Jerome Jerome - They and I

"But will Dick stick to it?" Ethelbertha wondered.

"There, again," I pointed out to her, "the choice was one calling for exceptional foresight. The old man―as a matter of fact, he isn't old at all; can't be very much older than myself; I don't know why they all call him the old man―has formed a high opinion of Dick. His daughter told me so, and I have taken care to let Dick know it. The boy will not care to disappoint him. Her mother―"

"Whose mother?" interrupted Ethelbertha.

"Janie's mother, Mrs. St. Leonard," I explained. "She also has formed a good opinion of him. The children like him. Janie told me so."

"She seems to do a goodish deal of talking, this Miss Janie," remarked Ethelbertha.

"You will like her," I said. "She is a charming girl―so sensible, and good, and unselfish, and―"

"Who told you all this about her?" interrupted Ethelbertha.

"You can see it for yourself," I answered. "The mother appears to be a nonentity, and St. Leonard himself―well, he is not a business man. It is Janie who manages everything―keeps everything going."

"What is she like?" asked Ethelbertha.

"I am telling you," I said. "She is so practical, and yet at the same time―"

"In appearance, I mean," explained Ethelbertha.

"How you women," I said, "do worry about mere looks! What does it matter? If you want to know, it is that sort of face that grows upon you. At first you do not notice how beautiful it is, but when you come to look into it―"

"And has she also formed a high opinion of Dick?" interrupted Ethelbertha.

"She will be disappointed in him," I said, "if he does not work hard and stick to it. They will all be disappointed in him."

"What's it got to do with them?" demanded Ethelbertha.

"I'm not thinking about them," I said. "What I look at is―"

"I don't like her," said Ethelbertha. "I don't like any of them."

"But―" She didn't seem to be listening.

"I know that class of man," she said; "and the wife appears, if anything, to be worse. As for the girl―"

"When you come to know them―" I said.

She said she didn't want to know them. She wanted to go down on Monday, early.

I got her to see―it took some little time―the disadvantages of this. We should only be adding to Robina's troubles; and change of plan now would unsettle Dick's mind.

"He has promised to write me," I said, "and tell me the result of his first day's experience. Let us wait and hear what he says."

She said that whatever could have possessed her to let me take those poor unfortunate children away from her, and muddle up everything without her, was a mystery to herself. She hoped that, at least, I had done nothing irrevocable in the case of Veronica.

"Veronica," I said, "is really wishful, I think, to improve. I have bought her a donkey."

"A what?" exclaimed Ethelbertha.

"A donkey," I repeated. "The child took a fancy to it, and we all agreed it might help to steady her―give her a sense of responsibility."

"I somehow felt you hadn't overlooked Veronica," said Ethelbertha.

I thought it best to change the conversation. She seemed in a fretful mood.

Robina's letter was dated Monday evening, and reached us Tuesday morning.

"I hope you caught your train," she wrote. "Veronica did not get back till half-past six. She informed me that you and she had found a good deal to talk about, and that 'one thing had led to another.' She is a quaint young imp, but I think your lecture must have done her good. Her present attitude is that of gentle forbearance to all around her―not without its dignity. She has not snorted once, and at times is really helpful. I have given her an empty scribbling diary we found in your desk, and most of her spare time she remains shut up with it in the bedroom. She tells me you and she are writing a book together. I asked her what about. She waved me aside with the assurance that I would know 'all in good time,' and that it was going to do good. I caught sight of just the title-page last night. It was lying open on the dressing-table: 'Why the Man in the Moon looks sat upon.' It sounds like a title of yours. But I would not look further, though tempted. She has drawn a picture underneath. It is really not bad. The old gentleman really does look sat upon, and intensely disgusted.

