by Joan Aiken
“I could not d-dream of allowing you to take the risk,” announced Mr. Wheelbird, and he took her arm in a somewhat gingerly grip. The path at this point was very narrow, across the steep hillside, no more than a sheep track, and in order to allow his companion to walk upon it, the lawyer was obliged to pick his way through the wet, soggy, frosty grass. His shoes, though highly polished, were evidently not meant for such usage, and, from his anxious glances at them, it became plain that this consideration was harassing him.
“Pray, Mr. Wheelbird,” said Ellen, “do not put yourself to the trouble of accompanying me any farther. I am persuaded you must have more important duties awaiting you. I shall manage very well on my own, I promise you.”
“No, ma’am, no! My c-conscience would not allow it. In f-f-fact, Miss Ellen,” proclaimed Mr. Wheelbird, his stammer suddenly becoming so much more pronounced that “Ellen” came out as “Elelelelellen,” “in fact, ma’am, I should wish to accompany you everywhere, and to manage everything for you. I should wish to stand between you and the world, Miss Paget! I should like to save you from m-mad bulls, ma’am—to rescue you from poverty—to d-defend you in court—”
“But I have not been accused of any crime, Mr. Wheelbird—and there are no mad bulls to be seen—” objected Ellen, nervously trying to stem this flow before it reached its obvious conclusion. She was wasting her breath, however; Mr. Wheelbird, having got himself embarked on his declaration, gathered momentum and confidence.
“Dear Miss Ellen—you must be aware that I have nourished for some c-considerable time a strong p-partiality—a most particular regard and devotion—of which you are the object, ma’am! My p-previous approach was premature—I was but a green youth (though still it was very wrong of Mr. Paget to address me as he did)”—a momentary unpleasant recollection darkening his brow—“but now matters are decidedly different, I am a man well established in my profession. Whereas your lot, Miss Ellen—returned home in disgrace—installed in what I cannot but be aware is a most unhappy domestic situation—”
“What should make you think that, Mr. Wheelbird?” Ellen spoke rather sharply. She had not been pleased by that “returned home in disgrace.”
“All the town is aware that Mrs. P-Pike—that Mrs. Pike has her eye on your f-father, Miss Ellen. She is a capable woman—I manage some little property affairs for her, I know her nature—what Mrs. Pike attempts—she—she—she achieves! Think, ma’am, think what your position will be then, with such a stepmother. So, p-pray, Miss Ellen—my d-dear, dear Miss Ellen—will you not make me the happiest man in P-Petworth? Will you not give an affirmative answer to this offer of matrimony? Only say yes—and come back to tea with me and my mother. She has baked a s-seedcake,” he added ingenuously.
Though she could not help feeling somewhat touched by Mr. Wheelbird’s declaration, Ellen did also reflect that he seemed to take a good deal for granted. And she was distracted by a sudden piercing recollection of Benedict, with jutting jaw and scowling face on the Channel steamer, making some sarcastic allusion to “the attorney’s clerk who still came calling at the Hermitage.” How Benedict would laugh at this scene! Which, for some reason, put Ellen into a particularly unreceptive mood for receiving Mr. Wheelbird’s proposal. Nor did she in the least wish to take tea with old Mrs. Wheelbird, who had a sweet, vinegary voice, and a lacy fluffy exterior, concealing vigilant powers of observation combined with a resentful and styptic nature.
There were really no circumstances, Ellen thought, which could persuade her to accept Mr. Wheelbird’s offer. But still, it behooved her to be kind to him.
“It is exceedingly obliging of you, sir, to honor me with such a proposal,” she responded, as civilly as she could. “And indeed, I am highly sensible of your regard and—and of the honor you do me.” Annoyed, she realized that she was repeating herself, but found herself at a loss for a phrase that would decisively put an end to his expectations without doing too much damage to his pride. “But I am very much afraid that I am unable to reciprocate your sentiments. In fact I have no thought of matrimony at present. I wish to continue under my father’s roof.”
