Charlotte M. Yonge
Friarswood Post Office
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4057664561435
Table of Contents
CHAPTER V—AN UNWELCOME VISITOR
CHAPTER VII—HAROLD TAKES A WRONG TURN
CHAPTER XI—BETTER DAYS FOR PAUL
CHAPTER I—THE STRANGE LAD
‘Goodness! If ever I did see such a pig!’ said Ellen King, as she mounted the stairs. ‘I wouldn’t touch him with a pair of tongs!’
‘Who?’ said a voice from the bedroom.
‘Why, that tramper who has just been in to buy a loaf! He is a perfect pig, I declare! I only wonder you did not find of him up here! The police ought to hinder such folk from coming into decent people’s shops! There, you may see him now!’
‘Is that he upon the bridge—that chap about the size of our Harold?’
‘Yes. Did you ever see such a figure? His clothes aren’t good enough for a scare-crow—and the dirt, you can’t see that from here, but you might sow radishes in it!’
‘Oh, he’s swinging on the rail, just as I used to do. Put me down, Nelly; I don’t want to see any more.’ And the eyes filled with tears; there was a working about the thin cheeks and the white lips, and a long sigh came out at last, ‘Oh, if I was but like him!’
‘Like him! I’d wish something else before I wished that,’ said Ellen. ‘Don’t think about it, Alfred dear; here are Miss Jane’s pictures.’
‘I don’t want the pictures,’ said Alfred wearily, as he laid his head down on his white pillow, and shut his eyes because they were hot with tears.
Ellen looked at him very sadly, and the feeling in her own mind was, that he was right, and nothing could make up for the health and strength that she knew her mother feared would never return to him.
There he lay, the fair hair hanging round the white brow with the furrows of pain in it, the purple-veined lids closed over the great bright blue eyes, the long fingers hanging limp and delicate as a lady’s, the limbs stretched helplessly on the couch, whither it cost him so much pain to be daily moved. Who would have thought, that not six months ago that poor cripple was the merriest and most active boy in the parish?
The room was not a sad-looking one. There were spotless white dimity curtains round the lattice window; and the little bed, and the walnut of the great chest, and of the doors of the press-bed on which Alfred lay, shone with dark and pale grainings. There was a carpet on the floor, and the chairs had chintz cushions; the walls were as white as snow, and there were pretty china ornaments on the mantel-piece, many little pictures hanging upon the walls, and quite a shelf of books upon the white cloth, laid so carefully on the top of the drawers. A little table beside Alfred held a glass with a few flowers, a cup with some toast and water, a volume of the ‘Swiss Family Robinson;’ and a large book of prints of animals was on a chair where he could reach it.
A larger table was covered with needle-work, shreds of lining, scissors, tapes, and Ellen’s red work-box; and she herself sat beside it, a very nice-looking girl of about seventeen, tall and slim, her lilac dress and white collar fitting beautifully, her black apron sitting nicely to her trim waist, and her light hair shining, like the newly-wound silk of the silk-worm, round her pleasant face; where the large, clear, well-opened blue eyes, and the contrast of white and red on the cheek, were a good deal like poor Alfred’s, and gave an air of delicacy.
Their father had been, as their mother said, ‘the handsomest coachman who ever drove to St. James’s;’ but he had driven thither once too often; he had caught his death of cold one bitter day when Lady Jane Selby was obliged to go to a drawing-room, and had gone off in a deep decline fourteen years ago, when the youngest of his five children was not six weeks old.
The Selby family were very kind to Mrs. King, who, besides her husband’s claims on them, had been once in service there; and moreover, had nursed Miss Jane, the little heiress, Ellen’s foster-sister. By their help she had been able to use her husband’s savings in setting up a small shop, where she sold tea, tobacco and snuff, tape, cottons, and such little matters, besides capital bread of her own baking, and various sweet-meats, the best to the taste of her own cooking, the prettiest to the eye brought from Elbury. Oranges too, and apples, shewed their yellow or rosy cheeks at her window in their season; and there was sometimes a side of bacon, displaying under the brown coat the delicate pink stripes bordering the white fat. Of late years one pane of her window had been fitted up with a wooden box, with a slit in it on the outside, and a whole region round it taken up with printed sheets of paper about ‘Mails to Gothenburg—Weekly Post to Vancouver’s Island’—and all sorts of places to which the Friarswood people never thought of writing.
Altogether, she throve very well; and she was a good woman, whom every one respected for the pains she took to bring up her children well. The eldest, Charles, had died of consumption soon after his father, and there had been much fear for his sister Matilda; but Lady Jane had contrived to have her taken as maid to a lady who usually spent the winter abroad, and the warm climate had strengthened her health. She was not often at Friarswood; but when she came she looked and spoke like a lady—all the more so as she gave herself no airs, but was quite simple and humble, for she was a very good right-minded young woman, and exceedingly fond of her home and her good mother.
Ellen would have liked to copy Matilda in everything; and as a first step, she went for a year to a dress-maker; but just as this was over, Alfred’s illness had begun; and as he wanted constant care and attendance, it was thought better that she should take in work at home. Indeed Alfred was such a darling of hers, that she could not have endured to go away and leave him so ill.
Alfred