Wrecked in Port/Book I, Chapter XI
Chapter XI.The Lout.
Mr. Creswell's only son, who was named after Mr. Creswell's only brother, by no means resembled his prototype either in appearance, manners, or disposition. For whereas Tom Creswell the elder had been a long, lean, washed-out looking person, with long wiry black hair, sallow complexion, hollow cheeks, and a faint dawn of a moustache (in his youth he had turned down his collars and modelled himself generally on Lord Byron, and throughout his life he was declared by his wife to be most aristocratic and romantic looking), Tom Creswell the younger had a small, round, bullet head, with closely cropped sandy hair, eyes deeply sunken and but little visible, snub nose, wide mouth, and dimpled chin. Tom Creswell the elder rose at noon, and lay upon the sofa all day, composing verses, reading novels, or playing the flute. Tom Creswell the younger was up at five every morning, round through the stables, saw the horses properly fed, peered into every corn-bin ("Darng, now whey do thot? Darnged if un doesn't count carn grains, I think," was the groom's muttered exclamation on this proceeding), ran his hand over the animals, and declared that they "didn't carry as much flesh as they might," with a look at the helpers, which obviously meant that they starved the cattle and sold the oats. Then Tom the younger would go to the garden, where his greatest delight lay in counting the peaches, and nectarines, and plums, and apricots, nestling coyly against the old red south wall; in taking stock of the cucumbers and melons, under their frames; and in ticking off the number of the bunches of grapes slowly ripening in the sickly heat of the vinery, while the Scotch head gardener, a man whose natural hot-headedness was barely kept within bounds by the strictness of his religious opinions, would stand by looking on, outwardly placid, but inwardly burning to deliver himself of his sentiments in the Gaelic language. Tom Creswell the elder was always languid and ailing; as a boy he had worn a comforter, and a hareskin on his chest; had taken cough-lozenges and jujubes; had been laughed at and called "Molly" and "Miss" by his school-fellows, and had sighed and simpered away his existence. Tom Creswell the younger was strong as a Shetland pony, and hard as a tennis ball, full of exuberant vitality which, not finding sufficient vent in ordinary schoolboy fun, in cricket, or hockey, or football, let itself off in cruelty, in teasing and stoning animals, in bullying smaller boys. Tom Creswell the elder was weak, selfish, idle, and conceited, but you could not help allowing it—he was a gentleman. Tom Creswell the younger—you could not possibly deny it—was a blatant cad.
Not the least doubt of it. Everybody knew it, and most people owned it. Down in the village it was common talk. Mr. Creswell was wonderfully respected in Helmingham town, though the old people minded the day when he was thought little of. Helmingham is strictly conservative, and when Mr. Creswell first settled himself at Woolgreaves, and commenced his restoration of the house, and was known to be spending large sums on the estate, and was seen to have horses and equipages, very far outshining those of Sir Thomas Churchill of the Park, who was lord of the manor, and a county magnate of the very first order, the village folk could not understand a man of no particular birth or breeding, and whose money, it was well known, had been made in trade—which, to the Helmingham limited comprehension, meant across a counter in a shop, "just like Tom Boucher, the draper"—attaining such a position. They did not like the idea of being patronised by one whom they considered to be of their own order, and the foolish face which had been transmitted through ten generations, and the stupid head which had never had a wise idea or a kindly thought in it, received the homage which was denied to the clever man who had been the founder of his own fortune, and who was the best landlord and the kindest neighbour in the country round. But this prejudice soon wore away. The practical good sense which had gained for Mr. Creswell his position soon made itself felt among the Helmingham folk, and the "canny" ones soon grew as loud in his praise as they had been in his disparagement. Even Jack Forman, the ne'er-do-weel of the village, who was always sunning his fat form at alehouse doors, and who had but few good words for any one, save for the most recent "stander" of beer, had been heard to declare outside that Mr. Creswell was the "raight soort," a phrase which, in Jack's limited vocabulary, stood for something highly complimentary. The young ladies, too, were exceedingly popular. They were pretty, of a downright English prettiness, expressed in hair and eyes and complexion, a prettiness commending itself at once to the uneducated English rustic taste, which is apt to find classical features "peaky," and romantic expression "fal-lal." They were girls about whom there was "no nonsense"—cheerful, bright, and homely. The feelings which congealed into cold politeness under the influence of Marian Ashurst's supposed "superiority" overflowed with womanly tenderness when their possessor was watching Widow Halton through the fever, or tending little Madge Mason's crippled limb. The bright faces of "the young ladies" were known for miles through the country round, and whenever sickness or distress crossed the threshold they were speedily followed by these ministering angels. If human prayers for others' welfare avail on high, Mr. Creswell and his nieces had them in scores.
