Читать книгу The Story of Antony Grace - Fenn George Manville - Страница 4

“This way!” he said abruptly, and there was a curious look in his face that I could not understand. “Here, hold this,” he cried, thrusting the candlestick into my hand; and I held it trembling as he crossed unsteadily to the gas-jet, turned it down, and then strode out of the office.

“There!” he said, opening a door, “up there; and get down in good time. You’ll have to clean the boots and things.”

“Up there” was up a flight of steps which led into a low sloping-ceiled chamber that had been evidently meant for a lumber-room, but had now been fitted up with an old stump bedstead with a coloured counterpane, a little corner washstand with a cracked jug, a strip of carpet, and a three-legged painted chest of drawers, which had gone down at one corner, and left a corresponding leg slightly raised in the air.

The place was cold and miserable, chilling to a degree, but it was clean; and as I looked round I was surprised by seeing on a chair a heap of my clothes and a brush and comb.

I had just finished looking round when I heard a noise below.

“You Antony!” shouted Mr Blakeford; “mind you put that candle out safely, and look sharp into bed.”

I obeyed by hastily undressing and putting out the candle to get quickly into bed. It was not to lie down, but, after once more battling with my weakness, to offer up the simple prayers I had been taught, and then, still upon my knees, but with my head drooping on to the pillow, falling fast asleep.

I awoke terribly depressed at daybreak, to listen to some noisy fowls close by, and then I could hear that the rain was pattering heavily down.

Ought I to get up then, or should I lie a little longer? I could not tell, but I recollected Mr Blakeford’s words, and as I did so the same wretched despondent feeling came over me as I thought of my helplessness, and trembled, feeling sure I should give offence.

There are few people who thoroughly realise the sufferings of a tenderly nurtured, sensitive boy when first called upon to battle with the world amongst unsympathising strangers. He is only a boy in their eyes, and they fail to give him credit for the same feelings as themselves, when too often he is far more finely strung, and suffers acutely from every unkind word and look. The very act of going from home is distressing enough, but when it is supplemented by his finding himself forced to make his first essays in some uncongenial task to which his hands and the brain that should guide are totally unaccustomed, a feeling of despair often takes possession of his young spirit, and is accompanied by a hopeless despondency that is long before it wears away.

I had had painful afflictions enough during the past weeks, so that I was anything but well prepared for my new life. Besides, I had been badly fed, and the natural sinking caused by the want of proper food terribly augmented my sense of misery.

The rain pattered down on the slates and skylight, while the water ran along the gutter and gurgled strangely in a pipe close to the corner where my bed was placed, as I lay wondering what I had better do. The office was below me, with its silent clock, but perhaps I should not be doing right, I thought, if I got up and went down to see the time. Perhaps, too, the place might be locked up.

I lay thinking in this undecided way till all my doubts were set aside, for there was a loud continuous ringing just outside my door, one which was kept up as if some angry person were sawing away at the wire with the full intention of dragging it down.

It agonised me as I jumped out of bed and began hastily to dress, for I felt as if it must be to rouse me up, and as if I had inadvertently been guilty of some lapse.

The bell stopped ringing as suddenly as it had begun, and with a feeling of relief I continued dressing, but only to start nervously as I heard Mr Blakeford’s voice at the foot of the stairs shouting my name.

“Do you hear that bell, sir?” he cried.

“Yes, sir.”

“Then make haste down; don’t be all the morning dressing.”

Then there was the loud banging of a door, and I hastily finished, and went down cautiously, found the office door at the end of the dim passage, and was just going in when the sharp voice of the servant arrested me.

“Here, you – what’s your name?” she said harshly.

“Antony, ma’am.”

“Ho! Then, Mister Antony, missus says you’re to make yourself useful. They’ve pretty well worked the flesh off my bones since I’ve been here, so you must just help to put a little on.”

I looked at her in amazement, and she certainly was not at all prepossessing, being a tall raw-boned woman of some three or four and twenty, in a hastily-put-on cotton dress, her hair rough and untidy, and displaying a general aspect of having spent as little time as possible upon her toilet.

