about, and slowly but surely it helped to sap the foundation of the
once-flourishing seminary. It continued to exist for some years, but
its prestige was gone, its glory departed. Yet she maintained her
personal importance to the last, and exhibited her flock in the “lower
boxes” of the Theatre Royal on Mrs. M‘Gibbon’s benefit nights with
undiminished dignity through successive seasons.
The rapidly-ripening young lady had her will; she had done with the
schoolroom for ever, and her lessons on the harp from Mr. Horobin,
and on the piano from George Ware, the leader of the Gentleman’s
Concerts, came under quite another category. Nor did she think it
beneath her aspirations to retain her place in Mr. Bland’s fashionable
dancing-room, where she practised cotillons, quadrilles, and the
newly-imported waltz, with partners on a par with herself. But these
were _accomplishments_, and we all know, or ought to know by this
time, that accomplishments require much more prolonged and arduous
application than the merely useful and essential branches of
knowledge, theorists for the higher education of women notwithstanding.
Miss Augusta was desirous to be captivating and shine in society,
and so proud was Mr. Ashton of his beautiful daughter, that he fell
in readily with the expansive views of the incipient belle; and new
steps or new melodies were paraded for his gratification week by week.
But Mrs. Ashton, telling her daughter that “knowledge was light of
carriage,” sent her to Mr. Mabbott’s to take lessons in cookery and
confectionery, and into the kitchen to put them in practice under
the eye of Kezia; and, exercise being good for health, according to
the same sensible mother, she was required to assist in bed-making,
furniture polishing, dusting and general household matters, for which
the young lady had little liking, and was not to be spurred into liking
by any citation of her cousin Ellen’s qualifications in these respects.
She preferred to dress with all the art at her command to make her
beauty more bewildering, and to take her place at harp or piano, or
embroidery frame, ready to receive visitors either with or without
her mother, and to be as fascinating as possible, especially when
Laurence Aspinall was the caller; or she would sit in déshabillé in the
retirement of her own chamber, and read Moore and Byron because they
were tabooed and the handsome lieutenant quoted them so enchantingly;
whilst Cicily, who had something to answer for in this respect, bustled
about and overworked herself to spare her darling Miss Augusta, who,
with all her faults, must have been a loving and lovable creature to
win such devotion from a dependent.
It happened that the young lady received visitors alone more frequently
than was desirable, Mrs. Ashton being unusually tied to the warehouse
through the interest Mr. Ashton took in the establishment of the
Manchester Chamber of Commerce, and in the project for the widening
of Market Street, and others of the cramped thoroughfares of the
growing town—which necessarily took him much from home and his private
business—to say nothing of the excitement consequent on the trial of
Queen Caroline during its long progress.
But the year 1820, which had opened only to close the long volume
of George the Third’s life, and to open that of George the Fourth’s
reign at a chapter of regal wife persecution which has few parallels,
had itself grown old and died, and 1821 had thrust itself prominently
forward.
It came with a white robe and a frost-bitten countenance, which grew
sharper and more pinched as weeks and months went by. It looked down
on the currents of rivers and canals, on the secluded still waters of
Strangeways Park, the oblong pond in front of the Infirmary, and the
leech-shaped lakelet within the area of Ardwick Green, until their
ripples curdled under the chilling glance of the New Year.
Sterner grew its aspect as the shivering weeks counted themselves into
months, and the shrinking waters spread first a thin film, then a thick
and a thicker barrier of ice between them and the freezing atmosphere.
Every gutter had its slide, along which clattering clogs sped
noiselessly; every pool its vociferous throng of boys, and every pond
its mingled concourse of skaters and sliders. Of these, the Infirmary
and Ardwick Green waters were most patronised; the former having the
more numerous the latter having the more select body of skaters, and
consequently the more fashionable surrounding of spectators.
The amusements of the town were then on so limited and exclusive a
scale that long frost was quite a boon to the younger portion of the
community; and during the sixteen weeks of its continuance, the Green
became a promenade gay with the warm hues of feminine attire, as ladies
flocked to witness and extol the feats of husbands, brothers, cousins
or particular friends. There was no fear of vulgar overcrowding (except
on Sundays); working-hours were long, and there were no Saturday
half-holidays, so that only those whose time was at their own disposal
could share the sport or overlook it.
