Read Ebook: Won at last by Giberne Agnes

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Ebook has 1604 lines and 50539 words, and 33 pages

CHAP.

WON AT LAST.

"MOTHER," Cherry said, slowly drawing some thread through her needle, and sighing,--"Mother, Cress wants another pair of outdoor shoes."

It was the old story; Cresswell always wanting something new, and Cherry his twin-sister having to tell me of his needs. Jack did not require half so many things.

"Cress must wait a little longer," I answered.

"I don't think he can, mother," Cherry said, lifting her quiet eyes to mine. "He spoke about it this morning, as he was starting for school. I told him I was afraid you mightn't be able to get them just now; and he said he must have a pair."

Cherry was at that time close upon sixteen. She had no pretensions to good looks, but was rather short, with a plump figure, and smooth hair. I never saw anybody with a more beautifully smooth head than my Cherry, or with more delicately clean hands. No matter what Cherry had to do, she always managed to keep herself nice. That word exactly describes her. She was perpetually busy, and ready to undertake any sort of work that had to be done; yet nobody ever came across Cherry in an untidy state. She never failed to look nice. I used to think I wouldn't exchange this in our girl for any amount of mere prettiness.

"Cress' 'must' may have to go down before a stronger 'must,'" I said. Yet even while I spoke the words, I was wondering whether something else might not be given up instead. "How if there is not enough money to pay for the shoes?"

Cherry looked troubled, and made no immediate answer. She was putting a patch into a small pair of trousers, and her fingers went deftly on with their task. It was late in February, and the afternoons were growing quickly longer: no small comfort as regarded candles and work. We had much mending to get through, for the task of keeping six growing boys respectably dressed, upon our small income, proved to be one of increasing difficulty.

My husband was clerk in a London mercantile house. His father, old Mr. Hazel, had been a farmer in one of the midland counties. Had Robert taken to the same line, he might have done well. But neither my Robert nor his brother Churton seemed to have anything of the farmer in them. Robert came to London, expecting to make his fortune. He was fond of books, and his own family thought him clever; only there are so many clever men in the great city. He managed to get a small clerkship, and there he remained year after year.

Once or twice he had a slight rise, and that was all. When Robert fell in love with me, and we married, both of us were young, and life looked hopeful, and we expected all kinds of good things to happen. But by the time of which I am writing, Robert and I had pretty well left off looking for any change, except of course that by-and-by some of our boys would be out in the world. The difficulty was, how to get them out, and where to place them.

Robert's position did not imply much money for a family of nine. We had no regular servant, beyond a girl in three times a week for half-a-day, to do some of the cleaning. Even this help we sometimes talked of giving up altogether.

My husband and eldest boy had not yet returned from the City, nor Cresswell and Owen from school. The three younger boys, Frederick, Robert, and Edmund, varying in ages from ten to seven, were learning their lessons in the basement-room. I could trust them all, even my little Ted, to keep to their work till it was done.

That was one comfort about our poverty, I had always spoken frankly to the children of our circumstances; and even the younger boys seemed to understand how, by care and steadiness, they might be a help instead of a hindrance to their father and me. Cresswell was the one exception. I should not like to say that he loved us less,--but--well, he certainly loved himself more; and that comes to the same thing.

Cress was clover and handsome. He knew this well, and always seemed to expect to be treated differently from the other boys. He was bent upon being some day rich and distinguished; yet he was not really fond of hard work, and without hard work how can one hope to succeed? I think he inherited something of Robert's early wish to strike out a new line for himself, and to rise in the world. And Cress was not willing to learn from his father's failure. It was useless to speak of that to him. He never could see why he might not do well; whether or no his father had so done. And of course no one could say that he might not; only we had no money to throw away upon doubtful experiments.

So Cress was a care to us all; not least to Cherry and me.

Jack, our eldest, my dear good Jack, was a year and a half older than Cresswell; and was in every way a contrast to him. Jack was a fine well-grown lad, strong and active enough in body, but not very quick in mind. At least, he had not the quickness which would have helped him on in the line of life open to him.

Poor Jack! his slowness was a terrible worry to himself. He did so long to assist us all.

But at school he had always been the lowest in his class. And now he had left school, the same sort of thing went on. His handwriting was altogether at fault; he seldom spelt the same word twice alike; and he could make nothing of arithmetic. Naturally these things told against him. My husband's employers would willingly have taken Jack on; and they did make trial of him: but it was of no use. They had to tell us kindly that Jack was not fitted for that sort of thing.

It seemed hard to know what he was fitted for. My husband found him work in another office, where so much was not expected of him, and now, he was trying to do his best. Yet none of us felt very hopeful.

He always looked so pleasant and good-tempered, and he was so full of kind-heartedness and thought for others, that it was impossible to blame him. Not one of my children lavished upon me a tithe of Jack's tenderness. Still he could not learn his multiplication table, or write a decent hand, even for my sake.

"Mother," Cherry said presently, "I don't think Cress really believes that father means him to go to Peterson's. I don't think he counts it settled."

Peterson & Co. was the firm to which my husband belonged.

"Does he not?" I asked. "It has been spoken of often enough."