“Now, then, don’t stand staring like that!” she said. “Come along here, and fill this scuttle.”

She led the way into the kitchen and pointed to a large coalscuttle, which I had to take and fill for her, after which she seemed to hesitate as to whether she should place the broom she held in my hands; but, probably under the impression that it would save her no trouble, she altered her mind, and went and fetched a large pair of dirty Wellington boots, which she threw down upon the floor.

“There, go into that shed and clean them and your own too, and mind you do ’em well,” she cried. “He’s a reg’lar wunner about his boots.”

My experience in boot-cleaning consisted in having seen the groom at home occasionally polish a pair, so I was no adept: but hastily setting to, I worked hard at the task, and succeeded indifferently well with the big Wellingtons before bestowing the same pains upon my own shoes.

I need hardly say that I was not very quick over my task, and so it happened that when I returned to the kitchen the fire was brightly burning, the kettle boiling, and my new friend, or enemy, seated at her breakfast.

“There, you can put ’em down,” she said, with her mouth full of bread and butter. “And now you’d best go and wait in the orfice till he comes. You’re too much of a gent, I s’pose, to have meals with me?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” I said, rather piteously.

“Don’t you? Well, then, I do. You’re to have your victuals in the orfice, and I s’pose they’ll send some out to you when they’re done, seeing as you’re took here out o’ charity.”

I felt a red spot burn in each cheek at these words, but I said nothing, only went sadly to the office, which looked terribly dim and gloomy in the morning light. The dust lay thick upon bill and parchment, and the drab books with their red patches upon their backs I could see by this light were old, discoloured, and worn.

Judging from the appearance of the place, in spite of the ink marks and well-stained blotting-paper, there was not much work carried on there, though, of course, I could not judge that then. All that struck me was that the place looked most melancholy, and that a gloomy yew-tree that half shaded one window was heavily laden with drops of rain.

Seeing my mug and plate upon the big desk, I remembered the words of the servant, and hastened to take them to the kitchen, where I was received with a scowl, and hastened to retreat back to the office.

I had been standing there about an hour, and had just noticed that the clock pointed to half-past eight, when I heard a light step behind me, and, turning round, there stood the girl I had seen in the garden at home.

Her bright, fresh young face was the first pleasant thing upon which my eyes had rested since I came the night before, and as we stood gazing at each other it seemed to me that I could read sympathy and welcome in her frank smile.

“Good-morning,” she said quietly, and held out her hand, which I was in the act of taking, when a wiry sharp voice cried loudly —

“Hetty! Hetty! where are you?”

“Here, mamma,” cried my visitor.

“Then you’ve no business there,” cried the same voice; and the owner – to wit, the lady I had seen in the garden – came in. “Go back to the parlour directly, miss; and mind this, you are never to come in here at all.”

The girl looked eagerly at me again, nodded, and tripped away, leaving a hopeful feeling behind that I could not explain.

“So you are young Grace,” said the lady, whom I presumed to be Mrs Blakeford, and I gazed wonderingly at her pained wrinkled face and weak-looking, wandering eyes. “Mind this: you are to keep in the office. I won’t have you in my rooms; and Mr Blakeford says you are not to be in the kitchen on account of the neighbours’ remarks. I’m sure I don’t know why we study people who never study us; and I’m pinched enough for money now, without having you thrown on to my housekeeping.”

“Now then, what are you doing there?” cried Mr Blakeford harshly, as he entered in his slippers. “Go and make the tea; what do you want to begin chattering to that boy for about our private affairs?”

Mrs Blakeford muttered something about being always wrong, and turned to go.

“Always wrong? Of course you are, when you will come meddling with what don’t concern you. Now then,” he cried, turning sharply round to me, “what are you staring at? Get a cloth and rub down that desk and table. Can’t you see how dusty they are?”

“Yes, sir,” I said, for it was very evident. “Then why don’t you go and do it, blockhead?”

I started to perform the task in great alarm; but I had no duster, and dared not ask him. Fortunately he was called away just then to his breakfast; but he seemed to me to be there still, gazing at me with his keen dark eyes, while his tightly closed thin lips seemed as if they were about to be drawn aside to bite.