Amongst these, much to the annoyance of Mr. Aspinall, his son Laurence
chose to enrol himself, with less regard to the fluctuation of the
cotton market, or the comparative value of American or East India
staples than the Cannon Street merchant thought necessary to fit him
for his future partner or successor. The younger man had chosen to
construe liberally the word “gentleman,” which had been the be-all and
end-all of his training, and to regard elegant idleness as its synonym.
What availed his fine figure and proficiency in arts and athletics, if
he had no opportunity for the display of his person or his skill? And
to throw away the rare chance the Winter had provided was clearly to
scorn the gift of the gods.
Accordingly he spent more time on Ardwick Green Pond than in the
counting-house, varied occasionally with a visit to the Assembly
Billiard-room in Back Mosley Street, or a morning promenade in the
Infirmary Gardens, from the open gates of which he generally contrived
to emerge as Miss Ashton descended the steps from Mr. Mabbott’s, and
just in time to hand her courteously and daintily across the roadway,
and bear her company to her own door, discoursing of recent assemblies
or concerts, from the former of which she had hitherto been debarred,
and of the last occasion on which he had “the exquisite pleasure of
seeing her at Ardwick Green”—occasions which were seldom reported at
home, any more than the chance meetings on her way from Mr. Mabbott’s;
and the reticence, be sure, boded no good.
Dr. Hull had long ago advised “out-door exercise” for the
rapidly-growing girl, and there was no embargo on her walks abroad,
Mrs. Ashton suspecting no danger, and no surreptitious meetings. Her
visits to the Green during the long skating season were quite as
unrestrained, except that an escort became a necessity. Occasionally
her mother accompanied her, sometimes Mrs. Walmsley and John (then
there was generally a nurse and baby in the rear), sometimes Ellen and
Mrs. Chadwick; and Augusta had always returned so exhilarated by her
country walk, and so delighted with all she had seen, that once or
twice, when imperative business withheld Mrs. Ashton from bearing her
daughter company, as promised, rather than disappoint, the lady had
made Mr. Clegg her deputy, an honour on which he perhaps set far too
high a value.
Mrs. Ashton would have drawn herself up with double dignity, and
repudiated as an insult the suggestion of any other of their salesmen
or clerks as an escort for her beautiful daughter; but Jabez lived
in the house, had lived there so long, had even from her childhood
been the girl’s frequent guardian, and proved himself so worthy of
the trust, that she committed her to his care now much as of old, and
perhaps all the more readily because she saw, or fancied she saw, a
disinclination on Miss Augusta’s part to be so accompanied.
In March the cold was as intense as in January, and Miss Ashton as
eager to watch the skaters. One afternoon towards the close of the
month, when the breaking up of the frost was anticipated, quite a
family party had gone to the Green, wrapped in fur-trimmed pelisses of
velvet or woollen, with fur-rimmed hats and Brobdignagian muffs.
It was not quite closing time when Mr. Ashton, always disposed to be
friendly with Jabez, accosted him.
“The ladies are gone to the Green, Clegg. Suppose you lend me an arm
along the slippery roads, and we go to meet them, eh?”
The sparkling eyes of Jabez confirmed his ready tongue’s “With
pleasure, sir,” as, sensible of the honour done him, he left the
sale-room, whistled his black friend Nelson from the yard, and they set
off at a brisk pace, to keep the blood in circulation, the dog leaping,
bounding, and barking before them, in token of good fellowship. As they
passed the Infirmary pond, Jabez remarked that the ice began to look
watery, to which Mr. Ashton replied,
“Yes; I think Jack Frost’s long visit is near its end, and there must
be some truth in the old saw that ‘a thaw is colder than a frost.’”
At that moment Mr. Aspinall’s carriage rolled past them, bearing the
merchant homewards in distinguished state (private carriages were by no
means common), whereat Mr. Ashton observed with a shrug,
“How pride punishes itself! Fancy a tall fellow like Mr. Aspinall
cramped up in a stifling box upon wheels on a day like this, when he
has the free use of his limbs!”
Contrary to expectation, they did not come in sight of the ladies until
they gained the Green, which they found a scene of wild hubbub and
commotion; skaters and spectators gathering towards the centre of the
Green, whence came a confused noise of voices, shouting, crying, and
screaming.