But the Helmingham folk did not pray much for young Tom; on the contrary, their aspirations towards him were, it is to be feared, of a malignant kind. The warfare which always existed between the village folk and the Grammar School boys was carried on without rancour. The farmers whose orchards were robbed, whose growing wheat was trampled down, whose ducks were dog-hunted, contented themselves with putting in an occasional appearance with a cart-whip, fully knowing, at the same time, the impossibility of catching their young and active tormentors, and with "darng-ing" the rising generation in general, and the youth then profiting by Sir Ranulph Clinton's generosity in particular. The village tradesmen whose windows were broken, when they discovered who were the offenders, laid on an additional item to their parents' account; when they could not bring the crime home to any boy in particular, laid on an additional item to Mr. Ashurst's account, and thus consoled themselves. Moreover there was a general feeling that somehow, in a way that they could not and never attempted to explain, the school, since Mr. Ashurst had had it in hand, had been a credit to the place, and the canny folk, in their canniness, liked something which brought them credit and cost them nothing, and had friendly feelings to the masters and the boys. But not to young Tom Creswell. They hated him, and they said so roundly. What was youthful merriment and mischief in other boys was, they averred, "bedevilment" in young Tom. Standing at their doors on fine summer evenings, the village folk would pause in their gossip to look after him as he cantered by on his chesnut pony—an animal which Banks, the farrier, declared to be as vicious and as cross-grained as its master. Eyes were averted as he passed, and no hat was raised in salutation; but that mattered little to the rider. He noticed it, of course, as he noticed everything in his hang-dog manner, with furtive glances under his eyebrows; and he thought that when he came into his kingdom—he often speculated upon that time—he would make these dogs pay for their insolence. Jack Forman was never drunk, no given amount of beer—and it was always given in Jack's case, as he never paid for it—could make him wholly intoxicated; but when he was in that state, which he explained himself as having "an extry pint in him," Jack would stand up, holding on by the horse-trough in front of the Seven Stars, and shake his disengaged fist at young Tom riding past, and express his wish to wring young Tom's neck. Mr. Benthall, who had succeeded Mr. Ashurst as head-master of the school, was soon on excellent terms with Mr. Creswell, and thus had an opportunity of getting an insight into young Tom's character—an opportunity which rendered him profoundly thankful that that interesting youth was no longer numbered among his scholars, and caused him much wonderment as to how Trollope, who was the curate of a neighbouring parish, who had been chosen for young Tom's private tutor, could possibly get on with his pupil. Mr. Trollope, a mild, gentlemanly, retiring young man, with a bashful manner and a weak voice, found himself utterly unable to cope with the lout, who mocked at him before his face and mimicked him behind his back, and refused to be taught or guided by him in any way. So Mr. Trollope, after speaking to the lout's father, and finding but little good resulting therefrom, contented himself with setting exercises which were never done, and marking out lessons which were never learned, and bearing a vast amount of contumely and unpleasantness for the sake of a salary which was very regularly paid.
It must not be supposed that his son's strongly marked characteristics passed unobserved by Mr. Creswell, or that they failed to cause him an immensity of pain. The man's life had been so hard and earnest, so engrossing and so laborious, that he had only allowed himself two subjects for distraction, occasionally indulged in: one, regret for his wife; the other, hope in his son. As time passed away and he grew older, the first lessened and the other grew. His Jenny had been an angel on earth, he thought, and was now an angel in heaven, and the period was nearing, rapidly nearing, when, as he himself humbly hoped, he might be permitted to join her. Then his son would take his place, with no ladder to climb, no weary heart-burning and hard slaving to go through, but with the position achieved, the ball at his foot. In Mr. Creswell's own experience he had seen a score of men, whose fathers had been inferior to him in natural talent and business capacity, and in luck, which was not the least part of the affair, holding their own with the landed gentry whose ancestry had been "county people" for ages past, and playing at squires with as much grace and tact as if cotton-twist and coal-dust were things of which they might have heard, indeed, but with which they had never been brought into contact. It had been the dream of the old man's life that his son should be one of these. The first idea of the purchase of Woolgreaves, the lavish splendour with which the place had been rehabilitated and with which it was kept up, the still persistent holding on to business and superintending, though with but rare intervals, his own afiairs, all sprang from this hope. The old gentleman's tastes were simple in the extreme. He hated grandeur, disliked society, had had far more than enough of business worries. There was plenty, more than plenty, for him and his nieces to live on in affluence, but it had been the dearest wish of his heart to leave his son a man of mark, and do it he would.
