Mrs. Ashton, as she met her lazily sauntering through the garden
towards them, as captivating in her printed morning dress as a
sleepless night, an anxious headache, and her unmistakable confusion
would permit the recognised beauty to be.
“Oh, yes, I am pleased enough, but I should have been better pleased
if you had written instead of coming upon one so suddenly. It is quite
startling!” and the petulance of her tone gave effect to the pettish
frown on her brow.
“My dear, ill thoughts make ill looks,” said Mrs. Ashton, gravely, with
a searching glance. “What is the matter with you this morning? Nothing
serious, I hope.”
The very inquiry apparently annoyed her.
“Oh, I’ve got a headache, that’s all. I heard a man’s foot on the
gravel-walk long after everyone was in bed, and I got a fright.”
“I think it was only Crazy Joe—he hangs about at all hours,” put in
Ellen, who had not heard the crunch of Mr. Clegg’s heel on the gravel,
as he stood for a moment under their window, to breathe a prayer for
the safety and well-being of the supposed sleeper, before he turned
away swiftly on his errand.
Almost Mr. Ashton’s first inquiry was for Mr. Clegg.
“He’s at the mill, sir. He was off afore any on us was up; an’ he said
happen he mightna git whome fur breakfast, he wur so busy,” was the
reply of Bess.
But Mr. Ashton, setting off towards the factory, encountered Jabez on
the way, and they returned together to breakfast, as if they had met
for the first time that morning. On Mrs. Ashton’s suggestion, Augusta
was neither questioned nor accused.
“We should only tempt her to deny, and perhaps provoke ill-will towards
our informant, with no good end,” she said. “Better wait and ascertain
beyond question what her intentions are.”
Jabez would fain have spared her the pain and shame of exposure, but
the matter was out of his hands.
The day passed unmarked save by Augusta’s restless lookout for Crazy
Joe, and the way she hung about her mother, as if half afraid of the
rash step she contemplated.
Mr. Ashton meanwhile, to cover his distress and agitation, busied
himself about the transfer of the White Hart (which he pronounced
“admirable”) to its place over the inn-door, and managed to elicit from
Chapman, the gossiping landlord, without direct inquiry, that a fine
young spark in hunting gear had put up his horse there several times
within the past week, and was like to make the fortune of Crazy Joe, he
gave the poor softy so many half-crowns; but Joe was “deep, and never
let on what he got them for.”
CHAPTER THE THIRTY-EIGHTH.
DEFEATED.
Jabez Clegg and the young ladies occupied adjoining chambers (the two
inner rooms of the suite), but the door of communication was locked,
and they were attained by different staircases. Thus, as he was
compelled to pass through the Hulmes’ sleeping apartment, so Ellen and
Augusta were constrained to go backwards and forwards through that
of Mr. and Mrs. Ashton—an arrangement to which long use had probably
reconciled them.
It was this fact which had so much disconcerted Augusta, since she
foresaw a difficulty in escaping unheard; and not meeting with Joe
(that most unpromising of Cupids), she was as equally unable to convey
a message to her expectant lover. She repented her rash promise, and
would fain have availed herself of a pretext for delay; but the night
came, and, haunted by imaginary pictures of Laurence with a pistol to
his head, she dared not disappoint him. She had promised to meet him
at that entrance of the Lovers’ Walk which opened below Yeardsley-Hall
Farm into Moor Lane, whilst, the lane being a steep declivity, he was
to keep the post-chaise in waiting at the foot.
Her headache served as an excuse for retiring to bed earlier than her
cousin, and scarcely could her father and mother restrain themselves as
she kissed them lingeringly before she went. Indeed, Mr. Ashton would
much have preferred to “have it out with the girl at once, and have
done with it,” there not being much “waiting” blood in his veins.
He had kept out of her sight most of the day, fidgeting over one thing
and another, whilst his waistcoat and shirt-frill bore testimony to the
constant raid on his snuff-box.
“I don’t like to see my poor lass trapped like a bird in a cage,” he
said, in confidence, to Jabez, whose opinion he already knew agreed
with his own, as did the desire to “thrash the infernal scoundrel
within an inch of his life.”
The last straw had broken the camel’s back, and Jabez was no longer
inclined to be passive.
Laurence had bid Augusta take no care for her wardrobe; his purse was
ample, and he would dress her like a queen if she would only consent
to fly with him. So, after collecting a few immediate necessaries and
trinkets, and placing the reticule which contained them out of sight,
she crept into bed, to lie and listen for the household to follow her
example. How lazily the hours lagged! She heard old Simon shuffling
about, and the creaking of his camp-bedstead, as he settled his old
rheumatic bones for the night, but the firm foot of Jabez she did not
hear, though the house clock struck nine, and Ellen came up with the
last stroke.
In answer to a question, Ellen said that Mr. Clegg was asleep on the
squab, and that she understood he had slept there the previous night,
to be able to go to the mill very early, without disturbing anyone else.
“I saw him as he lay there, where he had fallen asleep shortly after
tea, and I have been speaking to my uncle about him; he looks so
dreadfully worn and jaded, I am sure he is either killing himself with
overwork, or has some great trouble on his mind,” and a deep sigh
followed this expression of opinion.
Augusta was silent. Something within her secret heart whispered that
the trouble of Jabez Clegg would be intensified sevenfold by her act
of that night; and haughty as she was betimes, she pitied him. And
whatever were her compunctions, fears, or emotions, Jabez certainly
shared with her parents in her thoughts.
