第36章

Better is little, than treasure and trouble therewith. Better a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.

None but a great man would have dared to utter such a glaring commonplace as that. Not only on Sundays now, but all the week, came the hot joint to table, and on every day there was pudding, till a body grew indifferent to pudding; thus a joy-giving luxury of life being lost and but another item added to the long list of uninteresting needs. Now we could eat and drink without stint. No need now to organise for the morrow's hash. No need now to cut one's bread instead of breaking it, thinking of Saturday's bread pudding.

But there the saying fails, for never now were we merry. A silent unseen guest sat with us at the board, so that no longer we laughed and teased as over the half pound of sausages or the two sweet-scented herrings; but talked constrainedly of empty things that lay outside us.

Easy enough would it have been for us to move to Guilford Street.

Occasionally in the spiritless tones in which they now spoke on all subjects save the one, my mother and father would discuss the project; but always into the conversation would fall, sooner or later, some loosened thought to stir it to anger, and so the aching months went by, and the cloud grew.

Then one day the news came that old Teidelmann had died suddenly in his counting house.

"You are going to her?" said my mother.

"I have been sent for," said my father; "I must--it may mean business."

My mother laughed bitterly; why, at the time, I could not understand; and my father flung out of the house. During the many hours that he was away my mother remained locked in her room, and, stealing sometimes to the door, I was sure I heard her crying; and that she should grieve so at old Teidelmann's death puzzled me.

She came oftener to our house after that. Her mourning added, I think, to her beauty, softening--or seeming to soften--the hardness of her eyes. Always she was very sweet to my mother, who by contrast beside her appeared witless and ungracious; and to me, whatever her motive, she was kindness itself; hardly ever arriving without some trifling gift or plan for affording me some childish treat. By instinct she understood exactly what I desired and liked, the books that would appeal to me as those my mother gave me never did, the pleasures that did please me as opposed to the pleasures that should have pleased me. Often my mother, talking to me, would chill me with the vista of the life that lay before me: a narrow, viewless way between twin endless walls of "Must" and "Must not." This soft-voiced lady set me dreaming of life as of sunny fields through which one wandered laughing, along the winding path of Will; so that, although as I have said, there lurked at the bottom of my thoughts a fear of her; yet something within me I seemed unable to control went out to her, drawn by her subtle sympathy and understanding of it.

"Has he ever seen a pantomime?" she asked of my father one morning, looking at me the while with a whimsical screwing of her mouth.

My heart leaped within me. My father raised his eyebrows: "What would your mother say, do you think?" he asked. My heart sank.

"She thinks," I replied, "that theatres are very wicked places." It was the first time that any doubt as to the correctness of my mother's judgments had ever crossed my mind.

Mrs. Teidelmann's smile strengthened my doubt. "Dear me," she said, "I am afraid I must be very wicked. I have always regarded a pantomime as quite a moral entertainment. All the bad people go down so very straight to--well, to the fit and proper place for them. And we could promise to leave before the Clown stole the sausages, couldn't we, Paul?"

My mother was called and came; and I could not help thinking how insignificant she looked with her pale face and plain dark frock, standing stiffly beside this shining lady in her rustling clothes.

"You will let him come, Mrs. Kelver," she pleaded in her soft caressing tones; "it's Dick Whittington, you know--such an excellent moral."

My mother had stood silent, clasping and unclasping her hands, a childish trick she had when troubled; and her lips were trembling.

Important as the matter loomed before my own eyes, I wondered at her agitation.

"I am very sorry," said my mother, "it is very kind of you. But I would rather he did not go."

"Just this once," persisted Mrs. Teidelmann. "It is holiday time."

A ray of sunlight fell into the room, lighting upon her coaxing face, making where my mother stood seem shadow.

"I would rather he did not go," repeated my mother, and her voice sounded harsh and grating. "When he is older others must judge for him, but for the present he must be guided by me--alone."

"I really don't think there could be any harm, Maggie," urged my father. "Things have changed since we were young."

"That may be," answered my mother, still in the same harsh voice; "it is long ago since then."

"I didn't intend it that way," said my father with a short laugh.

"I merely meant that I may be wrong," answered my mother. "I seem so old among you all--so out of place. I have tried to change, but I cannot."

"We will say no more about it," said Mrs. Teidelmann, sweetly. "I merely thought it would give him pleasure; and he has worked so hard this last term, his father tells me."

She laid her hand caressingly on my shoulder, drawing me a little closer to her; and it remained there.

"It was very kind of you," said my mother, "I would do anything to give him pleasure, anything-I could. He knows that. He understands."

My mother's hand, I knew, was seeking mine, but I was angry and would not see; and without another word she left the room.