As soon as I was alone I stole into the kitchen to ask for a duster.

“Don’t bother me; can’t you see I’m making toast?” was my greeting.

I could see she was making toast, and my attention was further called to it by the sharp ringing of a bell.

“Ah, ring away,” said the woman, going on with her task. “You may ring the bell down, and then I shan’t come till the toast’s done, do now then!”

“Please, Mary, is the – ”

I turned upon hearing the pleasant little voice again, which stopped short as I looked round, and our eyes met once more.

“No, Miss Hetty, my dear, the toast ain’t done,” said the woman more softly; “and you may tell your ma that if she is in a hurry she must wait till her hurry’s over.”

“Don’t be cross, Mary,” said the child; and tripping across the kitchen, she ran up to where the woman was kneeling before the fender, kissed her cheek, and tripped out again.

“They may thank her for it, that they may,” grumbled Mary, as if speaking to the fire, “for if it wasn’t for her I wouldn’t stop a day longer in their nasty, disagreeable old house. There!”

The toast was by this time done, and Mary was scraping away at a burnt spot, when the bell began to ring more violently than before, with the result that, instead of running off with the toast, Mary deliberately placed it upon the fender and went across to one of the dresser drawers, out of which she took a clean duster.

“Ring away!” she grumbled. “There’s a duster for you, boy. And look here; you must be hungry. Stop a minute and I’ll cut you a slice. Ah, ring away! You don’t frighten me.”

To my horror, she coolly spread thickly a slice of bread, cut it, and handed it to me before buttering the toast with which she at last crawled out of the kitchen, while I literally fled to the office, laid the bread and butter on the desk, and stopped to listen.

At the end of half an hour the bell rang again, and soon after Mary came sulkily into the office with a mug of half-cold weak tea and some lumps, not slices, of bread and butter. These she thrust before me, and I was sadly making my breakfast when Mr Blakeford entered the place.

“Come, make haste!” he said sharply; and as I glanced up at him I read in his face that for some reason or another he had taken a great dislike to me. I could not tell then, nor did I know for long afterwards, why this was; but it grew more evident hour by hour that he hated the sight of my anxious young face, and that my sojourn with him was to be far from pleasant.

He took his seat at the table while I tried to finish my breakfast, but his coming had completely taken away my appetite, and at the end of a few minutes I hastened to take the mug and plate to the kitchen, and then returned to the office.

“Now, sir,” Mr Blakeford began, “just look here. Your father owed me a large sum of money when he died, and I have taken you on here quite out of compassion. Do you hear?”

“Yes, sir,” I faltered.

“Well, you’ve got to learn to be of use to me as soon as you can. You can write, I suppose?”

“Yes, sir – not very well,” I faltered.

“Of course you can’t. No boy brought up as you have been, without going to a school, could be expected to write a decent hand. But look here, you’ll have to try and write well; so take that paper to the desk and copy it out in a neat round hand.”

I took the paper with trembling hands, climbed to the desk, spread the sheet of foolscap ready upon a big piece of blotting-paper, and took up one of the pens before me.

Those were the days before steel nibs had become common, and the pen I took was a quill split up and spoiled.

I took another and another, but they were all the same; and then, glancing at the inkstand, I found that it was dry.

I hardly dared to do it, but he glanced up at me to see if I had begun, and I ventured to say that there was neither pen nor ink.

“Of course not, blockhead. Get down and fetch some off the chimney-piece.”

I gladly obeyed; and then, resuming my seat, with the words on the paper dancing before my eyes, made my first essay as Mr Blakeford’s clerk.

The writing before me was not very distinct, but I managed to decipher it pretty well, getting a little puzzled as to the meaning of “ads.” and “exors.,” with various other legal contractions, but after the first line or two going steadily on, for, bad as my education had been, I was able to write a boy’s neat round hand, consequent upon often copying out lists for my father, or names to label the collections we made.

I had been writing about half an hour, working away diligently enough, when I heard the chair on the other side of the partition scroop, and Mr Blakeford came up behind me. I fully expected a severe scolding or a blow when he took up my sheet of foolscap and scanned it over, but he threw it down before me again with a grunt.

