CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
STEPHEN was a lonely little figure in Benson's great house; he was vastly depressed by the formal manner of life to which the lawyer had adjusted himself, and for which Mrs. Pope his housekeeper was primarily responsible, for Benson was a silent man in his home, and admirable lady that she was, Mrs. Pope was neither a gay nor cheerful person, nor was she gifted in ways to inspire others with gaiety or cheerfulness.
By day the house was his to wander through; there were also the grounds, into which he was thrust at stated intervals by Mrs. Pope, all of whose acts were depressingly regular and ordered. In the gardens, working diligently among the plants or vines, or cutting the acre or two devoted to lawns, Stephen found a taciturn German whose name was Peter, and who limited his remarks to brief requests for the boy to let the flowers alone; nor was he to touch the small fruits; for these, like the flowers, Stephen was given to understand, were grown expressly for Mr. Benson's use and profit.
He gathered that the world had been created for this austere gentleman, whom he knew as his Uncle Jacob. He was indebted to Mrs. Pope for this idea, since she served the lawyer with an eye single to his comforts. His Uncle Jacob objected to dirt, consequently he must keep clean; his Uncle Jacob objected to noise, he was restricted to silence; his Uncle Jacob liked flowers, and Peter laboured that they might bloom for him. Things were only of two sorts; what his Uncle Jacob liked and what his Uncle Jacob did not like, and as one heeded his likes and dislikes one touched hands with morality and righteousness.
As Benson had promised, Stephen was not entirely separated from his aunt; at least twice each week he was dressed in his best, and by Mrs. Pope taken to pay Virginia a visit. But these visits were functions attended by such formality that he derived small comfort from them, and in time he came to rather dread the preliminary ordeals, of which he was the victim. There was always a bath, and he donned the freshest of fresh linen, stiff and miserably unsympathetic; an unfamiliar suit of clothes to which he never grew accustomed, and in which his small limbs were cheerlessly draped, completed his toilet. Thus attired, Mrs. Pope would lead him to the front steps, and Peter would drive around from the stables with a closed carriage. Then there invariably ensued certain lively and apprehensive inquiries on the part of Mrs. Pope as to whether or not the team had shown any undue levity while being harnessed, for the good lady was timorous of all horse-flesh as well as the prey of an abiding and illy-concealed doubt of the German's skill as a driver; however, being satisfied on the one point if not on the other, she would embark her small charge, and then herself; driving to the cottage with the carriage door held slightly ajar, a precaution favouring instant escape in case of danger. Arrived there she would leave Stephen with Virginia and be driven away in painful state to take the air.
Then came a period of freedom and relief for the boy; he had Virginia, and there was his Aunt Jane, who occupied an almost equal place in his affections with Virginia herself; and sometimes there was Harriett Norton, too, with a very pink-faced baby, named Elinor, and a husband who Stephen discovered early in their acquaintance could be persuaded into the most delightful extravagance in the matter of candy; and for perhaps an hour he would be quite happy, so happy he could almost forget that he had an Uncle Jacob; and at this period of his life, his Uncle Jacob seemed responsible for all the misery in the world.
Then Mrs. Pope would return, and Virginia with a strange hardening of the heart would restore him to that august lady. Benson could not have divined how well he was hated.
The lawyer had contented himself with seeing that Stephen wanted for nothing, that he was well dressed and well nourished; but he was such a little fellow, and so palpably depressed by the authority which Mrs. Pope administered, that Benson almost regretted he had forced Virginia to the step he had. His triumph left an aftermath of selfreproach and disgust. He had stooped to petty persecution, and clearly the boy himself was far from happy as a result. It was his wish to mitigate the wrong he felt he had done the child, which in the end provoked him to a display of something approaching personal interest. He was conscious that Stephen met his advances with childish mistrust, but this wore away; the lawyer's gentleness and kindness had their effect just as he intended they should, and Stephen put aside his doubt of his Uncle Jacob, and concluded that he was ever so much better than Mrs. Pope's account of him.