the precious cloth. Henry started up and pointed.
‘I’m glad of it!’ exclaimed Leonard; ‘it will be a little amusement for you. Good night, Ave! I’m going to finish up-stairs, since one can’t read, write, or touch a book without your being rowed!’
He was gone, and Averil, though rather frightened, gave him infinite credit for keeping his temper; and perhaps he deserved it, considering the annoyance and the nature of the provocation; but she did not reflect how much might have been prevented by more forethought and less preoccupation. She said not a word, but quietly returned to her copying; and when Henry came with paper and poker to remove the damage, she only shoved back her chair, and sat waiting, pen in hand, resigned and ironical.
‘I declare,’ grumbled Henry, as he examined the remaining amount of damage, ‘these day-schools are a great inconvenience; there’s no keeping a place fit to be seen with a great uncivilized lad always hanging about!’
‘Leonard is considered particularly gentlemanlike,’ said Ave, with lips compressed, to keep back something about old bachelors.
‘Now, I should have thought a lady would have some regard to her own drawing-room, and object to slovenliness—elbows on table, feet everywhere!’
‘Nothing is in worse taste than constraint,’ said Ave from the corners of her mouth—’at least for those that can trust their manners without it.’
‘I tell you, Ave, you are spoiling the boy. He is more conceited than ever since the Mays noticed him.’
‘Leonard conceited!’
‘Yes; he is getting as stuck up as Tom May himself—your model I believe!’
‘I thought he was yours!’
‘Mine?’
‘Yes; you always seem to aim at a poor imitation of him.’
There was a blushing angry stammer in reply; and she suppressed her smile, but felt triumphant in having hit the mark. Unready at retort, he gathered himself up, and said: ‘Well, Ave, I have only this to say, that if you choose to support that boy in his impertinences, there will be no bearing it; and I shall see what I shall do.’
Seeing what shall be done is a threat stimulating to some, but appalling to others; and Averil was of the latter class, with no desire for such a spectacle, be it what it might. She did not apologize for the trifle—possible ink, a spot of wax, a borrowed book, were far beneath an apology; but she made up her mind to humour Henry’s follies magnanimously, and avoid collisions, like an admirable peace-maker. As soon as bed-time came, she repaired to Leonard’s room; and Henry, as he went along the passage, heard the two young voices ringing with laughter! Her retort had been particularly delightful to Leonard. ‘That’s right, Ave! I’m glad you set him down, for I thought afterwards whether I ought not to have stood by you, only his way of pitching into me through you puts me into such a rage: I shall do something desperate some day!’
‘Never mind it, Leonard; it does not hurt me; and if it did, I should like to bear a great deal for you.’
‘That’s all the wrong way,’ said Leonard, smiling affectionately.
‘No; men do and women suffer.’
‘That’s trite!’ said Leonard, patting her fondly. ‘I like you to do—as you call it—Miss May does, and every one that is worth anything. I say, Ave, when I go out to the islands, you are coming too?’
‘Oh yes! I know I could do a great deal. If nothing else, I could sing; and they have a great aptitude for singing, Mary was telling me. But that reminds me I must finish copying the hymn for next Sunday; Henry hindered me, and I have six copies more to do.’
‘I’ll do some of them,’ said Leonard. ‘Let us go down now the coast is clear, if the fire is not out.’
They went down softly, Mab and all, nursed up the fire that Henry had raked out; and if Saturnalia could be held over the writing out of a hymn tune, they did it! At any rate, it had the charm of an assertion of independence; and to Averil it was something like a midnight meeting of persecuted Christians—to Leonard it was ‘great fun.’
That evening was not a solitary specimen.
Averil and Leonard intended to obviate causes of offence; but they were young and heedless, and did not feel bound to obedience. A very little temptation made them forget or defy Henry’s fancies; and Leonard was easily lashed into answers really unbecoming and violent, for which he could not bring himself to be sorry, when he thought over the petty interference and annoyance that had caused them.
These small tyrannies and frets made Averil the more devoted to the music, which was her rest, her delight, and not only exalted her above cares, but sanctioned her oblivion of them. The occupation grew upon her, never ending, still beginning, with fresh occasions for practice and new lessons, but though Bankside boys were willing to be taught, yet it was chiefly in hope of preferment as choristers at the Minster; and she soon found that a scholar no sooner proved his voice good for anything, than he went off to be trained for the choir on the foundation, which fed, clothed, and apprenticed its young singers. She found she must betake herself to an elder race if she wanted a reliable staff of voices; and some young men and women showing themselves willing, a practice, with Mr. Scudamour to keep order, was organized for late evenings, twice in the week. This was rather much! Henry opposed at first, on the ground that the evening would be broken up; to which she answered that for such a purpose they ought to be willing to sacrifice a little domestic comfort; and when he muttered a petulant ‘Pshaw,’ looked at him in reproof for sacrilege. She was not going to be one of the womankind sitting up in a row till their lords and masters should be pleased to want them!
Next, he insisted that he would not have her going about the place after dark, but she was fortified by the curate’s promise to escort her safely, and reduced him to a semi-imprecation which she again viewed as extremely wicked. The existence of that meek little helpless Mrs. Scudamour, always shut up in a warm room with her delicate baby, cut off Henry from any other possible objection, and he was obliged to submit.
Leonard would gladly have been his sister’s companion on her expeditions, but he must remain at home and prepare for the morrow’s school-work, and endure the first hour of dreariness unenlivened by her smile and greeting, and, what was worse, without the scanty infusion of peace produced by her presence. Her rapid departure after dinner always discomposed Henry; and the usual vent for his ill-humour was either a murmur against the clergy and all their measures, or the discovery of some of Leonard’s transgressions of his code. Fretted and irritable at the destruction of evening comfort, he in his turn teased the fiery temper of his brother. If there were nothing worse, his grumbling remarks interrupted, and too often they were that sort of censure that is expressively called
