บทที่ บทที่ 32 · 第32章

. I must now return to Miss Alethea Pontifex, of whom I have said perhaps

too little hitherto, considering how great her influence upon my hero’s

destiny proved to be.

On the death of her father, which happened when she was about

thirty-two years old, she parted company with her sisters, between whom

and herself there had been little sympathy, and came up to London. She

was determined, so she said, to make the rest of her life as happy as

she could, and she had clearer ideas about the best way of setting to

work to do this than women, or indeed men, generally have.

Her fortune consisted, as I have said, of £5000, which had come to her

by her mother’s marriage settlements, and £15,000 left her by her

father, over both which sums she had now absolute control. These

brought her in about £900 a year, and the money being invested in none

but the soundest securities, she had no anxiety about her income. She

meant to be rich, so she formed a scheme of expenditure which involved

an annual outlay of about £500, and determined to put the rest by. “If

I do this,” she said laughingly, “I shall probably just succeed in

living comfortably within my income.” In accordance with this scheme

she took unfurnished apartments in a house in Gower Street, of which

the lower floors were let out as offices. John Pontifex tried to get

her to take a house to herself, but Alethea told him to mind his own

business so plainly that he had to beat a retreat. She had never liked

him, and from that time dropped him almost entirely.

Without going much into society she yet became acquainted with most of

the men and women who had attained a position in the literary, artistic

and scientific worlds, and it was singular how highly her opinion was

valued in spite of her never having attempted in any way to distinguish

herself. She could have written if she had chosen, but she enjoyed

seeing others write and encouraging them better than taking a more

active part herself. Perhaps literary people liked her all the better

because she did not write.

I, as she very well knew, had always been devoted to her, and she might

have had a score of other admirers if she had liked, but she had

discouraged them all, and railed at matrimony as women seldom do unless

they have a comfortable income of their own. She by no means, however,

railed at man as she railed at matrimony, and though living after a

fashion in which even the most censorious could find nothing to

complain of, as far as she properly could she defended those of her own

sex whom the world condemned most severely.

In religion she was, I should think, as nearly a freethinker as anyone

could be whose mind seldom turned upon the subject. She went to church,

but disliked equally those who aired either religion or irreligion. I

remember once hearing her press a late well-known philosopher to write

a novel instead of pursuing his attacks upon religion. The philosopher

did not much like this, and dilated upon the importance of showing

people the folly of much that they pretended to believe. She smiled and

said demurely, “Have they not Moses and the prophets? Let them hear

them.” But she would say a wicked thing quietly on her own account

sometimes, and called my attention once to a note in her prayer-book

which gave account of the walk to Emmaus with the two disciples, and

how Christ had said to them “O fools and slow of heart to believe ALL

that the prophets have spoken”—the “all” being printed in small

capitals.

Though scarcely on terms with her brother John, she had kept up closer

relations with Theobald and his family, and had paid a few days’ visit

to Battersby once in every two years or so. Alethea had always tried to

like Theobald and join forces with him as much as she could (for they

two were the hares of the family, the rest being all hounds), but it

was no use. I believe her chief reason for maintaining relations with

her brother was that she might keep an eye on his children and give

them a lift if they proved nice.

When Miss Pontifex had come down to Battersby in old times the children

had not been beaten, and their lessons had been made lighter. She

easily saw that they were overworked and unhappy, but she could hardly

guess how all-reaching was the régime under which they lived. She knew

she could not interfere effectually then, and wisely forbore to make

too many enquiries. Her time, if ever it was to come, would be when the

children were no longer living under the same roof as their parents. It

ended in her making up her mind to have nothing to do with either Joey

or Charlotte, but to see so much of Ernest as should enable her to form

an opinion about his disposition and abilities.

