George Fenn - The Story of Antony Grace

“Now then, what are you doing there?” cried Mr Blakeford harshly, as he entered in his slippers. “Go and make the tea; what do you want to begin chattering to that boy for about our private affairs?”

Mrs Blakeford muttered something about being always wrong, and turned to go.

“Always wrong? Of course you are, when you will come meddling with what don’t concern you. Now then,” he cried, turning sharply round to me, “what are you staring at? Get a cloth and rub down that desk and table. Can’t you see how dusty they are?”

“Yes, sir,” I said, for it was very evident. “Then why don’t you go and do it, blockhead?”

I started to perform the task in great alarm; but I had no duster, and dared not ask him. Fortunately he was called away just then to his breakfast; but he seemed to me to be there still, gazing at me with his keen dark eyes, while his tightly closed thin lips seemed as if they were about to be drawn aside to bite.

As soon as I was alone I stole into the kitchen to ask for a duster.

“Don’t bother me; can’t you see I’m making toast?” was my greeting.

I could see she was making toast, and my attention was further called to it by the sharp ringing of a bell.

“Ah, ring away,” said the woman, going on with her task. “You may ring the bell down, and then I shan’t come till the toast’s done, do now then!”

“Please, Mary, is the – ”

I turned upon hearing the pleasant little voice again, which stopped short as I looked round, and our eyes met once more.

“No, Miss Hetty, my dear, the toast ain’t done,” said the woman more softly; “and you may tell your ma that if she is in a hurry she must wait till her hurry’s over.”

“Don’t be cross, Mary,” said the child; and tripping across the kitchen, she ran up to where the woman was kneeling before the fender, kissed her cheek, and tripped out again.

“They may thank her for it, that they may,” grumbled Mary, as if speaking to the fire, “for if it wasn’t for her I wouldn’t stop a day longer in their nasty, disagreeable old house. There!”

The toast was by this time done, and Mary was scraping away at a burnt spot, when the bell began to ring more violently than before, with the result that, instead of running off with the toast, Mary deliberately placed it upon the fender and went across to one of the dresser drawers, out of which she took a clean duster.

“Ring away!” she grumbled. “There’s a duster for you, boy. And look here; you must be hungry. Stop a minute and I’ll cut you a slice. Ah, ring away! You don’t frighten me.”

To my horror, she coolly spread thickly a slice of bread, cut it, and handed it to me before buttering the toast with which she at last crawled out of the kitchen, while I literally fled to the office, laid the bread and butter on the desk, and stopped to listen.

At the end of half an hour the bell rang again, and soon after Mary came sulkily into the office with a mug of half-cold weak tea and some lumps, not slices, of bread and butter. These she thrust before me, and I was sadly making my breakfast when Mr Blakeford entered the place.

“Come, make haste!” he said sharply; and as I glanced up at him I read in his face that for some reason or another he had taken a great dislike to me. I could not tell then, nor did I know for long afterwards, why this was; but it grew more evident hour by hour that he hated the sight of my anxious young face, and that my sojourn with him was to be far from pleasant.

He took his seat at the table while I tried to finish my breakfast, but his coming had completely taken away my appetite, and at the end of a few minutes I hastened to take the mug and plate to the kitchen, and then returned to the office.

“Now, sir,” Mr Blakeford began, “just look here. Your father owed me a large sum of money when he died, and I have taken you on here quite out of compassion. Do you hear?”

“Yes, sir,” I faltered.

“Well, you’ve got to learn to be of use to me as soon as you can. You can write, I suppose?”

“Yes, sir – not very well,” I faltered.

“Of course you can’t. No boy brought up as you have been, without going to a school, could be expected to write a decent hand. But look here, you’ll have to try and write well; so take that paper to the desk and copy it out in a neat round hand.”

I took the paper with trembling hands, climbed to the desk, spread the sheet of foolscap ready upon a big piece of blotting-paper, and took up one of the pens before me.

Those were the days before steel nibs had become common, and the pen I took was a quill split up and spoiled.

I took another and another, but they were all the same; and then, glancing at the inkstand, I found that it was dry.

I hardly dared to do it, but he glanced up at me to see if I had begun, and I ventured to say that there was neither pen nor ink.

“Of course not, blockhead. Get down and fetch some off the chimney-piece.”

I gladly obeyed; and then, resuming my seat, with the words on the paper dancing before my eyes, made my first essay as Mr Blakeford’s clerk.

The writing before me was not very distinct, but I managed to decipher it pretty well, getting a little puzzled as to the meaning of “ads.” and “exors.,” with various other legal contractions, but after the first line or two going steadily on, for, bad as my education had been, I was able to write a boy’s neat round hand, consequent upon often copying out lists for my father, or names to label the collections we made.

I had been writing about half an hour, working away diligently enough, when I heard the chair on the other side of the partition scroop, and Mr Blakeford came up behind me. I fully expected a severe scolding or a blow when he took up my sheet of foolscap and scanned it over, but he threw it down before me again with a grunt.

Soon afterwards he rose and went out, leaving me busy over my task, writing till I grew giddy and my head began to ache.

About the middle of the day Mary came in with some bread and meat; and about six o’clock there was another mug of thin tea and some pieces of bread and butter. Then the night came on, the gas was lighted, and I finished my first day in what seemed to be, and really was, as I look back upon it now, little better than a prison.

The days crept slowly by as I took my place each morning at the desk, finding always something fresh to copy in a neat round hand, and at this I patiently toiled on, with my old griefs growing more dull as a little hope began to arise that I might soon see little Hetty to speak to again; but though from time to time I heard the voice and the sound of a piano upon which some one was industriously practising, she never came near the office.

Mr Blakeford seemed as brutal to everyone in the house as he was to me. The only person who did not seem afraid of him was Mary, and upon her his angry scoldings had no effect whatever. To me she was harsh and uncouth as on my first arrival, but, seeing that the amount given me for my meals was disgracefully small, after the first week she did take care that I had a sufficiency of food, although it only took one form.

I remember upon one occasion, having to go to the kitchen door, and finding her muttering angrily to herself, while upon seeing me she exclaimed:

“They’ve been going on about too much butter being used again. Come here!”

I went closer to her, and she hurried into the larder, and came out with a roll of fresh butter and a new loaf, cutting off a thick piece and plastering it excessively with butter.

“There!” she exclaimed, “you go back into the office, and don’t you show your face here again until you’ve eaten up every scrap of that. I’ll teach ’em to grumble about the butter.”