The quick eye of Jabez was at once arrested by the figure of Augusta
on the opposite bank, the centre of an appalled group, wringing her
hands in the very impotence of terror, and as he penetrated the excited
crowd, he saw the hatless head of a man, whose body was submerged,
resting with its chin upon a ledge of the ice, which had apparently
broken under him. At the first glance he failed to distinguish the head
from the distance, and rushed forward, apprehensive lest it should be
that of either Mr. Walmsley or his friend Travis, whom he knew to be of
the party.
Recognition came accompanied by a shock that staggered him. If the ice
had attractions for Aspinall and Walmsley, Ellen Chadwick had certainly
as great attractions for Ben Travis; but it is certain that neither
cousins, nor mother, nor aunt were sensible that they had been drawn
thither simply as a sort of decorous train to Miss Augusta Ashton,
whose inspiriting had in turn been the fascinating lieutenant, the most
graceful and accomplished skater on the pond. Perhaps she hardly knew
it herself, not being given to searching her own heart for its motives.
But a hint from him had set her longing for “another sight of the
skating before the chance was gone,” and her imperative will no less
than her persuasive voice had swayed the rest.
Laurence had made the most of the occasion, glad of an opportunity
to cultivate the acquaintance of the whole family, and display his
graceful figure, and his skill to the best advantage. Now and then he
joined the Chadwicks and the Ashtons on the bank, anon darted off,
wheeling hither and thither, so swift in his evolutions, the eye could
scarcely follow him.
Amongst the skaters the man and his feats stood out. He was the
observed of all observers, and not vainer was he of his accomplishments
than was Augusta at being singled out for attention in the face of
so many damsels of his acquaintance, all, as she foolishly supposed,
equally desirous to bask in the sun of his smile.
A small match will kindle a large flame if combustibles be there.
Fired by her too apparent satisfaction, and Mrs. Ashton’s presence,
his excessive vanity induced him to perform what, with the imperfect
skates of the period, was a distinguished feat. He was ordinarily proud
of his calligraphy. Now, he wound and twisted, lifted his skates or
dashed them down, until he had scored upon the ice an alphabet in bold
capitals; but whether he had miscalculated his space, or the strength
of the ice—broken into for the use of cattle at the upper end—or the
crowd of inquisitive or envious followers had been too great for its
resistance as he had made the last curl of the letter Z, the ice gave
way, and he was plunged in up to the neck, amid the shrieks of women
and the shouts of men. His chin had caught upon the ice with a stunning
blow; but it rested there, and, aided by the buoyancy of the water
beneath, upheld him until, with returning sense, he struggled to bring
his shoulders above the surface, and upheave himself. He trod the
water, and it sustained him, but the _ice_ would not. He was forced
to content himself with the use of his hands beneath as paddles, to
relieve the pressure on his chin, and wait for help, which seemed an
eternity in coming.
He had been in the water some time when Jabez and Mr. Ashton appeared
on the scene, amongst women shrieking with affright, and men rushing
about without presence of mind, or paralysed to powerlessness. Mr.
Travis alone seemed to have a thought, and he had sent for ropes and
hatchets to cut a way to him through the ice itself. But there was a
question, would his strength hold out?
“Will no one save him? Will no one save him?” cried Augusta, piteously.
“Fifty pounds to him who will save my son!” was the cry of the frantic
father, who had witnessed the accident from his own carriage window.
“A hundred!—two hundred pounds!—five hundred pounds to anyone who will
save him!”
“It’s noan a bit o’ use, measter,” said a working man, with a shake of
his head. “Men wunna chuck their lives aweay for brass; an’ yon ice is
loike a pane o’ glass wi’ a stone through it.”
Unfortunately, impulsive Ben Travis had darted forward to his rescue at
the outset, and his ponderous weight had cracked the already broken ice
in all directions. He had himself retreated with difficulty; and now
no offers of reward would tempt men to put their own lives in peril,
though Kit Townley was there, urging others to the attempt, and Bob,
the ex-groom, had rushed for ropes they had neither pluck nor skill to
use, since a noosed cord, flung like a lasso, would have strangled him.
“Oh! save him; save him, Jabez!” implored Augusta, as he and her father
came up.