He had now been a year and a half at Roughborough and was nearly

fourteen years old, so that his character had begun to shape. His aunt

had not seen him for some little time and, thinking that if she was to

exploit him she could do so now perhaps better than at any other time,

she resolved to go down to Roughborough on some pretext which should be

good enough for Theobald, and to take stock of her nephew under

circumstances in which she could get him for some few hours to herself.

Accordingly in August 1849, when Ernest was just entering on his fourth

half year a cab drove up to Dr Skinner’s door with Miss Pontifex, who

asked and obtained leave for Ernest to come and dine with her at the

Swan Hotel. She had written to Ernest to say she was coming and he was

of course on the look-out for her. He had not seen her for so long that

he was rather shy at first, but her good nature soon set him at his

ease. She was so strongly biassed in favour of anything young that her

heart warmed towards him at once, though his appearance was less

prepossessing than she had hoped. She took him to a cake shop and gave

him whatever he liked as soon as she had got him off the school

premises; and Ernest felt at once that she contrasted favourably even

with his aunts the Misses Allaby, who were so very sweet and good. The

Misses Allaby were very poor; sixpence was to them what five shillings

was to Alethea. What chance had they against one who, if she had a

mind, could put by out of her income twice as much as they, poor women,

could spend?

The boy had plenty of prattle in him when he was not snubbed, and

Alethea encouraged him to chatter about whatever came uppermost. He was

always ready to trust anyone who was kind to him; it took many years to

make him reasonably wary in this respect—if indeed, as I sometimes

doubt, he ever will be as wary as he ought to be—and in a short time he

had quite dissociated his aunt from his papa and mamma and the rest,

with whom his instinct told him he should be on his guard. Little did

he know how great, as far as he was concerned, were the issues that

depended upon his behaviour. If he had known, he would perhaps have

played his part less successfully.

His aunt drew from him more details of his home and school life than

his papa and mamma would have approved of, but he had no idea that he

was being pumped. She got out of him all about the happy Sunday

evenings, and how he and Joey and Charlotte quarrelled sometimes, but

she took no side and treated everything as though it were a matter of

course. Like all the boys, he could mimic Dr Skinner, and when warmed

with dinner, and two glasses of sherry which made him nearly tipsy, he

favoured his aunt with samples of the Doctor’s manner and spoke of him

familiarly as “Sam.”

“Sam,” he said, “is an awful old humbug.” It was the sherry that

brought out this piece of swagger, for whatever else he was Dr Skinner

was a reality to Master Ernest, before which, indeed, he sank into his

boots in no time. Alethea smiled and said, “I must not say anything to

that, must I?” Ernest said, “I suppose not,” and was checked. By-and-by

he vented a number of small second-hand priggishnesses which he had

caught up believing them to be the correct thing, and made it plain

that even at that early age Ernest believed in Ernest with a belief

which was amusing from its absurdity. His aunt judged him charitably as

she was sure to do; she knew very well where the priggishness came

from, and seeing that the string of his tongue had been loosened

sufficiently gave him no more sherry.

It was after dinner, however, that he completed the conquest of his

aunt. She then discovered that, like herself, he was passionately fond

of music, and that, too, of the highest class. He knew, and hummed or

whistled to her all sorts of pieces out of the works of the great

masters, which a boy of his age could hardly be expected to know, and

it was evident that this was purely instinctive, inasmuch as music

received no kind of encouragement at Roughborough. There was no boy in

the school as fond of music as he was. He picked up his knowledge, he

said, from the organist of St Michael’s Church who used to practise

sometimes on a week-day afternoon. Ernest had heard the organ booming

away as he was passing outside the church and had sneaked inside and up

into the organ loft. In the course of time the organist became

accustomed to him as a familiar visitant, and the pair became friends.

It was this which decided Alethea that the boy was worth taking pains

with. “He likes the best music,” she thought, “and he hates Dr Skinner.

This is a very fair beginning.” When she sent him away at night with a

sovereign in his pocket (and he had only hoped to get five shillings)

she felt as though she had had a good deal more than her money’s worth

for her money.