George Fenn - The Story of Antony Grace

The place was cold and miserable, chilling to a degree, but it was clean; and as I looked round I was surprised by seeing on a chair a heap of my clothes and a brush and comb.

I had just finished looking round when I heard a noise below.

“You Antony!” shouted Mr Blakeford; “mind you put that candle out safely, and look sharp into bed.”

I obeyed by hastily undressing and putting out the candle to get quickly into bed. It was not to lie down, but, after once more battling with my weakness, to offer up the simple prayers I had been taught, and then, still upon my knees, but with my head drooping on to the pillow, falling fast asleep.

I awoke terribly depressed at daybreak, to listen to some noisy fowls close by, and then I could hear that the rain was pattering heavily down.

Ought I to get up then, or should I lie a little longer? I could not tell, but I recollected Mr Blakeford’s words, and as I did so the same wretched despondent feeling came over me as I thought of my helplessness, and trembled, feeling sure I should give offence.

There are few people who thoroughly realise the sufferings of a tenderly nurtured, sensitive boy when first called upon to battle with the world amongst unsympathising strangers. He is only a boy in their eyes, and they fail to give him credit for the same feelings as themselves, when too often he is far more finely strung, and suffers acutely from every unkind word and look. The very act of going from home is distressing enough, but when it is supplemented by his finding himself forced to make his first essays in some uncongenial task to which his hands and the brain that should guide are totally unaccustomed, a feeling of despair often takes possession of his young spirit, and is accompanied by a hopeless despondency that is long before it wears away.

I had had painful afflictions enough during the past weeks, so that I was anything but well prepared for my new life. Besides, I had been badly fed, and the natural sinking caused by the want of proper food terribly augmented my sense of misery.

The rain pattered down on the slates and skylight, while the water ran along the gutter and gurgled strangely in a pipe close to the corner where my bed was placed, as I lay wondering what I had better do. The office was below me, with its silent clock, but perhaps I should not be doing right, I thought, if I got up and went down to see the time. Perhaps, too, the place might be locked up.

I lay thinking in this undecided way till all my doubts were set aside, for there was a loud continuous ringing just outside my door, one which was kept up as if some angry person were sawing away at the wire with the full intention of dragging it down.

It agonised me as I jumped out of bed and began hastily to dress, for I felt as if it must be to rouse me up, and as if I had inadvertently been guilty of some lapse.

The bell stopped ringing as suddenly as it had begun, and with a feeling of relief I continued dressing, but only to start nervously as I heard Mr Blakeford’s voice at the foot of the stairs shouting my name.

“Do you hear that bell, sir?” he cried.

“Yes, sir.”

“Then make haste down; don’t be all the morning dressing.”

Then there was the loud banging of a door, and I hastily finished, and went down cautiously, found the office door at the end of the dim passage, and was just going in when the sharp voice of the servant arrested me.

“Here, you – what’s your name?” she said harshly.

“Antony, ma’am.”

“Ho! Then, Mister Antony, missus says you’re to make yourself useful. They’ve pretty well worked the flesh off my bones since I’ve been here, so you must just help to put a little on.”

I looked at her in amazement, and she certainly was not at all prepossessing, being a tall raw-boned woman of some three or four and twenty, in a hastily-put-on cotton dress, her hair rough and untidy, and displaying a general aspect of having spent as little time as possible upon her toilet.

“Now, then, don’t stand staring like that!” she said. “Come along here, and fill this scuttle.”

She led the way into the kitchen and pointed to a large coalscuttle, which I had to take and fill for her, after which she seemed to hesitate as to whether she should place the broom she held in my hands; but, probably under the impression that it would save her no trouble, she altered her mind, and went and fetched a large pair of dirty Wellington boots, which she threw down upon the floor.

“There, go into that shed and clean them and your own too, and mind you do ’em well,” she cried. “He’s a reg’lar wunner about his boots.”

My experience in boot-cleaning consisted in having seen the groom at home occasionally polish a pair, so I was no adept: but hastily setting to, I worked hard at the task, and succeeded indifferently well with the big Wellingtons before bestowing the same pains upon my own shoes.

I need hardly say that I was not very quick over my task, and so it happened that when I returned to the kitchen the fire was brightly burning, the kettle boiling, and my new friend, or enemy, seated at her breakfast.

“There, you can put ’em down,” she said, with her mouth full of bread and butter. “And now you’d best go and wait in the orfice till he comes. You’re too much of a gent, I s’pose, to have meals with me?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” I said, rather piteously.

“Don’t you? Well, then, I do. You’re to have your victuals in the orfice, and I s’pose they’ll send some out to you when they’re done, seeing as you’re took here out o’ charity.”

I felt a red spot burn in each cheek at these words, but I said nothing, only went sadly to the office, which looked terribly dim and gloomy in the morning light. The dust lay thick upon bill and parchment, and the drab books with their red patches upon their backs I could see by this light were old, discoloured, and worn.

Judging from the appearance of the place, in spite of the ink marks and well-stained blotting-paper, there was not much work carried on there, though, of course, I could not judge that then. All that struck me was that the place looked most melancholy, and that a gloomy yew-tree that half shaded one window was heavily laden with drops of rain.

Seeing my mug and plate upon the big desk, I remembered the words of the servant, and hastened to take them to the kitchen, where I was received with a scowl, and hastened to retreat back to the office.

I had been standing there about an hour, and had just noticed that the clock pointed to half-past eight, when I heard a light step behind me, and, turning round, there stood the girl I had seen in the garden at home.

Her bright, fresh young face was the first pleasant thing upon which my eyes had rested since I came the night before, and as we stood gazing at each other it seemed to me that I could read sympathy and welcome in her frank smile.

“Good-morning,” she said quietly, and held out her hand, which I was in the act of taking, when a wiry sharp voice cried loudly —

“Hetty! Hetty! where are you?”

“Here, mamma,” cried my visitor.

“Then you’ve no business there,” cried the same voice; and the owner – to wit, the lady I had seen in the garden – came in. “Go back to the parlour directly, miss; and mind this, you are never to come in here at all.”

The girl looked eagerly at me again, nodded, and tripped away, leaving a hopeful feeling behind that I could not explain.

“So you are young Grace,” said the lady, whom I presumed to be Mrs Blakeford, and I gazed wonderingly at her pained wrinkled face and weak-looking, wandering eyes. “Mind this: you are to keep in the office. I won’t have you in my rooms; and Mr Blakeford says you are not to be in the kitchen on account of the neighbours’ remarks. I’m sure I don’t know why we study people who never study us; and I’m pinched enough for money now, without having you thrown on to my housekeeping.”