Jabez looked at her strangely. His head seemed to spin. His face
went livid as that on the ice. Had his secret devotion no other end
than this? True, she had called him “Jabez,” but so she had called
him in his servitude. She had appealed to him as one she trusted in
implicitly; but the appeal sounded as made for one she loved, and
that was not himself, but he who, as boy and man, had wounded him in
soul and body. The very tone of her cry was as a knell to his hopes
and himself. It was his foe and his rival who was perishing! Was he
called upon to risk his life to warm a serpent to sting him again? The
conflict in his breast was sharp and terrible. “If thine enemy hunger,
give him food,” seemed to float in his ears.
There was a small gloved hand on his arm, a pale, sweet face looking up
into his. The moments were flying fast.
“Oh! Jabez, Jabez, do try!”
“I will,” said he, hoarsely.
Had he not often declared in his secret heart that he would give his
life to serve her?—and should he be ungenerous enough to shrink now?
“It is folly to attempt. I forbid it!” exclaimed Mrs. Ashton, laying
her hand on his arm. And Ellen Chadwick, pale as Augusta, tried to stop
him with—“You must not! you must not! You will perish!”
Even strangers from the crowd warned him back. But he was gone ere Mrs.
Chadwick softly recalled her daughter to herself. “Hush! Ellen. This is
not seemly. Mr. Clegg will attempt nothing impossible.”
He hurried to the side nearest Laurence; called to him, “Keep up; help
is coming!”—asked for ladders; gave a word or two of instruction to
Mr. Ashton and Travis; sent Nelson on the ice to try its strength;
secured a rope round his own waist; then, lying flat on the cold ice,
cautiously felt his way to the farther side of Aspinall, whose eyes
were closed, and whose strength was ebbing fast. He hardly heard the
words of cheer addressed to him.
Two long ladders had been lashed side by side to give breadth of
surface. These, by the help of cords and Nelson, whose sagacity was
akin to reason, he drew across the cracked and gaping ice; and crept
slowly from rung to rung, watched from the land breathlessly, until he
reached his almost insensible rival. With rapidly benumbing fingers he
secured strong ropes beneath each shoulder, sending Nelson back to the
bank with the main line, in case his own strength was insufficient to
lift the dead weight of Laurence, or that the ice should yield beneath
the double weight.
Someone sent a brandy-flask back by the dog.
“Can you swallow?” he asked. There was no answer, but a gurgle.
He moistened the blue lips, while the head bent slightly back,
introduced a small quantity of the potent spirit between his set teeth;
and, having warmed himself by the same means, essayed to lift the
freezing skater, who was almost powerless to aid. But the latter with
an extreme effort raised an arm above the ice, and grasped recumbent
Jabez. And now Nelson proved his worth. He set his teeth in Aspinall’s
high coat-collar, and tugged until their united strength drew him
upwards and across the ladder sledge, almost as stiff and helpless as a
corpse.
To lessen the weight, Jabez crept from the ladders; they were drawn to
the side with their living freight before he himself was out of danger;
for the heavy pressure and the swift motion set the ice cracking under
him, and with extreme difficulty he dragged himself to the bank to sink
down on the hardened snow, overcome by the strain of mind and muscle,
whilst the approving crowd set up a shout, and Augusta Ashton thanked
him tremulously.
“I’m afraid, Clegg, you’ve spent your strength for a dead man,” said
Travis, grasping his hand warmly, “and Aspinall was scarcely worth it,
alive or dead.”
But Jabez made no reply. He rose slowly and painfully, shook off the
congratulatory crowd of strangers and friends, on the plea of needing
to “warm and dry himself,” refused pointblank to accept the grateful
hospitality of Mr. Aspinall, and taking the proffered arm of Travis,
turned towards the “George and Dragon,” as little like one who had done
a noble action as could be imagined.
Mr. Ashton followed, tapping his gold snuff-box in wonder and
perplexity. He saw that something was wrong, but knew not that
Augusta’s hasty thanks had closed the young man’s heart against all but
its own pain.
CHAPTER THE THIRTIETH.
BLIND!
So white, so cold, so still was the rigid figure borne from the pond to
Mr. Aspinall’s house, Travis might well count him “a dead man,” as the
rumour ran concerning him; and feeble old Kitty set up a lamentation as
over the dead.