Did he really think so? Not in his inmost heart. The keen eyes which had been accustomed for so long to read human nature like a book refused to be hoodwinked; the keen sense used to sift and balance human motives refused to be paltered with; the logical powers which deduced effect from cause refused to be stifled or led astray. To no human being were Tom Creswell's moral deficiencies and shortcomings more patent than to his father; it is needless to say that to none were they the subject of such bitter anguish. Mr. Creswell knew that his son was a failure, and worse than a failure. If he had been merely stupid there would have been not much to grieve over. The lad would have been a disappointment, as how many lads are disappointments to fond parents, and that was all. Hundreds, thousands of stupid young men filled their position in society with average success. Their money supported them, and they pulled through. He had hoped for something better than this for his son, but in the bitterness of his grief he allowed to himself that he would have been contented even with so much. But Mr. Creswell knew that his son was worse than stupid; that he was bad, low in his tastes and associations, sordid and servile in his heart, cunning, mean, and despicable. All the qualities which should have distinguished him—gentlemanly bearing, refined manners, cultivated tastes, generous impulses—all these he lacked: with a desire for sharp practice, hard-heartedness, rudeness towards those beneath him in the social scale, boorishness towards his equals, he was overflowing. Lout that he was, he had not even reverence for his father, had not even the decency to attempt to hide his badness, but paraded it in the open day before the eyes of all, with a kind of sullen pride. And that was to be the end of all Mr. Creswell's plotting and planning, all his hard work and high hopes? For this he had toiled, and slaved, and speculated? Many and many a bitter hour did the old man pass shut away in the seclusion of his library, thinking over the bright hopes which he had indulged in as regarded his son's career, and the way in which they had been slighted; the bright what might have been, the dim what was. Vainly the father would endeavour to argue with himself, that the boy was as yet but a boy; that when he became a man he would put away the things which were not childish indeed, for then would there have been more hope, but bad, and in the fulness of time develop into what had been expected of him. Mr. Creswell knew to the contrary. He had watched his son for years with too deep an interest not to have perceived that as the years passed away, the light lines in the boy's character grew dim and faint, and the dark lines deepened in intensity. Year by year the boy became harder, coarser, more calculating, and more avaricious. As a child he had lent his pocket money out on usury to his school-fellows, and now he talked to his father about investments and interest in a manner which would have pleased some parents and amused others, but which brought anything but pleasure to Mr. Creswell as he marked the keen hungry look in the boy's sunken eyes, and listened to his half-framed and abortive but always sordid plans.
Between father and son there was not the smallest bond of sympathy; that Mr. Creswell had brought himself to confess. How many score times had he looked into the boy's face hoping to see there some gleam of filial love, and had turned away bitterly disappointed! How often had he tried to engage the lad in topics of conversation which he imagined would have been congenial to him, and on which he might have suffered himself to be drawn out, but without the slightest success. The jovial miller who lived upon the Dee was not one whit less careless than Tom Creswell about the opinion which other folks entertained of him, so long as you did not interfere with any of his plans. Even the intended visit of Mrs. Ashurst and Marian to Woolgreaves elicited very little remark from him, although the girls imagined it might not be quite acceptable to him, and consulted together as to how the news should be broken to the domestic bashaw. After a great deal of cogitation and suggestion, it was decided that the best plan would be to take the tyrant at a favourable opportunity—at meal-time, for instance—and to approach the subject in a light and airy manner, as though it were of no great consequence, and was only mentioned for the sake of something to say. The plot thus conceived was duly carried out two days afterwards, on an occasion when, from the promptitude and agility with which he wielded his knife and fork, and the stertorous grunts and lip smackings which accompanied his performance, it was rightly judged that Master Tom was enjoying his luncheon with an extra relish. Mr. Creswell was absent; he seldom attended at the luncheon table, and the girls interchanged a nod of intelligence, and prepared to commence the play. They had had but little occasion or opportunity for acting, and were consequently nervous to a degree.
