The Pillars of the House, V1

'Then, Felix, let me help! You don't know the comfort it would be.'

'Not so loud,' said Felix, stepping into the shop. Lance stood thoughtful, then hearing more footsteps, ran out, and found two or three boys come for school materials, and some maids waiting to change volumes for their ladies. He gave his ready help; and there ensued a lull, for it was a wet day, such as to make Mr. Froggatt's coming doubtful. Felix took a second survey of the applications.

'Now, Fee, do think about this; I am in earnest.'

'So am I, Lance; I am very thankful to you, but it is not to be thought of.'

'Why not? Am I too small? For that's mending. There's one good thing in being ill, it sets one growing. My thick go-to-meeting trousers that I left at Minsterham are gone up to my ancles; I must ask Wilmet if Clem hasn't left a pair that have got too seedy for Cambridge.'

'It is not that, Lance, but the disadvantage it might be to you in after-life.'

'If I took to it for good?'

'No, no, Lance; one is enough.'

'Stay. Don't shut me up that way. Recollect what this horrid donothingness is doing for me. I am losing all chance of the exhibition, and they can't keep me on at the Cathedral without, for my voice has got like an old crow's; and besides, if I can't read, what's the good of standing for scholarships?'

'You will feel very differently when your head is stronger. Besides, if there should be anything in what we were told at Ewmouth, it would be a pity to get more involved with trade.'

'I thought that was never to be spoken of.'

'And this is my first time. Don't take it as a licence.'

'I could see the sense of that, if it were you,' said Lance, 'but not for No. 5.'

'No. 1 would have his place and work found for him, but No. 5 might not find it easy to turn to something else.'

'Well!' said Lance, considering, 'you said that possibility was not to make any difference to us. Wouldn't it be making the wrong sort of difference to let it keep a great lout like me in idleness while Bernard is going to the bad?'

'What do you mean about Bernard?' said Felix, now thoroughly roused. 'Is it worse than you and Fulbert were in your gamin days?'

'I am afraid so,' said Lance. 'Ful took better care of himself than he seemed to do, and his friends were decent fellows, not like the lot that have hooked in poor little Bear.'

'I suppose it was some scrape of his that took you into Smoke-jack Alley. I thought you would get him out best without me.'

'The little dog, he was always after me when I didn't want him, but now I can't get at him. In short, there's nothing for it but cutting the connection between him and Jem Nares.'

'Just tell me how far it goes. What has he been doing with him?'

'Taking him to see rat-killing at Sims' in Smoke-jack Alley.'

'You couldn't hinder it?'

'No. Indeed, Felix, I did my best,' and the tears sprang into the boy's eyes; 'I did all but go after him, for I knew that would be worse than no good.'

'You need not apologise to me,' said Felix, laying down his pen; 'I have been very wrong. Between this business of Smith's and all the rest of it, I have hardly known which way to turn. I knew that I had not taken the right line with Fulbert, and interference made him worse, and I thought you had taken Bear in hand. Why, Lancey, I never meant to upset you. You have done all you could.'

'I did think I was good for that,' said Lance ruefully, 'after all our old swells at Minsterham said about influence on the choir and bosh. That when it comes to one's own brother-'

The tears were almost girl-like, and Felix's comfort was in the tone that suited them. 'Indeed, Lance, you may be doing him more good than you know. I thank you with all my heart; you are a much more real help and comfort to us all than you guess.'

'That's what you say to Cherry!' said Lance, impatiently. 'Now I can be real help, if you would only let me, and then Bernard could go out of the way of these fellows.'

'That he shall do, if I have to dip into the Chester legacy again.'

'Better take my way,' said Lance, reviving; 'a young man with good references only wants board and lodging.

'It is not possible, Lance. It would not be respectful to the Bishop or the Dean, who have strained a point to keep you. There-I hear Mr. Kenyon's voice in the shop. I must go.'

'Only one thing, Felix. Will you hear what Jack Harewood says to it?'

To this Felix readily assented. He was hurried and harassed nearly to the extent of his time and capacity; he could not pause to give full consideration to his young brother's project, and was glad that the ungracious task of silencing it should be imposed on one less immediately interested.

John Harewood was always at Wilmet's side after four o'clock. Before that time he sometimes went to his home; he often spent the afternoon with Geraldine, but he was not usually about the house in the morning. So Lance, in a fever of impatience, wandered till he hunted him down writing letters in the coffee-room at the Fortinbras Arms.

'Jack, I say, come and have a walk.'

'Pleasant weather!'

'You want to be watered, after all that parching in India. It isn't raining now, and such a jolly cool day!'

'Jollier for you than a finer day, mayhap,' said the good-natured soldier, who greatly commiserated Lance's enforced idleness, and only wondered at his not making it a greater misery to every one else. He also understood what the inured ears of the family never guessed, since Lance never complained, the distress of Theodore's constant hum and concertina to sensitive ears and excited nerves; and had observed that Lance had flagged ever since the journey to Minsterham, with less of vigour and more of sharpness. Sure that something was preying on the boy, he deferred his least important letters, to splash away with him in mud and mist, and hear him explain his views, with the fullness often more possible towards friend than family.

John was greatly surprised, but did not make any crushing objection, and listened with thorough sympathy. He doubted, however, whether Lance would be doing any real good, and not only throwing more, instead of less work upon Felix. Sensibly enough the boy went into the matter. He said that when Felix began, the staff had also consisted of Mr. Froggatt, Redstone, a lad called Stubbs, and a boy. Now Felix did much more than Mr. Froggatt had then done, and Stubbs was a useful piece of mechanism without a head, and Lance believed himself quite able to fill the place Felix had taken at the same age; indeed, he had far less either to learn or to overcome, and though his arithmetical powers were still in abeyance, he had rather excelled in that line at the Cathedral school.

'I know, of course,' said Lance, 'that a man from a London house would be of more use; but there's this awful salary, and he would never care to look after Felix.'

'I allow that; but even if you can be of much present use, is it not at the expense of greater usefulness by and by?'

'I am sick of that! Edgar and Clem both mean to be of use by and by, and what comes of it? Edgar has spent Felix's two hundred pounds that he borrowed, and now has got his own, all to repay when he is a great painter. And he is six years older than I am! Now if I earned my guinea a week, as Felix did, it would be real good now, and I should be learning the trade for the future.'

'That's the question. First, would the guinea a week make so much appreciable difference?'

'Is that all you know about it, Jack? First, I should be earning my keep, not eating my head off; and then Bernard might be sent safe off to school.'

'You don't mean to say that otherwise he could not?'

'It has been a terribly costly year. There's Edgar. Then Clem couldn't settle in at Cambridge for nothing, there's been Alda turned back on Felix's hands; there's been illness, and goodness knows what the doctors may charge; and there's Felix's outing and mine!'

John answered by opening his pocket-book and showing Dr. Manby's account receipted.

'O Jack! You don't mean-'