Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles Part 44

"A new surplice, Frank!" Ah, it was not all profit.

"A chorister must have two surplices, mamma. King's scholars can do with one, having them washed between the Sundays: choristers can't. We must have them always in wear, you know, except in Lent, and on the day of King Charles the Martyr."

Jane smiled; he talked so fast. "What is that you are running on about?"

"Goodness, mamma, don't you understand? All the six weeks of Lent, and on the 30th of January, the cathedral is hung with black, and the choristers have to wear black cloth surplices. They don't find the black ones: the college does that."

Frank's success in gaining the place did not give universal pleasure to the college school. Since the day of the disturbance in the spring, in which William was mixed up, the two young Halliburtons had been at a discount with the desk at which Cyril Dare sat; and this desk pretty well ruled the school.

"It's coming to a fine pa.s.s!" exclaimed Cyril Dare, when the result of the trial was carried into the school. "Here's the town clerk's own son pa.s.sed over as n.o.body, and that sn.o.b of a Halliburton put in! Somebody ought to have told the dean what sn.o.bs they are."

"What would the dean have cared?" grumbled another, whose young brother had been amongst the rejected ones. "To get good voices in the choir is all he cares for in the matter."

"I say, where do they live--that set?"

"In a house of Ashley's, in the London Road," answered Cyril Dare. "They couldn't pay the rent, and my father put a b.u.m in."

"Bosh, Dare!"

"It's true," said Cyril Dare. "My father manages Ashley's rents, you know. They'd have had every stick and stone sold, only Ashley--he is a regular soft over some things--took and gave them time. Oh, they are a horrid lot! They don't keep a servant!"

The blank astonishment this last item of intelligence caused at the desk, can't be described. Again Cyril's word was disputed.

"They don't, I tell you," he repeated. "I taxed Halliburton senior with it one day, and he told me to my face they could not afford one. He possesses bra.s.s enough to set up a foundry, does that fellow. The eldest one is at Ashley's manufactory, errand-boy. Errand-boy! And here's this one promoted to the choir, over gentlemen's heads! He ought to be pitched into, ought Halliburton senior."

In the school, Frank was Halliburton senior; Gar, Halliburton junior.

"How is it that he says he was at King's College before he came here? I heard him tell Keating so," asked a boy.

At this moment Mr. Keating's voice was heard. "Silence!" Cyril Dare let a minute elapse, and then began again.

"Such a low thing, you know, not to keep servants! We couldn't do at all without five or six. I'll tell you what: the school may do as it likes, but our desk shall cut the two fellows here."

And the desk did so; and Frank and Gar had to put up with many mortifications. There was no help for it. Frank was brave as a young lion; but against some sorts of oppression there is no standing up. More than once was the boy in tears, telling his griefs to his mother. It fell more on Frank than it did on Gar.

Jane could only strive to console him, as she did William. "Patience and forbearance, my darling Frank! You will outlive it in time."

CHAPTER II.

SHADOWS IN HONEY FAIR.

August was hot in Honey Fair. The women sat at their open doors, or even outside them; the children tumbled in the gutters; the refuse in the road was none the better for the month's heat.

Charlotte East sat in her kitchen one Tuesday afternoon, busy as usual.

Her door was shut, but her window was open. Suddenly the latch was lifted and Mrs. Cross came in: not with the bold, boisterous movements that were common to Honey Fair, but with creeping steps that seemed afraid of their own echoes, and a scared face.

Mrs. Cross was in trouble. Her two daughters, Amelia and Mary Ann, to whom you have had the honour of an introduction, had purchased those lovely cross-barred sarcenets, green, pink, and lilac, and worn them at the party at the Alhambra: which party went off satisfactorily, leaving nothing behind it but some headaches for the next day, and a trifle of pecuniary embarra.s.sment to Honey Fair in general. What with the finery for the party, and other finery, and what with articles really useful, but which perhaps _might_ have been done without, Honey Fair was pretty deeply in with the Messrs. Bankes. In Mrs. Cross's family alone, herself and her daughters owed, conjointly, so much to these accommodating tradesmen that it took eight s.h.i.+llings a week to keep them quiet. You can readily understand how this impoverished the weekly housekeeping; and the falsehoods that had to be concocted, by way of keeping the husband, Jacob Cross, in the dark, were something alarming. This was the state of things in many of the homes of Honey Fair.

Mrs. Cross came in with timid steps and a scared face. "Charlotte, lend me five s.h.i.+llings for the love of goodness!" cried she, speaking as if afraid of the sound of her own voice. "I don't know another soul to ask but you. There ain't another that would have it to lend, barring Dame Buffle, and she never lends."

"You owe me twelve s.h.i.+llings already," answered Charlotte, pausing for a moment in her sewing.