“Do not, do not be so hasty, Miss Ellen!” exclaimed Mr. Wheelbird, who seemed in agony at the thought of his prize perhaps slipping away from him. “Take some time to consider carefully. Pray, pray, think over what I have s-said! I am persuaded that if you d-do so—take a week, take a month!—and you will then, I am s-sure, arrive at a just estimate of how very useful I could be to you! Versed in the law—knowing, as I do, such a great deal of people’s affairs—”
Here, to Ellen’s considerable surprise, Mr. Wheelbird turned to give her an exceedingly sharp and meaningful glance—almost a wink—it was utterly different from his previous rather sheepish and propitiating expression. But the sudden movement of the head that accompanied it was his undoing, for they had now reached the slippery section of the path over which he had proposed to guide her; he lost his footing on a patch of icy mud and fell flat into the middle of it. He would have dragged Ellen with him, for he still kept hold of her arm, had she not braced herself, and hauled him up again, with all the strength that had served her so well when dealing with turbulent girls at the Pensionnat. So Mr. Wheelbird’s tumble was of short duration—but during that instant, what havoc had been wrought! His hat fell off, his hair was disheveled, and he stood up plastered with semi-liquid brown mud all down one side of him, from his face to his patent-leather shoes.
“Oh, good gracious!” exclaimed Ellen. “How dreadfully unfortunate! Poor Mr. Wheelbird—what a horrid mishap—and in your new coat, too! Look, here is your hat.” She picked it up and handed it to him, after endeavoring to brush some of the slime off it. He was quite speechless from discomposure. “Perhaps your mother will know some good way of getting that off—”
Mr. Wheelbird’s confidence was not strong enough to sustain this mortifying setback. He almost snatched the hat from Ellen, and withdrew his arm from her solicitous grasp.
In a trembling voice he said, “I will wish you good day, ma’am, at this present. I d-did not—matters have not—oh, d-damnation!”
Turning sharply (though with considerable care) on his heel, he walked off in the direction from which Ellen had been coming. He was not going toward Byworth, but she feared that pride would not permit him to change his course until she was out of sight, so, having glanced back anxiously at him once or twice, she made haste to take her own way homeward.
She could not help smiling over the poor man’s mishap, but hoped that his self-esteem had not been too badly shaken by the occurrence—although she hoped, equally, that the embarrassing conclusion of his declaration might be sufficient to prevent a renewal.
Vaguely she wondered what he had been about to say in that moment before he fell—some piece of information regarding one of his clients? But surely that would be a breach of confidence? It was a good thing that he had not spoken.
Then she put the whole incident out of her mind.
Thirteen
Mr. Wheelbird did not immediately resume his suit. It seemed probable that he wished a sufficient period of time to elapse for the memory of his humiliating accident to recede in Ellen’s mind; at all events he kept strictly away from her and presumably avoided any locality where there would be the chance of an encounter, for she never ran across him.
The episode did recede from her mind, for, during this period, she was given what seemed a chance to rectify, or at least improve, her rather difficult and painful relationship with her father. He summoned her, one day, to his business room, ungraciously and abruptly, as she was hearing Vicky’s recitation.
“Leave that, Ellen! I wish you to translate a French text for me!”
“Of course, Papa.”
The text was a sixteenth-century bill of sale for cloth, and, by means of this, she was enabled to discover that the subject of Luke’s reading was material for a history which he was com
piling of the Industries and Manufactures carried on in the Parish of Petworth from 1066 to the present day, from the eels and hogs of the Domesday Survey, through the cloth trade during the reign of Henry VIII, the ironworks in Petworth Park, the glass manufactory during the time of Queen Elizabeth, and the boot and clog trade which later replaced it.
