visitations at houses where she was well entertained, and her bombast
was listened to for the sake of her young charges; held half-yearly
recitations, and also exhibitions of the plain sewing, embroidery,
knitting, knotting, filigrees, tambour, and lace work of her pupils;
and matrons proud of their own daughters’ achievements seldom paused to
reckon up the tears, the headaches, the heartaches, the sore fingers
which those minutely-stitched shirts, those fine lace aprons and
ruffles, those pictures and samplers had cost. For Madame Broadbent,
besides being a martinet rigid in her rule—having a numbered rack for
pattens and slippers, numbered pegs for cloaks and hats, book-bags
and work-bags, safe-guards (receptacles for sewing, &c., like a
huckster’s pocket) and slates, all numbered likewise—was not of too
mild a temper, and had a _penchant_ for pinching her pupils’ ears until
the blood tinged her nails; and stocks for the feet, backboards for
the shoulders, and dry bread diet were her prescriptions for the cure
of such delinquencies as an unauthorised word, an omitted curtsey,
a bag or garment on the wrong hook, a dropped stitch in knitting, a
blotted copy, a puckered seam; and work had to be done and undone until
stitches were almost invisible, and little eyes almost blind. She had
other peculiarities, had Madame Broadbent—but my portrait is growing
too large for its frame, and she was not a large personage at all.
It was to this delectable individual’s school (“establishments” had
not been invented then, or hers would have been one) that Miss Augusta
Ashton was consigned for conversion into a well-behaved, well-informed,
useful, and accomplished young lady.
Her cousins, the Misses Chadwick, had in their turn escaped from this
penitentiary for the manufacture of ladyhood. But in Piccadilly was a
school of a very different description, where young ladies of talent
and fortune went to qualify for _wifehood_; and here at this time Ellen
Chadwick was finishing her education, with many others, in learning
_the culinary art_ in all its branches.
How came it that Madame Broadbent’s school flourished and survived the
decay of its neighbourhood, being in existence when the writer of this
was a child, and the other had died and been forgotten, save by the
antiquary, before she was born?
To fetch Miss Ashton home from Madame Broadbent’s on dark or stormy
afternoons, was the understood duty of one or other of the apprentices;
but Kit Townley, having no more liking for wet weather than a cat,
generally contrived to be out of earshot when his services were
required. It devolved on Jabez, therefore, to carry the grey duffel
hooded cloak with which to cover the dainty one of scarlet kerseymere,
to tie the pattens on the tiny feet, to carry the school-bag, and hold
the brilliant blue gingham umbrella over the head elevated by the
pattens so much nearer to his shoulder, and to be thanked by one of the
sweetest voices in the world.
It was dangerous work, though no one knew it, least of all Jabez. True,
she was only a child, but she was tall for her age. And was he much
more than a boy? A boy let out from the seclusion of an almost monastic
institution, to whom her little airs and graces, her petty vanities,
her very waywardness and caprice, only made her beauty more piquant.
Madame Broadbent’s infallibility being taken for granted, all attempts
to make known school troubles and grievances were met with “Never tell
tales out of school,” from Mrs. Ashton, but they were poured fresh and
warm into the ear of Jabez, as she trotted by his side; and he, his
school-days unforgotten, listened with ready sympathy. And this went
on as months and years went by, adding to her stature, narrowing the
space between them; and he still did duty as her humble escort, unless
when Kit Townley was especially told off for the service and went
reluctantly, grumbling at being made “lackey to a school miss.”
Yet Kit Townley did not think it any degradation to play practical
jokes on Jabez, or on Kezia, leaving the younger apprentice to bear the
blame. Billets of wood, scuttles of coal, pails of water brought in
for her use by Jabez, were dexterously removed to doorways and other
unsuspected places, where “cook” was sure to stumble over them, and
then cuff Jabez for his carelessness or wilfulness, all protestations
on his part being disregarded. Creeping behind the settle where Jabez
sat watching, and perhaps basting the roast for the master’s table
for late dinners on company days, he would steal his sly arm round
the corner, himself unseen, and lifting the wheel of the spit out of
the smoke-jack chain, bring spit and all thereon into the dripper,
with a splash which brought the irate Kezia down on astounded Jabez
with whatsoever weapon of offence came nearest to her hand, from the
paste-pin to the basting-ladle, or even a saucepan lid; it was all one
to Kezia.
From Kezia, however, these frequent chances and mischances went
to Kezia’s mistress; and appearances being against him, the very
steadiness of denial, unaccompanied with any accusation of another
(other waggeries of Kit Townley in the warehouse being also laid on his
shoulder), Mrs. Ashton’s faith in the youth was somewhat shaken, and he
was conscious of being under a cloud. But still he kept on his way and
looked to the end.