Mrs. Ashton, who knew that to be a home without a thinking woman at its
head, volunteered her services, and entered the house with the bearers,
leaving the trembling Augusta with their friends. She gently put the
old woman aside, and felt pulse and heart.
“There is life,” said she, “and while there is life there is hope. Keep
tears until there is time to shed them; now we must act.” Then turning
to the scared and scurrying servants, she gave her orders much as
though she had been in her own warehouse, and with a stately authority
there was no disputing.
The butler was bidden to “Bring brandy, quick!” The footman was
required to “wheel this sofa to the fire, and pile up the coals!” A
maid was asked for “hot blankets without delay!” and moaning Kitty was
set to work to “help to strip her young master and chafe his limbs.”
And so promptly were her clear, cool orders obeyed, that when the
doctor arrived in hot haste with Mr. Aspinall, half his work was done.
The pulse had quickened and the limbs began to glow, though the eyelids
remained closed.
Most grateful then was Mr. Aspinall for the efficient matronly service
rendered to his motherless boy by the stately lady, who was drawn
nearer to him in his helplessness by her own kindly act than by all
the conciliatory visits and peace-offerings with which Laurence had
himself sought to propitiate her. And for _once_ Mr. Aspinall accepted
a kindness as a favour, not as a tribute to his personal importance,
and he placed his carriage at the disposal of Mr. Ashton and herself
for their return home, without a sign of his usual self-inflation.
His importance received a considerable shock, however, when he called
at the house in Mosley Street the following day to report progress, and
relieve himself of his obligation to his son’s preserver by paying over
the five hundred pounds he had in his extremity offered as a reward.
“I do not think Mr. Clegg will accept a reward,” said Mr. and Mrs.
Ashton in a breath.
“Not accept it!” and the portly figure seemed to swell; “five hundred
pounds is a large sum for a young man in his position; only a fool or a
madman would refuse it.”
“Just so, just so,” replied Mr. Ashton, offering his open snuff-box to
his visitor, whilst Mrs. Ashton stirred the fire as a sort of dubious
disclaimer; “but I think, for all that, you will find we are right; Mr.
Clegg is not a common man, and is not actuated by common motives.—My
dear?” He nodded, and Mrs. Ashton pulled the bell-rope.
Mulberry-suited James answered on the instant.
“Mr. Clegg is wanted.”
Mr. Clegg, labouring under the disadvantage of a cold caught the
previous afternoon, to which any huskiness of voice might be
attributed, obeyed the summons. He was presented duly to Mr. Aspinall,
and much to that gentleman’s surprise, was invited to take a seat.
“Absolutely invited to take a seat!” as he afterwards recounted in
indignation to a friend; “these Whigs have no respect for a gentleman’s
feelings.”
Nor had Jabez. He was pale enough when he entered, but his face
flushed, his lips compressed, and the scar on his brow showed vividly,
as Mr. Aspinall drew forth a roll of crisp bank-notes from his
pocket-book, and loftily offered to him the reward he had “earned by
his bravery.”
He flushed, put back the notes with a movement of his hand, and said,
coldly: “You owe me nothing, sir. The meanest creature on God’s earth
should have freely such service as I rendered to your son. I cannot set
a price on life.”
“But I offered the reward, and the fact is, I must discharge the debt.
Reconsider, young man, it is a large sum: many a man starts the world
with less.”
“A large sum to pay for your son’s life, or for mine, sir?”
interrogated Jabez, drawing himself up stiffly; adding, without waiting
for reply, “I do not sell such service, sir. You owe me nothing. Let
your son thank Miss Ashton for his life; he is her debtor, not mine.”
The words seemed to rasp over a nutmeg-grater, they came so hoarsely,
as did his request for leave to withdraw; and he closed the door on the
five hundred pounds, and on the smiles of husband and wife, before the
rebuffed cotton merchant could master his indignation to reply.
The notes in his palm were light enough, but lying there they
represented liberality contemned; a debt unpaid; an undischarged
obligation to an inferior; and not thrice their value in gold could
have pressed so heavily on Mr. Aspinall as that last consideration. The
frigid manner of Jabez he construed into Radical impudence; he resented
the salesman’s repudiation of reward as a personal affront, and did not
scruple to express his views openly, then and there, winding up with a
question which startled his interlocutors.
“What did the singular young man mean by his reference to Miss Ashton?”