Mr. Paget did not ask Ellen’s opinion of this work, nor did she offer it, but privately she doubted whether a book of such limited interest would ever be likely to find a publisher, and she felt apprehensive for her father’s subsequent disappointment and chagrin. The work, however, appeared to proceed so slowly and haltingly that publication of any kind was a distant prospect. It was frequently interrupted by digressions into other projects on which he was simultaneously engaged: an essay on road making in Sussex; a comparison of the consumption of tea and gin in London during the 1740s, and deaths from the latter; a history of the Judicial System in England before, during, and after the Revolution of 1688. On all these topics he had accumulated copious notes, but he seemed hesitant, or hamstrung by doubt, when it came to the point of actually making a start on the work. Ellen soon began to pity him sincerely, for she perceived that it gave him such agonizing difficulty to frame a single written sentence—and the result, when achieved, was so tortuous and unintelligible—that it seemed quite out of the question he should ever complete a single one of his enterprises.
She marveled at this incapacity in a man who, by many accounts, had been a fluent speaker on political matters; but so it was. Nor would he accept advice from her; if she ventured to recommend a simpler form of wording in one of his statements, he would become irritable, and testily order her to mind her own business and not meddle in matters of which she knew nothing.
Nonetheless, he accepted her help in making some order out of his confused system of classification. This necessitated her spending an hour or so a day in his business room, and, almost imperceptibly, by slow degrees, as month succeeded month, growing to be on more cordial terms with him. During these weeks he paid considerably less attention to Mrs. Pike; his need for attention was, it seemed, assuaged by this new kind of companionship. Such a falling off was observed by the housekeeper with a marked lack of enthusiasm; she lost no opportunity to denigrate Ellen’s help and cast aspersions on its utility.
In May a parcel arrived for Ellen from Brussels. She had not heard again from Lady Morningquest, nor from anybody else in the rue St. Pierre, and she undid the wrappings with considerable curiosity. Inside she found a handsome volume, bound in leather and gilt; on the spine: Discours sur les Pensées Ultérieures, par P. Bosschère. And inside, written on the flyleaf: “To my dear little interlocutress, Mademoiselle M. E. Paget, from whose conversation many of the ideas in this essay were first born!”
Enchanted, excited, deeply touched, Ellen turned the leaves, and, as phrases here and there caught her eye, memories of many discussions with the Professor flashed back into her mind. There, she thought, was a man of real, burning intelligence; no flash in the pan, but a thinker destined to go far, to make his mark; she could not help contrasting him with her father, much to the latter’s detriment. The work looked brilliant—perhaps, as he himself said, some of the ideas had been furnished by her, but he had a right to cull his themes and observations from all around him, did he not? The use he made of her embryonic notions was something she might never have achieved herself, and she would learn and benefit immeasurably by a study of what he had brought forth.
Flushed, gratified, overflowing with pleasure, longing to share this with some other person—and also imbued, perhaps, with a faint touch of malice—she tapped on the door and entered her father’s business room.
He looked up peevishly from the untidy muddle of cards and written pages that piled up on his worktable five minutes after Ellen had set it in order.
“What is this?” he demanded. “You here now, Ellen? It is not your hour to assist me. I do not require your services at the present time.”
“No, Papa—I am aware of that. I merely wished to show you this volume, which Professor Bosschère in Brussels has kindly sent me.”
“Bosschère?”
“You recall, Papa—he is the cousin of Madame who owns the Pensionnat—he taught us divinity and literature—he has sent me this book—”
“Sent you a book?” Luke sounded both surprised and disapproving. “Why should he do such a thing? This seems a decided liberty! Why should he be sending you books, pray?”
“But he wrote it, Papa! It is his book. We always knew that he was at work on a history of human thought; now he has completed it. And, see, he has inscribed this copy to me!”
Mr. Paget received the volume and frowningly surveyed it. He did not seem at all impressed by the authorial inscription.
“Humph! Well, you had best leave the book with me, until I have ascertained whether it is a suitable piece of work for you to be perusing.”
Ellen was somewhat dashed—for one thing, she had been eager to commence reading it herself, and knew her father to be a slow and plodding reader, especially in French, a language of which he had only very moderate mastery. But she said, “I am sure you will enjoy it, Papa—Professor Patrice was such a very intelligent man, his lessons were so inspiring—”
“Very well. Leave me now, like a good girl. And pray, another time, do not burst in and interrupt my work at this hour.”