The cloud dispersed after a while. Kit Townley was something of a
glutton, with a very boy’s love of pastry and sweets. It so happened
that on a special occasion (rejoicing for peace or something) Kezia had
set aside in her roomy pantry, the door of which fastened only with a
button, a tray of tartlets, custards, a trifle, moulds of jelly and
blanc-mange, and other dainties for a large party. Kit’s mouth watered
to get at these things. Often and often had he stolen the fruit from
under a pie-crust, and sat silent while Jabez bore the blame, but now
he meditated a more sweeping raid. There was a fine retriever in the
yard. Watching Kezia out of the way, he crammed mouth and pockets with
the pastry, and made an inroad into the trifle. Then he whistled to
Nelson, raised the dog on his hind feet, and printed the forepaws on
the pantry-shelf, dishes, and tart-tray, and round the button of the
door.
But he was compelled to wait until bed-time to fairly enjoy his spoil,
and then could not manage it unknown to his companion. Hoping to close
the other’s mouth literally and figuratively, he offered him a share,
but Jabez told him he was not a receiver of stolen goods, and left him
to digest that with his feast. It was a harder morsel than even Jabez
knew.
The next morning before breakfast they were in the warehouse, when
there was heard a terrible commotion in the yard. From the back
windows Kezia was seen belabouring Nelson with a broomstick, her face
redder than ordinary, whilst the poor beast whined piteously.
Jabez ran down to interpose, and the infuriated woman turned on him,
then ran in her rage to fetch her mistress to witness the damage done,
and the footprints of the depredator, and to own that punishment was
just.
But as Mrs. Ashton ascended the warehouse stairs that afternoon, she
heard Jabez and Kit loud in altercation, and before they were aware she
possessed a clue to much that had gone before.
Something Jabez had said was answered by a loud guffaw from Kit, and
the words—
“Let them laugh that win. I call it a deuced good joke.”
“And I call it cowardly and dishonourable to let the poor beast suffer
for your greediness,” Jabez answered, indignantly.
“Now don’t you put in your oar, young yellow-skirt. I’ll let no
charity-boy hector over me,” blustered Kit.
Jabez put down a bundle of umbrella whalebones he had on his shoulder,
to confront the other, then counting ferules into dozens. Umbrellas
used to have brass ferules, like elongated thimbles, on the sticks.
“Look you, Kit, I’ve borne many a scurvy trick of yours without saying
a word, but I will not even give the sanction of silence to dishonesty,
and will not see a noble animal ill-used to screen a coward.”
“Won’t you?” sneered Kit, “then we’ll see whose word weighs heaviest.”
Mrs. Ashton came into the room.
“Townley,” said she, “your word will not weigh down a feather
henceforth,” adding in the same dignified tone, “Are those ferules
counted? Jackson is waiting for them.”
No further notice was taken, but Jabez soon found he stood on a firmer
footing in house and warehouse. Mrs. Ashton remarked to her husband, as
she finished dressing for their dinner-party—
“It was a slight circumstance, William, but straws show which way the
wind blows.”
And he tapped his silver snuff-box, and said “Just so;” then
courteously offering his hand to his fine-looking wife, led her from
the room, her purple velvet robe trailing after her, the plumes on her
head nodding as they went.
CHAPTER THE SIXTEENTH.
IN WAR AND PEACE.
A clap of thunder burst over Europe, and the great war eagle flapped
his monstrous wings again. Napoleon had escaped from Elba ere crops had
had time to grow on his trampled battle-fields; yet crops of men rose
ripe for the sickle, and home expectations were dashed to the ground.
How many an anxious parent, how many a longing, love-sick maiden,
looked for her warrior back from Canada or the Continent, if only on
furlough or sick-leave! How many a weary soldier, sated with blood,
looked for discharge with pension or reward, and thirsted for the
fountain of home joys!
And from how many lips was the cup of delight dashed when the cry “To
arms!” rang out from mount to vale, from peak to peak, from town to
town, and the sheathed sword flashed forth to light, and forges belched
forth flame through day and night, preparing for fresh holocausts in
the new carnival of blood!
Trade centres at all such times are most convulsed, as being also
centres of humanity—depôts whence fresh relays are drafted from the
ranks of men whose peaceful work is at a sudden standstill. But that
war blast came like a fiery flash, and commerce, only then a feeble
convalescent, sank crushed and hopeless.