"I know that. I'll pay you off by degrees, if it's only a s.h.i.+lling a week. I am a'most drove mad. Bankes's folks was here yesterday, and me and the girls had only four s.h.i.+llings to give 'em. I'm getting in arrears frightful, and Bankes's is as cranky over it as can be. It's all smooth and fair so long as you're buying of Bankes's and paying 'em; but just get behind, and see what short answers and sour looks you'll have!"

"But Amelia and Mary Ann took in their work on Sat.u.r.day and had their money?"

"My patience! I don't know what us should do if they hadn't! We have to pay up everywhere. We're in debt at Buffle's, in debt to the baker, in debt for shoes; we're in debt on all sides. And there's Cross spending three s.h.i.+lling good of his wages at the public-house! It takes what me and the girls earn to pay a bit up here and there, and stop things from coming to Cross's ears. Half the house is in the p.a.w.n-shop, and what'll become of us I don't know. I can't sleep o' nights, hardly, for thinking on't."

Charlotte felt sure that, were it her case, she should not sleep at all.

"The worst is, I have to keep the little 'uns away from school. Pay for 'em I can't. And a fine muck they get into, playing in the road all day.

'What does these children do to theirselves at school, to get into this dirty mess?' asks Cross, when he comes in. 'Oh, they plays a bit in the gutter coming home,' says I. 'We plays a bit, father,' cries they, when they hears me, a-winking at each other to think how we does their father."

Charlotte shook her head. "I should end it all."

"End it! I wish we could end it! The girls is going to slave theirselves night and day this week and next. But it's not for my good: it's for their'n. They want to get their grand silks out o' p.a.w.n! Nothing but outside finery goes down with them, though they've not an inside rag to their backs. They leave care to me. Fools to be sure, they was, to buy them silks! They have been in the p.a.w.n-shop ever since, and Bankes's a-tearing 'em to pieces for the money!"

"I should end it by confessing to Jacob," said Charlotte, when she could get in a word. "He is not a bad husband----"

"And look at his pa.s.sionate temper!" broke in Mrs. Cross. "Let it get to his ears that we have gone on tick to Bankes's and elsewhere, and he'd rave the house out of winders."

"He would be angry at first, no doubt; but when he cooled down he would see the necessity of something being done, and help in it. If you all set on and put your shoulders to the wheel you might soon get clear.

Live upon the very least that will satisfy hunger--the plainest food--dry bread and potatoes. No beer, no meat, no finery, no luxuries; and with the rest of the week's money begin to pay up. You'd be clear in no time."

Mrs. Cross stared in consternation. "You be a Job's comforter, Charlotte! Dry bread and taters! who could put up with that?"

"When poor people like us fall into trouble, it is the only way that I know of to get out of it. I'd rather mortify my appet.i.te for a year than have my rest broken by care."

"Your advice is good enough for talking, Charlotte, but it don't answer for acting. Cross must have his bit o' meat and his beer, his b.u.t.ter and his cheese, his tea and his sugar--and so must the rest on us. But about this five s.h.i.+llings?--do lend it me, Charlotte! It is for the landlord: we're almost in a fix with him."

"For the landlord!" repeated Charlotte involuntarily. "You must keep _him_ paid, or it would be the worst of all."

"I know we must. He was took bad yesterday--more's the blessing!--and couldn't get round; but he's here to-day as burly as beef. We haven't paid him for this three weeks," she added, dropping her voice to an ominous whisper; "and I declare to you, Charlotte East, that the sight of him at our door is as good to me as a dose of physic. Just now, round he comes, a-lifting the latch, and me turning sick the minute I sees him. 'Ready, Mrs. Cross?' asks he, in his short, surly way, putting his brown wig up. 'I'm sorry I ain't, Mr. Abbott, sir,' says I; 'but I'll have some next week for certain.' 'That won't do for me,' says he: 'I must have it this. If you can't give me some money, I shall apply to your husband.' The fright this put me into I've not got over yet, Charlotte; for Cross don't know but what the rent's paid up regular. 'I know what's going on,' old Abbott begins again, 'and I have knowed it for some time. You women in this Honey Fair, you pay your money to them Bankeses, which is the blight o' the place, and then you can't pay me.'

Only fancy his calling Bankeses a blight!"

"That's just what they are," remarked Charlotte.

"For shame, Charlotte East! When one's way is a bit eased by being able to get a few things on trust, you must put in your word again it! Some of us would never get a new gown to our backs if it wasn't for Bankeses.

Abbott's gone off to other houses, collecting; warning me as he'd call again in half an hour, and if some money wasn't ready for him then he'd go straight off to Jacob, to his shop o' work. If you can let me have one week for him, Charlotte--five s.h.i.+llings--I'll be ever grateful."

Charlotte rose, unlocked a drawer, and gave five s.h.i.+llings to Mrs.

Cross, thinking in her own mind that the kindest course would be for the landlord to go to Cross, as he had threatened.

Mrs. Cross took the money. Her mind so far relieved, she could indulge in a little gossip; for Mr. Abbott's half-hour had not yet expired.