"Did you see much of Mrs. Ashurst in—in poor Mr. Ashurst's time, at the school, Tom?" commenced Gertrude, with a good deal of hesitation and a profound study of her plate.
"No, no, not much—quite enough!" returned Tom, without raising his head.
"Why quite enough, Tom?" came in Maud to the rescue. "She is a most delightful woman, I'm sure."
"Most charming," threw in Gertrude, a little undecidedly, but still in support.
"Ah, very likely," said Tom. "We didn't see much of her—the day boys I mean; but Peacock and the other fellows who boarded at Mr. Ashurst's declared she used to water the beer, and never sent back half the fellows' towels and sheets when they left."
"How disgraceful! how disgusting!" burst out Maud. "Mrs. Ashurst is a perfect lady, and—oh what wretches boys are!"
"Screech away! I don't mind," said the philosophic Tom. "Only what's up about this? What's the matter with old Mother Ashurst?"
"Nothing is the matter with Mrs. Ashurst, your father's friend, Tom," said Gertrude, trying a bit of dignity, and failing miserably therein, for Gertrude was a lovable, kissable, Dresden china style of beauty, without a particle of dignity in her whole composition. "Mrs. Ashurst is your father's friend, sir, at least the widow of his old friend, and your father has asked her to come and stay here on a visit, and—and we all hope you'll be polite to her." It was seldom that Gertrude achieved such a long sentence, or delivered one with so much force. It was quite plain that Mrs. Ashurst was a favourite of hers.
"Oh," said Tom, "all right! Old Mother Ashurst's coming here on a visit is she? All right!"
"And Miss Ashurst comes with her," said Maude.
"Oh Lord!" cried Tom Creswell. "Miss Prim coming too! That'll be a clear saving of the governor's vinegar and olives all the time she's here. She's a nice creature, she is." And he screwed up his mouth with an air of excessive distaste.
"Well, at all events she's going to be your father's guest, and we must all do our best to make the visit pleasant to them," said Gertrude, who, like most people who are most proud of what they do least well, thought she was playing dignity admirably.
"Oh, I don't care!" said Tom. "If the governor likes to have them here, and you two girls are so sweet upon them all of a sudden, I say, all right. Only look here—no interference with me in any way. The sight of me mustn't make the old lady break down and burst out blubbing, or anything of that sort, and no asking me how I'm getting on with my lessons, and that kind of thing. Stow that, mind!"
"You needn't trouble yourself, I think," said Maud; "it is scarcely likely that either Mrs. or Miss Ashurst will feel very keen interest in you or your pursuits."
And out of Maud's flashing eyes, and through Maud's tightly compressed lips, the sarcasm came cutting like a knife.
But when their visitors had been but a very short time established at Woolgreaves, it became evident not merely to Mr. Creswell, but to all in the house, that Master Tom had at last met with some one who could exercise influence over him, and that that some one was Marian Ashurst. It was the treatment that did it. Tom had been alternately petted and punished, scolded and spoiled, but he had never been turned into ridicule before, and when Marian tried that treatment on him he succumbed at once. He confessed he had always thought that "he could not stand chaff," and now he knew it. Marian's badinage was, as might be supposed, of a somewhat grave and serious order. Tom's bluntness, uncouthness, avarice, and self-love were constantly betraying themselves in his conversation and conduct, and each of them offered an admirable target at which Marian fired telling shots. The girls were at first astonished and then delighted, as was Mr. Creswell, who had a faint hope that under the correction thus lightly administered his son might be brought to see how objectionable were certain of his views and proceedings. The lout himself did not like it at all. His impossibility of standing "chaff," or of answering it, rendered him for the first time a nonentity in the family circle; his voice, usually loud and strident, was hushed whenever Marian came into the room. The domestic atmosphere at Woolgreaves was far more pleasant than it had been for some time, and Mr. Creswell thought that the "sweet little girl" was not merely a "dead hand at a bargain," but that she possessed the brute-taming power, in a manner hitherto undreamed of. Decidedly she was a very exceptional person, and more highly gifted than any one would suppose.