Mr. Chadwick felt it keenly, and, but that his more cautious and
wealthy brother-in-law came to his help with hand as open as his
snuff-box, his credit must have gone. His two eldest sons had gone from
him, drawn away by the phantom Glory. One, Richard, was a midshipman
upon Collingwood’s ship; the other, Herbert, a lieutenant in the 72nd,
or Manchester Volunteers, had departed with his regiment to fight in
the Peninsular. A third son, John, had been left to do his quiet duty
in the counting-house, but Death had laid its clutches on him soon
after his sister Charlotte’s marriage, and Ellen alone kept the house
from utter desolation.
She was a girl of strong feelings and quick impulses, but pursued her
way with so little show or pretence, she was hardly accredited with all
the comfort she brought to the hearth; and scarcely her mother even
suspected how that hidden heart of hers could throb—how intense were
her emotions.
Her love for every member of the family was deep, but when her brother
John died, after the first terrible outburst of grief she dried her
tears, and by mere force of will set herself to soothe those who had
lost a son. The prolonged absence of the others had been fruitful of
pain, and the glad prospect of Herbert’s return now blighted came to
her, as to father and mother, with a shock like a stab.
There was another hearth we have ere-while visited—a hearth which,
thanks to Jabez, and a few months’ regular employment for the
batting-rods and the tanner’s plunger, was less poverty-stricken than
it had been—and where Hope had held out delusive banners to herald a
soldier’s return, only to furl them again for another march, before eye
could meet eye, or lip meet lip.
Thirteen years had come and gone since last Tom Hulme and Bessy Clegg
had looked woefully upon each other—thirteen years of unrecorded trial
and suffering—yet still they were apart. The home in which he had known
her first, Tanner’s Bridge, on which he had first made love to her,
had been swept away to make room for Ducie Bridge and a new high-road;
and the best years of her womanhood were passing too. Would he ever
come back whilst grey-haired Simon could bless their union? Would he
ever come back again? Tears fell on Bess’s batting; and Simon had not
one word of comfort to give her. Even Matt Cooper, who had long since
resigned himself to his widowhood, was magnanimous enough to be sorry.
The new war between the “Corsican Vampire” and allied Europe was
fortunately of short duration; but how much of carnage and misery was
compressed into that campaign which had its brilliant close at Waterloo!
In the onset of that terrible conflict, Herbert Chadwick and a cousin,
fighting side by side, fell in a storm of grape-shot like green corn
under an untimely shower of hail, and their blood went to fertilise the
Belgian farmer’s future crops of wheat.
Herbert was his father’s favourite son. Not a mail-morning passed
but the old man made one of the crowd hurrying down the narrow
way called Market-street-lane to the Exchange, to catch a sight of
whatever bulletins might be posted up; and, his own mind relieved,
sent an apprentice from the Fountain-street warehouse with the words,
“All’s well!” to cheer up those at home. That dreadful morning when
his fearful eye ran down the black list of the killed at Waterloo,
and rested on Lieutenant Chadwick’s name, the letters seemed to turn
blood-red: he shrivelled up like a maple-leaf in a blighting wind; his
face and limbs began to twitch, and he fell forward into the arms of a
bystander, in a fit.
He was carried by compassionate hands to the nearest house, that of
John Shaw, the saddler. A merchant on ’Change (Mr. Aspinall) undertook
to break the doubly-calamitous intelligence to Mrs. Chadwick. Dr.
Hardie, whom the general excitement had drawn to the spot, was with
him in an instant, his white neckcloth was loosened, and, whipping out
a lancet, the doctor bled him in the arm without delay. He rallied
sufficiently to bear lifting into a carriage, kindly placed at the
doctor’s disposal to convey him home.
Dr. Hull was already in waiting. All that their united skill could
suggest was tried. His recovery was slow and imperfect; he dragged his
right leg after him; he was paralysed for life. He was not a young man,
and the supreme shock, coming as it did above a pressure of commercial
difficulties, had been too much for him.
It was an overwhelming disaster; but in anxiety and active care for the
stricken one, whose life was in imminent peril, the sharp edge of the
keener stroke was blunted for Ellen and her mother.
The Ashtons were, as ever, kind and thoughtful.
“William,” said Mrs. Ashton, meditatively to her husband over the
tea-urn, the day after Mr. Chadwick’s attack, “we must not forget that
if John is not related to us, Sarah” (Mrs. Chadwick) “and Ellen are.
‘Blood is thicker than water;’ and it will not do, for their sakes, to
let John’s business go to rack and ruin for want of supervision.”
“Just so, just so,” he replied, reflectively, taking his snuff-box out
of his pocket mechanically, and putting it back again unopened, as
contrary to tea-table propriety; “I have been thinking the same myself.
