allowed to dwell on a sister’s praises. At length Mr Rathbone enquired how he who was so ready to make known the exertions of others, was himself going on in the world. “If you do not object to give me your confidence, Charles,” said he, “I am as much interested in your concerns, as in your sisters.”
Charles thanked him, and said there was but little to tell; and that little he communicated at once. He told Mr Rathbone the amount of his salary, and that of his expenditure. He told him how he was endeavouring to qualify himself for a higher situation, and what were the hopes which he ventured to indulge of affording his sisters some substantial assistance in time. At present he could do but little: the first year he had by great self-denial saved three pounds. This year he hoped to send Jane a five pound note on Midsummer Day, and in a year or two he had the prospect of a large salary.
Mr Rathbone questioned him closely as to his manner of living, and his plans of economy. Accustomed as he was to a very lavish expenditure, such economy as Charles’s struck him with wonder; and he was surprised to find that so far from being despised by the young men among whom he was thrown, Charles was regarded with respect by all, with affection by some. He did not live in close, grudging solitude: he had lost none of the spirit of generous sociality which he brought with him to London, and preserved there, in spite of its chilling and counteracting influences. He was benevolent; he was generous. His purse he could in conscience open to none but his sisters; but his heart was open, his head was busy, and his hands were ready, whenever an opportunity of doing good occurred. Some of the young men with whom his situation connected him, gave entertainments to their friends, or made parties to go to places of public amusement. Charles could not do this; nor did he wish to offer, or accept, obligations of this kind; but all his companions readily acknowledged, from their own experience, that Charles had both the power and the inclination to do good. One had been ill, and had been nursed by Charles night and day, or as much of the day as he could call his own, so carefully and tenderly, that he owed his recovery in part, and the whole of what alleviation his disease admitted, to his benevolent care. Another had displeased Mr Gardiner, it was feared irremediably; and the young man would have gone to ruin, if Charles had not with indefatigable patience brought down his high and perverse spirit to the tone of apology and due humiliation; and, moreover, ventured to moderate his master’s somewhat unreasonable anger. He got no thanks from either of them at the time: but he did not want thanks, and gained his end, which was, to see the youth re-established in his respectable situation. The hour of gratitude came at last, and Charles now knew that he might command every possible service from the youth whom he had obliged, and who was now proud to call him friend. He had rendered Mr Gardiner an essential service by informing him of the malpractices of some of the inferior people on the premises, which no one else had the courage to expose; and the widow with whom he lodged was obliged to him for her release from the oppression of a tyrannical landlord, who dared not trouble her, when he found that a spirited youth was her friend, who would not sit still and see her ill treated, while courage and activity could procure a remedy.