Miser Farebrother (Vol. 1-3). B. L. Farjeon
"How should they? How should they?" retorted Miser Farebrother. "It would be so unnatural, wouldn't it? so very unnatural; they being poor, as they say they are, and I being rich as they think I am! They do say they're poor, now, don't they?"
"No," said Phœbe, considering; "I never remember their saying so. But they have as much as ever they can do to get along nicely. I know that without being told."
"So have we all, more than ever we can do. I can't get along nicely. Everything goes wrong with me—everything; and everybody tries to cheat me. If I wasn't as sharp as a weasel we shouldn't have a roof over our heads. It's the cunning of your aunt and uncle that they don't complain. They say to themselves, 'That old miser, Farebrother'—they do call me an 'old miser,' don't they, eh?"—he asked, suddenly, breaking off.
"I never heard them, father."
"But they think it," said Miser Farebrother, looking at Phœbe slyly; "and that's worse—ever so much worse. With people who speak out, you know where you are; it's the quiet cunning ones you have to beware of. They say to themselves, 'That old miser Farebrother will see through us if we complain to his daughter. He'll think we want him to give us some of his money, and that wouldn't please him, he's so fond of it. It will be by far the best to let Phœbe tell him of her own accord, and work upon his feelings in an accidental way, and then perhaps he'll send us a pound or two.' Oh, I know these clever people—I know them well, and can read them through and through! I should like to back them for cunning against some very sharp persons."
"You do them a great injustice, father. They are the dearest people in all the wide world——"
"Of course they are—of course they are," said Miser Farebrother, with a dry laugh. "They have been successful in making you believe it, at all events. That proves their cunning; it's part of their plan."
"It is not," said Phœbe, warmly; "they have no plan of the kind, and as to saying that they have led me on to speak to you about their troubles, and work upon your feelings, you couldn't imagine anything farther from the truth."
"Their troubles, eh!—they let you know they have troubles?"
"If you mean that they wish to get me to talk about them to you, no, father; they haven't let me know in that way. I can see them myself, without being told; and no one can help loving Aunt Leth for her patience and cleverness. Upon my word, it's perfectly wonderful how she manages upon the salary Uncle Leth gets from the bank. Now, father, you know that you yourself have led me on to speak of this." (When Phœbe was excited she emphasized a great many words, so that there should be no possibility of her meaning being mistaken.) "I didn't commence it; you did."
"No, Phœbe; it was you that commenced it."
"How could I, when I never said a word?"
"I saw what was in your mind, Phœbe. You were going to ask me for something for them; it's no use your denying it. I knew it when you shifted about the room, moving things that didn't require moving, and then moving them back again, and keeping on looking at me every now and then when you thought I wasn't looking at you. Oh, I was watching you when you least expected it. I am not easily deceived, and not often mistaken, Phœbe—eh?"
This was embarrassing, and Phœbe could not help a little laugh escaping her; for it was a fact that she was watching for a favourable opportunity to ask her father a favour in connection with her relatives. He, observing her furtively from under his brows, perceived that his shot had taken effect, and he waited for Phœbe to continue the conversation, enjoying her discomfiture, and secretly resolving that the Lethbridges should not get a penny from him, not a penny. Phœbe was in hopes that he would assist her out of her dilemma, and throw out a hint upon which she could improve; but her father did not utter a word, and she was herself compelled to break the silence.
"Well, father, I was going to say something about Aunt and Uncle Leth and my cousins."
"I knew you were."
"I have been there a great deal, and they have been very kind to me. If I ever forget their kindness I shall be the most ungrateful girl in the world. Think of the years I have been going to their house, and stopping there, and always being made welcome——"
"Stop a minute, Phœbe," interrupted her father. "'Think of the years!'—yes, yes—you are getting"—and now he regarded her more attentively than he had done for a long time past, and seemed to be surprised at a discovery which forced itself upon him—"You are getting quite a woman—quite a woman!"
"Yes, father," said Phœbe, quietly and modestly; "I shall be eighteen next Saturday. Aunt Leth was saying only last week how like I was to my dear mamma."
Miser Farebrother rose and hobbled across the room and back. It was with difficulty he did this, his bones were so stiff; but when Phœbe stepped forward to assist him, he motioned her angrily away. He accepted, however, the crutch stick which she handed to him; he could not get along without it, but he snatched it from her pettishly. Her mention of her mother disturbed and irritated him. He recalled the few days of her unhappy life at Parksides, and the picture of her death-bed recurred to his mind with vivid force. There was a reproach in it which he could not banish or avoid. At length he sank into his arm-chair, coughing and groaning, and averting his eyes from Phœbe. She was accustomed to his humours, and she stood at the table patiently, biding his time.
"You have made me forget what I was about to say," he began.
"I am sorry, father."
"You are not sorry; you are glad. You are always thwarting and going against me. What makes you speak to me of your mother in a voice of reproach? Tell me that. You have been egged on to it!" And he thumped his crutch stick viciously on the floor.
"I have not been egged on to it," said Phœbe, with spirit; "and it is entirely a fancy of yours that I spoke in a tone of reproach."
"It is no fancy I am never wrong—never. Your mother died when you were almost a baby in arms. You have no remembrance of her; it isn't possible that you can remember her."
"I do not remember her, father," said Phœbe, with a touch of sadness in her tone; "but Aunt Leth has a portrait of her, which I often and often look at, and I am glad to know that I am like her. You surely can't be displeased at that?"
"Aunt Leth! Aunt Leth! Aunt Leth!" he exclaimed, fretfully; and then, with unreasonable vehemence, "Why do you try to irritate me?"
"I do not try," said Phœbe, "and I do not thwart and go against you."
"You do—in everything. You don't care to please me; you don't take the least trouble to carry out my wishes. Being confined, on and off, to this house for years by my cursed rheumatism, unable, as you know, to go to my London office, and forced to trust to a man who may be robbing me secretly all the time he is in my service, I have endeavoured to train you to be of some assistance to me, and to make up my accounts here when I am too weak and in too much pain to make them up for myself. What has been the result? Upon looking over the papers you have written I have seldom found one of them correct. Nothing but errors in the casting-up and in the calculations of interest—errors which would have been the ruin of me had I taken your work for granted. It wouldn't matter so much if your mistakes were in my favour, but they are not; they are always against me. The sum total is always too little instead of too much. Is this what I have a right to expect from a child I have nourished and fed?"
"I can't help it, father. I have told you over and over again that I have no head for figures."
"'No head for figures!'" he muttered. "Where should I be, I'd like to know, if I had no head for figures? In the workhouse, where you'll drive me to in the end. You will be satisfied then—eh?"
"I cannot help it, father," Phœbe repeated. "I never could add up so as to be depended upon; I never could calculate interest; I never could subtract or multiply. If it hadn't been for Aunt Leth, I don't believe I should ever have been able to read or write at all."
"Oh, you throw that in my teeth, because I was too poor to afford a governess