I will go round to the warehouse to-morrow, and see how matters stand;
we must keep things ship-shape somehow till John is himself again.”
And he was as good as his word, though he had really never thought
about it until prompted by his clear-headed wife. He had a habit of
thus falling in with her suggestions, though had any one hinted that
he followed the lead of a woman, so much younger than himself too, he
would have rejected the imputation with scorn. With returning peace
came joyful restorations to many homes, humble as well as lofty.
Before the time of their extreme privation, before even Simon was
out of work, he had taken one of the smallest of the garden-plots on
the higher ground on the opposite side of the Irk, and cultivated
it in what little leisure he had, Bess giving him a helping hand
occasionally. And by the sale of penny posies to Sunday ramblers from
the town, and herbs and salad to the market women in Smithy door, he
did his best to beat back the gaunt wolf when the wolf came.
Bess had laid by her batting-wands, put a turf in the grate to kindle
up a handful of cinders and slack to boil their supper-porridge, for,
though Autumn was striding on, they could not waste fuel on a mid-day
fire; Simon was away working in his garden, whilst the daylight held;
and she sat, as she frequently did now, on a low stool in front of the
grate, her elbows on her knees, and her head on her hands, watching, in
a kind of hazy dream, the red glow creeping through the heart of the
turf, when a footstep on the threshold caused her to turn round.
Like a picture framed by the doorway, stood the tall figure of a
bronzed soldier, with his left arm in a sling. Before the sharp cry
of joy had well left her lips, his other arm was around her—both hers
around his neck; their lips met in a long kiss, which told of pain
and trouble past, and love through all; and then her head fell on his
shoulder in a fit of convulsive sobbing such as had not shook her frame
for years.
Sorrow and joy have both their baptism of tears!
It was a glad sight for Simon to see them sitting, with their hands
locked in each other’s, side by side on an old box, which served them
for a seat—all Simon’s lost furniture had not come back—silent from
excess of happiness, yet radiant as though the glow of youth were
returning in the Midsummer of their lives.
In the roughest war-time the common requirements of life have to be
satisfied, and peaceful trades and arts are of necessity carried on,
albeit they flourish not. And the farther from the seat of war, and
the less private interest is involved, the less business and household
routine is fringed on.
Thus Mr. Ashton, whose large capital had enabled him to bide the issues
of the Continental and American stoppage of trade, and who had no
nearer relatives in danger than his wife’s nephews, pursued his way
in comparative quiet. Indeed, he was an easy-going man with much less
vigour of character than his wife; and she bore little resemblance to
her own sister.
So we may carry our readers away from the poorly-furnished room in a
fetid Long Millgate-yard, leaving the re-united lovers to the enjoyment
of the present and their reminiscences of the past, and look in upon
the Ashtons in their cosy tea-room _before_ Waterloo cast a black
shadow over the family.
It was a spacious apartment (as were most of the rooms in that
habitation), the walls above the surbase (a wooden moulding some two
feet above the skirting-board) were painted a warm dove colour, the
surbase and all below in two shades of light blue. The window-tax—a
result of war—laid an embargo on light, by restricting size and number,
so the house, like most in the neighbourhood, having been built
subsequently to “Billy Pitt’s” obnoxious impost, there were only two
windows, and those were narrow. They were draped with heavy curtains,
and festooned valances of dove-coloured moreen, trimmed with blue
orris-lace, and worsted-bullion fringe, with spiral silken droplets
here and there to shimmer in the rays of sun or chandelier. For there
was a chandelier, of fanciful device, pendent from the wonderfully
moulded ceiling, a septenary of lacquered serpents, whose interlaced
and twisted tails met upwards, separated below in graceful coils,
and branching out their seven heads, turned up their gaping jaws to
close them on wax-lights. The chandelier was no misnomer; but the
fiery serpents kept their flames for state occasions, when the serpent
branches on each side the long Venetian looking-glass, between the
windows, were on duty likewise. There was another Venetian glass above
the high-painted chimney-piece, so elaborately carved, but here the
serpent candelabra lit the room for common use, and were supplemented
with lights in tall silver candlesticks upon the centre table.
Spanish mahogany alike were chairs, and table, and Miss Augusta’s grand
piano—ranged against the wall from the door, so that the window light
should fall upon the keys—and chairs and tables were alike club-footed,
massive, and plain; there were two folded card tables, a cellaret,
and a work-table, all with tapering legs and club-feet; and there
was a ponderous sofa on the flower-besprent Brussels carpet, which,
without the adventitious aid of artificial steel springs, was elastic
and soft, and wooed the weary to rest aching limbs or aching head upon
its cushions. There were no anti-macassars—hair-seating did not soil
readily.