Mr. Paget did not allude to the book again that day, nor for the succeeding three days, during which time Ellen did her best to contain herself. At last, becoming too impatient to wait in silence any longer, she broached the matter at her regular hour for helping him, when she was in his study sorting out his cards.
“What do you think of Professor Bosschère’s Discours, Papa? How are you getting on with it? Have you nearly finished? I must confess, I am very curious to read the book myself!”
“Eh? Ha? Humph! Oh, that book—a disgraceful bit of work! Full of outrageous notions—of course, one can expect no better from a Catholic—but still—dangerous, seditious rubbish, tricked up in flowery, sentimental language—despicable stuff!”
“But—good heavens, Papa—how can you possibly say such a thing? Professor Bosschère is not at all sentimental—he writes most clearly and incisively—and I cannot believe that any of his statements were dangerous or seditious—which ones can you mean? Are you sure that you have read it all?”
“As much as was necessary; I glanced through the chapters,” said Mr. Paget shortly. “The headings were quite enough to show the kind of man he is—these foreigners are all the same, one cannot trust them. Human love—faugh! A most unsuitable book for you; it is very fortunate that you should have showed it to me first.”
“Still, I should like to read it, Papa, so as to form my own judgment,” said Ellen, who had a strong suspicion that her father had been foiled by the French language, and had done little more than glance at the book; she was now exceedingly sorry that she had succumbed to the impulse to show it to him.
“Well, you can’t read it,” he snapped.
“Excuse me, Papa, it is my own book, presented to me by the writer; I should like to have it back, if you please,” she said, keeping her temper with a strong effort.
“That is out of the question. In fact, I have burned it, which is the only thing to do with such stuff.” He glanced toward the fireplace; following his eyes, Ellen saw, with incredulous dismay, some portions of red leather, burned almost black, in a corner of the grate.
“Burned it? You burned my book?” Sheer rage almost choked Ellen for a moment; then, in a high, shaking voice, she said, “You are a selfish, despotic, bigoted old monster! How dared you do such a thing? That book was my property—you had no right to destroy it. When Mama said you were not an easy man, she was ludicrously understating the case. You are not difficult—you are impossible!”
His face went a dull red. He said hoarsely, “What
can you mean? When your mother said I was not an easy man—to what can you refer? How can she ever have discussed me with you?”
Ellen realized, aghast, that recklessness had led her into betraying her mother.
“It is nothing I can tell you about, Papa. I am sorry I spoke. We had best end this discussion.” And she turned on her heel, and was preparing to leave the room, when he burst out into a loud, incoherent tirade.
“Insolent! Ungrateful! Unfilial! Outrageous girl! She shall hear of this! She-she—”
Ellen assumed that he referred to Mrs. Pike, and was only thankful that the housekeeper was not present. Her father took a step toward her, and she thought he was actually about to bar her way to the door, when, muttering again “She—she—she—” he waved his arms at her, staggered, and sank fainting into an armchair.
Mrs. Pike was almost instantly in the room. It seemed probable that she had, alerted by the raised voices, been listening outside the door; she drew breath in a long hiss of honor.
“Now, miss! Look what you have done to your poor old father!”
Darting to her employer, she felt his pulse, turned up his eyelids, then violently tugged at the bell rope.
“Is it a faint?” asked Ellen, who, sincerely alarmed, felt nevertheless a kind of disgust at the melodrama that the housekeeper was extracting from the scene. Ignoring her, Mrs. Pike turned to Sue, who had come running, scared at the urgency of the summons.
“Send John coachman for the doctor—hurry, woman! Your master has had a shocking seizure—heaven send it do not prove fatal!”
Dr. Smollett, when he came, did not take such a serious view. Mr. Paget had, he thought, suffered a slight stroke, but with care and good nursing—“Such as yours, ma’am,” he remarked politely to Mrs. Pike—there should be no permanent ill effects. Mr. Paget must, however, be confined to bed for several weeks.