Tom hated her heartily, and chafed inwardly because he did not see his way to revenging himself on her. He had not the wit to reply when Marian turned him into ridicule, and he dared not answer her with mere rudeness, so he remained silent and sulky, brooding over his rage, and racking his brains to try and find a crack in his enemy's armour—a vulnerable place. He found it at last, but, characteristically, took no notice at the time, waiting for his opportunity. That came. One day, after luncheon, when her mother had gone up for a quiet nap, and the girls were practising duets in the music-room, Marian set out for a long walk across the hard, dry, frost-covered fields to the village; the air was brisk and bracing, and the girl was in better spirits than usual. She thoroughly appreciated the refined comforts and the luxurious living of Woolgreaves, and the conduct of the host and his nieces towards her had been so perfectly charming, that she had almost forgotten that her enjoyment of those luxuries was but temporary, and that very shortly she would have to face the world in a worse position than she had as yet occupied, and to fight the great battle of life, too, for her mother and herself. Often in the evening, as she sat in the drawing-room buried in the soft cushions of the sofa, dreamily listening to the music which the girls were playing, lazily watching her mother cozily seated in the chimney corner, and old Mr. Creswell by her, quietly beating time to the tune; the firelight flickering over the furniture, and appointments bespeaking wealth and comfort, she would fall into a kind of half-trance, in which she would believe that the great desire of her life had been accomplished, and that she was rich—placed far above the necessity of toil or the torture of penury. Nor was the dream ever entirely dispelled. The comfort and luxury were there, and as to the term of her enjoyment, how could that be prolonged? Her busy brain was filled with that idea this afternoon, and so deeply was she in thought, that she scarcely started at a loud crashing of branches close beside her, and only had time to draw back as Tom Creswell's chesnut mare, with Tom Creswell on her back, landed into the field beside her.
"Good heavens, Tom, how you startled me!" cried Marian; "and what's the matter with Kitty? She's covered with foam and trembling all over!"
"I've been taking it out of the blunder-headed brute, that's all, Miss Ashurst," said the lout, with a vicious dig of his spurs into the mare's sides, which caused her to snort loudly and to rear on end. "Ah, would you, you brute? She's got it in her head that she won't jump to-day, and I'm showing her she will, and she must, if I choose. Stand still, now, and get your wind, d'ye hear?" And he threw the reins on the mare's neck, and turned round in his saddle, facing Marian. "I'm glad I've met you, Miss Ashurst," he continued, with a very evil light in his sullen face, "for I've got something to say to you, and I'm just in the mood to say it now."
He looked so thoroughly vicious and despicable that Marian's first feeling of alarm changed into disgust, as she looked at him and said: "What is it, Tom—say on!"
"Oh, I intend to," said the lout, with a baleful grin. "I intend to say on, whether you like it or not. I've waited a precious long time, and I intend to speak now. Look here. You've had a fine turn at me, you have! Chaffin' me and pokin' your fun at me, and shuttin' me up whenever I spoke. You're doosid clever, you are, and so sharp, and all that; and I'm such a fool, I am, but I've found out your game for all that!"
"My game, Tom! Do you know what you're talking about, and to whom you are talking?"
"Oh, don't I! That's just it. I'm talking to Miss Marian Ashurst, and Miss Marian Ashurst's game is money-making! Lord bless you, they know all about it down in the village—the Crokers, and the Whichers, and them, they're full of stories of you when you was a little girl, and they all know you're not changed now. But look here, keep it to yourself, or take it away from our place. Don't try it on here. It's quite enough to have those two girls saddled on the family, but they are relations, and that's some excuse. We don't want any more, mark that. My father's getting old now, and he's weak, and don't see things so clearly as he did, but I do. I see why your mother's got hold of those girls, and how you're trying to make yourself useful to the governor. I heard you offering to go through the Home Farm accounts the other day!"
"I offered because your—because—oh, Tom! how dare you! You wicked, wicked boy!"
"Oh yes, I know, very likely, but I won't let any one interfere with me. You thought you were going to settle yourself on us. I don't intend it. I'm a boy, all right, but I know how to get my own way, and I means to have it. This hot-tempered brute" (pointing to the pony) "has found that out, and you'll find it out, too, before I have done with you. That's all. Get on, now."
The pony sprung into the air as he gave her a savage cut with his whip, and he rode off, leaving Marian in an agony of shame and rage.