The air was odorous with rose, lavender, and jessamine, for the
windows were both open, and what little air there was stirring swept
over a large summer nosegay in a china vase between the windows. The
mahogany teaboard was set with miniature unhandled cups and saucers of
china, more precious than the fragrant decoction they were designed to
hold; the brass tea-urn hissed and spluttered; Mrs. Ashton in a rich
dress sat at the table to infuse the tea; Mr. Ashton had drawn his
softly-cushioned easy-chair nearer; it was past five by the tall clock
in the hall, and Miss Augusta had not presented herself.
As a thorough business woman, Mrs. Ashton was punctuality itself. She
expected her family to be punctual also. Five o’clock, the Manchester
hour for tea, and no Augusta!
“James!” (to the footman), “inquire for Miss Ashton; she is not kept in
at school—it is a holiday.”
As the man retired, Augusta, in a white cambric frock heavy with
tambour-work, tripped in at the door, her diaper pinafore not so clean
as it might have been, her hands full of something which she set down
on a side table.
“It is past five o’clock, Augusta; where have you been until now? And
how came Cicily to send you in to tea with a soiled pinafore?” asked
Mrs. Ashton, with the quiet dignity which seldom relaxed.
“Is it? I did not hear the clock strike, I was so busy; and Cicily has
not seen my pinafore,” was Augusta’s light consecutive reply.
“So busy!—Cicily not seen you!” her mother exclaimed in surprise. “Let
me look at your hands. I am shocked, Augusta! What would Mrs. Broadbent
say?” (The hands were worse than the pinafore.) “Have I not told you
repeatedly that ‘cleanliness is next to godliness?’ Go to Cicily and be
washed immediately, or you can have no tea.”
Augusta pouted.
“Must I, papa?”
The management of this child was the only point on which Mr. and Mrs.
Ashton differed.
“Well, my dear, your mamma says so; but I think for this once it may be
overlooked, if you will be more careful another time,” said he, willing
to excuse and temporise.
“‘Only this once,’ William, ‘is the parent of thrice,’” responded Mrs.
Ashton, gravely, as she poured out the tea, giving something like
milk-and-water to Miss Augusta. “You will spoil that child; and if you
spoil her to-day, she will spoil herself to-morrow. However, as _you_
are inclined to tolerate that which I think disrespectful to us, and
wanting in self-respect on the child’s part, I can say no more.”
Thus Mrs. Ashton yielded against her judgment; Mr. Ashton took out his
snuff-box, to put it back like a culprit; and Miss Augusta sat down to
the table, not knowing whether to be more pleased or sorry that she had
got her own way.
To turn the subject, Mr. Ashton asked—
“What is that you put on the card-table, my dear?”
“Oh! I’ll show you,” and away the young lady was running, only to be
recalled by her mother’s decided—
“After tea, Augusta.”
So after tea it was that Miss Augusta brought her treasure to her
father—sundry sheets of paper, on which scraps of variously-coloured
leather had been arranged and pasted in ornamental patterns, floral and
geometrical, aided by the stamps employed in piercing brace-ends for
the embroiderers, and in cutting stars to cover the umbrella-wheels
inside.
“Who did those?” asked mother and father in a breath.
“Jabez Clegg, in the warehouse. Aren’t they pretty?” was Augusta’s
ready reply, as she looked admiringly on her curious pictures.
“Oh! then that accounts for your being late, and in that condition at
the tea-table,” said Mrs. Ashton, as she glanced from the rich designs
before her to the sullied hands and pinafore.
“And so Jabez Clegg has been wasting our leather to make playthings for
you?” remarked Mr. Ashton interrogatively, in a not unkindly tone of
voice.
“No, he hasn’t!” answered little miss, briskly. “He only used the waste
tiny bits. I wanted to take a big piece to make a housewife” (a case
for thread and needles), “and he would not let me have it. He said he
had no right to give it, and I had no right to take it. Was he right,
mamma?”
[Along with many other vain fashions, “papa” and “mamma” had come over
from France to supersede our more sterling “father” and “mother,” with
other refugees from the Revolution.]
“Yes, my dear, quite right; but I wish my little daughter would not run
so much into the kitchen and warehouse among the apprentices,” said
the mother, kindly, smoothing down the light brown hair, in which the
sunbeams seemed to weave golden threads. “It is not becoming in a young
lady.”
Mr. Ashton, who had been all the while examining the glowing devices
before him, interrupted her with—