Good! Mrs. Reed might have gone a little further. She began her instruction, but Cathy would not learn. Cathy was always good-humoured; but of work she would do none. If she attempted it, Mrs. Reed had to do it over again.
"Where on earth will the gentlefolks get their servants from, if the girls are to be like you?" cried honest Mrs. Reed.
Well, time went on; a year or two. Cathy Reed tried two or three services, but did not keep them. Young Mrs. Sterling at the Court at length took her. In three months Cathy was home again, as usual. "I do not think Catherine will be kept anywhere," Mrs. Sterling said to her step-mother. "When she ought to have been minding the baby, the nurse would find her with a strip of embroidery in her hand, or buried in the pages of some bad story that can only do her harm."
Cathy was turned seventeen when the warfare set in between her father and Major Parrifer. The Major suddenly cast his eyes on the little cottage outside his own land and coveted it. Before this, young Parrifer (a harmless young man, with no whiskers, and sandy hair parted down the middle) had struck up an acquaintance with Cathy. When he left Oxford (where he got plucked twice, and at length took his name off the books) he would often be seen leaning over the cottage-gate, talking to Cathy in the garden, with the two little half-sisters that she pretended to mind. There was no harm: but perhaps Major Parrifer feared it might grow into it; and he badly wanted the plot of ground, that he might pull down the cottage and extend his own boundaries to Piefinch Lane.
One fine day in the holidays, when Tod and I were indoors making flies for fishing, our old servant, Thomas, appeared, and said that George Reed had come over and wanted to speak to me. Which set us wondering.
What could he want with me?
"Show him in here," said Tod.
Reed came in: a tall, powerful man of forty; with dark, curling hair, and a determined, good-looking face. He began saying that he had heard Major Parrifer was after his cottage, wanting to buy it; so he had come over to beg me to interfere and stop the sale.
"Why, Reed, what can I do?" I asked. "You know I have no power."
"You wouldn"t turn me out of it yourself, I know, sir."
"That I wouldn"t."
Neither would I. I liked George Reed. And I remembered that he used to have me in his arms sometimes when I was a little fellow at the Court.
Once he carried me to my mother"s grave in the churchyard, and told me she had gone to live in heaven.
"When a rich gentleman sets his mind on a poor man"s bit of a cottage, and says, "That shall be mine," the poor man has not much chance against him, sir, unless he that owns the cottage will be his friend. I know you have no power at present, Master Johnny; but if you"d speak to Mr.
Brandon, perhaps he would listen to you."
"Sit down, Reed," interrupted Tod, putting his catgut out of hand. "I thought you had the cottage on a lease."
"And so I have, sir. But the lease will be out at Michaelmas next, and Mr. Brandon can turn me from it if he likes. My father and mother died there, sir; my wife died there; my children were born there; and the place is as much like my homestead as if it was my own."
"How do you know old Parrifer wants it?" continued Tod.
"I have heard it from a safe source. I"ve heard, too, that his lawyer and Mr. Brandon"s lawyer have settled the matter between their two selves, and don"t intend to let me as much as know I"m to go out till the time comes, for fear I should make a row over it. n.o.body on earth can stop it except Mr. Brandon," added Reed, with energy.
"Have you spoken to Mr. Brandon, Reed?"
"No, sir. I was going up to him; but the thought took me that I"d better come off at once to Master Ludlow; his word might be of more avail than mine. There"s no time to be lost. If once the lawyers get Mr. Brandon"s consent, he may not be able to recall it."
"What does Parrifer want with the cottage?"
"I fancy he covets the bit of garden, sir; he sees the order I"ve brought it into. If it"s not that, I don"t know what it can be. The cottage can be no eyesore to him; he can"t see it from his windows."
"Shall I go with you, Johnny?" said Tod, as Reed went home, after drinking the ale old Thomas had given him. "We will circ.u.mvent that Parrifer, if there"s law or justice in the Brandon land."
We went off to Mr. Brandon"s in the pony-carriage, Tod driving. He lived near Alcester, and had the management of my property whilst I was a minor. As we went along who should ride past, meeting us, but Major Parrifer.
"Looking like the bull-dog that he is," cried Tod, who could not bear the man. "Johnny, what will you lay that he has not been to Mr.
Brandon"s? The negotiations are becoming serious."
Tod did not go in. On second thought, he said it might be better to leave it to me. The Squire must try, if I failed. Mr. Brandon was at home; and Tod drove on into Alcester by way of pa.s.sing the time.
"But I don"t think you can see him," said the housekeeper, when she came to me in the drawing-room. "This is one of his bad days. A gentleman called just now, and I went in to the master, but it was of no use."
"I know; it was Major Parrifer. We thought he might have been calling here."
Mr. Brandon was thin and little, with a shrivelled face. He lived alone, except for three or four servants, and always fancied himself ill with one ailment or another. When I went in, for he said he"d see me, he was sitting in an easy-chair, with a geranium-coloured Turkish cap on his head, and two bottles of medicine at his elbow.
"Well, Johnny, an invalid as usual, you see. And what is it you so particularly want?"
"I want to ask you a favour, Mr. Brandon, if you"ll be good enough to grant it me."
"What is it?"
"You know that cottage, sir, at the corner of Piefinch Lane. George Reed"s."
"Well?"
"I have come to ask you not to let it be sold."
"Who wants to sell it?" asked he, after a pause.
"Major Parrifer wants to buy it; and to turn Reed out. The lawyers are going to arrange it."
Mr. Brandon pushed the cap up on his brow and gave the ta.s.sel over his ear a twirl as he looked at me. People thought him incapable; but it was only because he had no work to do that he seemed so. He would get a bit irritable sometimes; very rarely though; and he had a squeaky voice: but he was a good and just man.
"How did you hear this, Johnny?"
I told him all about it. What Reed had said, and of our having met the Major on horseback as we drove along.
"He came here, but I did not feel well enough to see him," said Mr.
Brandon. "Johnny, you know that I stand in place of your father, as regards your property; to do the best I can with it."
"Yes, sir. And I am sure you do it."
"If Major Parrifer--I don"t like the man," broke off Mr. Brandon, "but that"s neither here nor there. At the last magistrates" meeting I attended he was so overbearing as to shut us all up. My nerves were unstrung for four-and-twenty hours afterwards."
"And Squire Todhetley came home swearing," I could not help putting in.
"Ah," said Mr. Brandon. "Yes; some people can throw bile off in that way. I can"t. But, Johnny, all that goes for nothing, in regard to the matter in hand: and I was about to point out to you that if Major Parrifer has set his mind upon buying Reed"s cottage and the bit of land attached to it, he is no doubt prepared to offer a good price; more, probably, than it is worth. If so, I should not, in your interests, be justified in refusing this."
I could feel my face flush with the sense of injustice, and the tears come into my eyes. They called me a m.u.f.f for many things.
"I would not touch the money myself, sir. And if you used it for me, I"m sure it would never bring any good."
"What"s that, Johnny?"
"Money got by oppression or injustice never does. There was a fellow at school----"