"'Sir Robert'―his name being Theodore, which doesn't seem to suit him―turns out to be the only son of a widow, a Mrs. Foy, our next-door neighbour to the south. We met her coming out of church on Sunday morning. She was still crying. Dick took Veronica on ahead, and I walked part of the way home with them. Her grandfather, it appears, was killed many years ago by the bursting of a boiler; and she is haunted, poor lady, by the conviction that Theodore is the inheritor of an hereditary tendency to getting himself blown up. She attaches no blame to us, seeing in Saturday's catastrophe only the hand of the Family Curse. I tried to comfort her with the idea that the Curse having spent itself upon a futile effort, nothing further need now be feared from it; but she persists in taking the gloomier view that in wrecking our kitchen, Theodore's 'Doom,' as she calls it, was merely indulging in a sort of dress rehearsal; the finishing performance may be relied upon to follow. It sounds ridiculous, but the poor woman was so desperately in earnest that when an unlucky urchin, coming out of a cottage we were passing, tripped on the doorstep and let fall a jug, we both screamed at the same time, and were equally surprised to find 'Sir Robert' still between us and all in one piece. I thought it foolish to discuss all this before the child himself; but did not like to stop her. As a result, he regards himself evidently as the chosen foe of Heaven, and is not, unnaturally, proud of himself. She called here this (Monday) afternoon to leave cards; and, at her request, I showed her the kitchen and the mat over which he had stumbled. She seemed surprised that the 'Doom' had let slip so favourable a chance of accomplishing its business, and gathered from the fact added cause for anxiety. Evidently something much more thorough is in store for Master Theodore. It was only half a pound of gunpowder, she told me. Doctor Smallboy's gardener had bought it for the purpose of raising the stump of an old elm-tree, and had left it for a moment on the grass while he had returned to the house for more brown paper. She seemed pleased with the gardener, who, as she said, might, if dishonestly inclined, have charged her for a pound. I wanted to pay for―at all events―our share, but she would not take a penny. Her late lamented grandfather she regards as the person responsible for the entire incident, and perhaps it may be as well not to disturb her view. Had I suggested it, I feel sure she would have seen the justice of her providing us with a new kitchen range.

"Wildly exaggerated accounts of the affair are flying round the neighbourhood; and my chief fear is that Veronica may discover she is a local celebrity. Your sudden disappearance is supposed to have been heavenward. An old farm labourer who saw you pass on your way to the station speaks of you as 'the ghost of the poor gentleman himself;' and fragments of clothing found anywhere within a radius of two miles are being preserved, I am told, as specimens of your remains. Boots would appear to have been your chief apparel. Seven pairs have already been collected from the surrounding ditches. Among the more public-spirited there is talk of using you to start a local museum."

These first three paragraphs I did not read to Ethelbertha. Fortunately they just filled the first sheet, which I took an opportunity of slipping into my pocket unobserved.

"The new boy arrived on Sunday morning," she continued. "His name―if I have got it right―is William. Anyhow, that is the nearest I can get to it. His other name, if any, I must leave you to extract from him yourself. It may be Berkshire that he talks, but it sounds more like barking. Please excuse the pun; but I have just been talking to him for half an hour, trying to make him understand that I want him to go home, and maybe, as a result, I am feeling a little hysterical. Anything more rural I cannot imagine. But he is anxious to learn, and a fairly wide field is in front of him. I caught him after our breakfast on Sunday calmly throwing everything left over onto the dust-heap. I pointed out to him the wickedness of wasting nourishing food, and impressed upon him that the proper place for victuals was inside us. He never answers. He stands stock still, with his mouth as wide open as it will go―which is saying a good deal―and one trusts that one's words are entering into him. All Sunday afternoon he was struggling valiantly against an almost supernatural sleepiness. After tea he got worse, and I began to think he would be no use to me. We none of us ate much supper; and Dick, who appears able to understand him, helped him to carry the things out. I heard them talking, and then Dick came back and closed the door behind him. 'He wants to know,' said Dick, 'if he can leave the corned beef over till tomorrow. Because, if he eats it all to-night, he doesn't think he will be able to walk home.'