"Yes, I know," Cherry answered, rather sorrowfully. "But Cress always says afterwards that it is bosh, and that he won't go. He says he knows father will not make him. I think Cress has a sort of dream-of going through college and becoming a lawyer--a barrister, he calls it. He says he would get on then, and by-and-by he would be able to support us all."

"And meantime!" I said. "My dear Cherry, your father's whole income would not do much more than carry Cress through college. What does he suppose we are all to live on meantime?"

"Cress never seems to understand that money can't be made to go farther than it can."

"You must try to make him understand," I said. "Sisters can do a good deal with their brothers, you know."

"Not I with Cress, mother. He thinks nothing of anybody who is not clever, and I am so stupid."

"Not stupid, Cherry."

"Oh yes, mother. I am not clever--not a bit," said Cherry, smiling, though I fancied tears were in her eyes. "Cress never cares for what I say. If it were Jack--"

Cherry's face changed with the last four words. It is always supposed that twins are united by peculiar ties of affection; but if so, the present case was an exception. Cherry loved all her brothers, Cress included, no doubt; yet Jack was far more to her than Cress. How could it be otherwise? Jack was always good to his sister, while Cress incessantly contradicted and snubbed her. It was "only Cress' way," she said--as we all said; nevertheless it was a thing impossible that she should feel towards Cress as she felt towards sunny-tempered, loving-hearted Jack. I often thought Cherry's love for our eldest boy was beautiful to see.

"Yes, if it were Jack!" I repeated. "There would be no need for any words then. Jack never has unreasonable wants."

And for a minute or two we both praised Jack to our hearts' content. I think it did us good. Cherry and I were quite at one on that subject. Then we both began to feel some compunction about Cress--our handsome, clever, spoilt Cress!

"After all, it isn't Cress' fault," Cherry observed. "He never does understand about household matters like Jack."

"It is time he should learn," I said; but already my wise resolution was giving way. Cherry saw this at once.

"Mother, you meant to get me a new jacket soon. There's no need. I can do without it one more year, and Cress can have his shoes."

"My dear Cherry, you simply cannot squeeze yourself into the old jacket," I said. "Think how long you have had it, and how much you have grown. It is so brown too."

"I'll try if I can't freshen it up and put in one or two gussets somewhere," Cherry said, in her bright way. "That will be the best plan. You see, mother, it won't do to let Cress get his feet wet. It would make him ill. And he says he has holes coming in his best shoes, just where they can't be properly mended."

"He is a terrible hand at wearing out his clothes," I said; yet I knew the matter to be pretty well settled.

"Then I can tell Cress, can't I?" said Cherry. "And now I must go downstairs to see about tea."

We did not dine late, but there was generally a slice of cold mutton or a chop for my husband at teatime, whether or no the children had had meat at our mid-day meal.

To save trouble, we had breakfast, dinner, and tea in the basement-room, close to the kitchen. Indeed, that was our only second sitting-room. The other ground floor room, behind the front parlour, had to be used for sleeping purposes.

Cherry always laid the table, and she did it in her own peculiarly dainty fashion. The food might be simple, might even be scanty, but the cloth was always white and smooth, and the china spotless.

On that particular day, I remember that we had a large loaf of brown bread, and a little pat of salt butter. Also there was a big plum-cake made by Cherry,--hardly more than dry bread with a few currants, yet the boys liked it.

The said boys had put away their lesson-books, and were clustering round the table. My fair-haired Ted was in his favourite seat, by my side.

I can recall so well my husband's face as he sat opposite. The ceiling of the basement-room was low, and the light from the one gas-burner fell upon his haggard and furrowed face. He ought not to have been either haggard or furrowed yet, so far as age was concerned. We had been married eighteen years and more; but when our wedding took place Robert was only twenty-two, and I only eighteen.

That early marriage was foolish, of course. Friends told us so at the time, and we have seen it so since plainly enough. If we had been content to wait a few years, and to lay by something first, many an after-hour of heavy anxiety might never have come. But, like most young people, we counted our own way the best, and refused to hear advice. So the burdens of life fell upon us early.

I think they weighed more upon Robert than me. He might, from his look in those days, have been a man of fifty-five instead of only forty. His disposition was naturally more depressed than mine, for I had by nature a fund of high spirits which stood me in good stead, though the fund had become lower than of old. People said, however, that I looked young still,--more like Robert's daughter than his wife. Fair hair often does not turn grey so soon as dark hair, even under worry; and I was very fair in colouring, as well as slight, and active, and impulsive. Cherry took more after her father than after me; but I do not think she resembled either of us closely.

Jack was very merry that evening, or he seemed so. It always did my heart good to hear his laugh; and I remember how often it sounded, and how I looked at him and Cress, wondering in my heart what was to be the future of those two boys. It is well for us that the future is hidden, and life's volume unfolds page by page. Sufficient for the day is the duty as well as the evil thereof.

Jack was tall for his years, and broad-shouldered, with warm healthy colouring and honest grey eyes like Cherry's. Cress was short and thin, with pale handsome features, and his curly light hair and blue eyes resembled mine. He seemed that evening listless and fretful--no uncommon event--and snapped often at Jack. But nothing ever put Jack out of temper.

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