Soon afterwards he rose and went out, leaving me busy over my task, writing till I grew giddy and my head began to ache.

About the middle of the day Mary came in with some bread and meat; and about six o’clock there was another mug of thin tea and some pieces of bread and butter. Then the night came on, the gas was lighted, and I finished my first day in what seemed to be, and really was, as I look back upon it now, little better than a prison.

The days crept slowly by as I took my place each morning at the desk, finding always something fresh to copy in a neat round hand, and at this I patiently toiled on, with my old griefs growing more dull as a little hope began to arise that I might soon see little Hetty to speak to again; but though from time to time I heard the voice and the sound of a piano upon which some one was industriously practising, she never came near the office.

Mr Blakeford seemed as brutal to everyone in the house as he was to me. The only person who did not seem afraid of him was Mary, and upon her his angry scoldings had no effect whatever. To me she was harsh and uncouth as on my first arrival, but, seeing that the amount given me for my meals was disgracefully small, after the first week she did take care that I had a sufficiency of food, although it only took one form.

I remember upon one occasion, having to go to the kitchen door, and finding her muttering angrily to herself, while upon seeing me she exclaimed:

“They’ve been going on about too much butter being used again. Come here!”

I went closer to her, and she hurried into the larder, and came out with a roll of fresh butter and a new loaf, cutting off a thick piece and plastering it excessively with butter.

“There!” she exclaimed, “you go back into the office, and don’t you show your face here again until you’ve eaten up every scrap of that. I’ll teach ’em to grumble about the butter.”

From that day forward Mary was always cutting me great slices of new bread and thickly spreading them with butter.

“There,” she used to say ungraciously, “I don’t like boys, but they shan’t half-starve you while I’m here.”

I was so moved by her unexpected kindness – for it really was done out of goodness of heart – that, having become somewhat hardened to being a confederate in this unlawful acquisition of provender, on one occasion I threw my arms round her neck and kissed her.

“Why, you impudent young scamp, what d’yer mean?” she exclaimed, in astonishment.

“Please, Mary,” I said, “I didn’t mean to be impudent; it was because you were so good to me.”

“Good? Stuff!” she said roughly, “I’m not good. There, get along with you, and don’t you do that again.”

I certainly should have run a good chance of being half-starved but for Mary and another friend.

One day when I opened my desk, I found just inside it a plate with an appetising piece of pudding therein, and concluded that it was Mary’s doing; but I could not be sure, for her benevolence always took the form of thick slices of bread and butter.

The next day there was a piece of cake; another day some apples; another, a couple of tartlets; and at last I determined to hide and see who was the donor of these presents, so welcome to a growing boy. I had made up my mind at last that they came from Hetty, and I was right; for going inside the large paper cupboard one day, instead of going out to fetch the newspaper according to custom, this being one of my new duties, I saw the office door gently open and Hetty’s little head peering cautiously in. Then, satisfied that no one was near, she ran lightly to the big desk; I heard it shut down hastily, and then there was a quiet rustling noise, the office door closed and she was gone.

This went on regularly, and at last one day it occurred to me that I should like to make her a present in return. I had a few shillings, the remains of my pocket-money, and I turned over in my own mind what I should give her. Cakes or sweets I voted too trifling, a doll too childish. What should I buy then? Suddenly I recollected that there were in a window in the little town some pretty silver brooches formed like a knot of twisted ribbon, and one of these I determined to buy.

It took three out of my five shillings; but it looked very pretty in its little box, reposing on pink cottonwool; and having secured it, I returned to my copying at the desk, to think out how I could make my gift.

Nothing was more simple. I wrapped up the little box neatly in a quarter-sheet of foolscap, sealed it with the office wax, and directed it in my best hand to “Miss Hetty Blakeford. From one who is very grateful.”

I felt very conscious and excited as I finished and laid it in the bottom of the desk, just where the presents were always placed for me, and to my great delight, when I looked again there was a plate of tart which the poor child had saved from her own dinner, and the packet was gone.