Ellen slept. The clock struck ten. Father and mother entered their
room, and through the door which Augusta had artfully requested Ellen
to “leave open on account of the heat” came the sound of their voices
in low but earnest converse—“You leave her to me, William,” spoken with
decision, being the only words she could distinguish, though she heard
her father walk about for some time. Indeed, she thought he would never
go to bed.
Eleven! She slipped stealthily from the side of her sleeping cousin,
and by the light of the moon, clear enough to-night, dressed as
noiselessly and rapidly as her trepidation would permit. From habit
she knelt to pray, but as she came to the passage, “Lead us not into
temptation, but deliver us from evil,” a new meaning seemed to flash
through the words, and she half wavered in her purpose.
“Poor Jabez!” she murmured to herself, as she caught up her shoes and
reticule, and listened in the open doorway for the deep breathing which
came from behind the dimity curtains of the four-post bed. Re-assured,
she stepped lightly across the room in her stocking-feet, turned the
drop-handle of that chamber door as silently as the squeaking latch
would permit and fled swiftly down the stairs, sitting down at the
bottom to put on her shoes.
She had raised the sash, and was in the very act of stepping over the
low window-sill, when a foot was heard on the stair, and turning her
head, she saw her mother fully dressed close by her side, and felt her
slight wrist grasped as in a vice.
“Is this your filial love and obedience, misguided girl? Is this the
result of Madame Broadbent’s training? Have you no more sense of honour
and decency than to elope at midnight with any man, least of all with
the worthless reprobate who has caught your silly fancy? Could you not
think that chastity is the brightest jewel in a woman’s crown, and the
soonest dimmed, that you were ready to leave your character at the
mercy of every gossip who had a tongue to wag?”
She had drawn Augusta, too much stunned to speak, into the parlour
close at hand, and had shut the doors—a needless precaution, seeing how
remote were all sleepers. A few words of gentle motherly inquiry might
have softened impulsive, tender-hearted Augusta to tears, and turned
the whole current of her life; but Mrs. Ashton’s stateliness had become
sternness, and, fresh from the evil teaching of Laurence Aspinall, her
daughter’s proud spirit rose in rebellion, and answered her.
“We are going to be married. And I was not going with Laurence alone.
Cicily was to travel with us. Laurence himself proposed it.”
“Infatuated girl!” exclaimed Mrs. Ashton, “Cicily was in Mosley Street
last night.”
“And so were you, mother,” was the smart retort, “but the coach which
dropped you here carried her to Buxton. Outside passengers were muffled
up, but she waved her handkerchief as she passed, as a sign to me.”
“Sign to you, indeed! I marvel you are not ashamed of yourself and your
hero, who is not content with corrupting my daughter, but must corrupt
our servants also! A fine hero indeed, whose qualifications are all
external! I cannot see what there is to admire in him.”
“Not see what there is to admire in that exquisite figure and beautiful
face? Why, I shall be the envy of half the girls in Manchester when I
marry him!” Augusta exclaimed, with anything but the air of a culprit
just detected.
“But you are not likely to marry him, you forward chit. You go back to
Manchester to-morrow, and I will take good care you don’t marry either
clandestinely or openly a man so sure to make your heart ache, if he
were thrice as handsome!”
“But I WILL marry him, mamma—_I’ll please my eye, if I plague
my heart_!”
“_Then, as you make your bed, so must you lie, miss_,” answered Mrs.
Ashton, gravely and deliberately. “But take my word for it, neither
your papa nor myself will give our consent. And now go to your room,
Augusta, and thank God you have been saved from disgrace this night,
and thank us that we have kept you from open exposure. Not even your
cousin has a notion of this last folly. Our daughter’s honour is dearer
to us than to herself,” and the mother’s tone softened as she spoke.
“Your daughter’s honour has never been in any danger,” said Augusta,
haughtily, as she swept from the room, to encounter at the foot of the
stairs, flooded by moonlight through the open window, her father—and
Jabez.
Up to that moment she had stood on the defensive, her wayward spirit
upholding and arming her for retort. The sight of the father who had
indulged her every whim, and of Jabez whose esteem she valued more than
she herself knew, gave a sudden shock to her overwrought nerves, and
she fell forward into the arms of Jabez in a deep swoon.
Tenderly, respectfully, sadly, he bore her into the parlour, and
placing her on the sofa, relinquished her to her mother, divesting
himself of his shoes in order to procure water to restore her without
creating alarm.
When she recovered he was gone; she was alone with the parents whose
counsels she had despised, whose love she had wounded; herself detected
and humiliated.
A greater humiliation had fallen to the lot of elate, enamoured, and
self-satisfied Laurence Aspinall, when, leaving his friend Barret with
the post-chaise, their saddle-horses, and Cicily at the bottom of Moor
Lane, he mounted the hill and whistled softly at the entrance of the
Lovers’ Walk, to call forth—not a blushing maiden, half afraid of her
own temerity, but—two justly incensed and indignant men. His low-voiced
“Augusta” died upon his lips; he recoiled, stammered—
“You! I—I did not expect—— D—nation! What brought you here? I thought——”
“Just so, you atrocious scoundrel, you thought God had left our pet
lamb to the fangs of the wolf, and that neither father nor friend was
near to protect the innocent!” exclaimed Mr. Ashton, raising the stout
bamboo with which he was provided.
“If that infernal Cicily has betrayed us, I’ll——”
The threat was not completed, for Jabez interrupted him with—
“No, sir, it was not Cicily. You betrayed yourself. You laid bare your
whole scheme in this walk within my hearing, Mr. Laurence Aspinall, and
the sophistry which misled a simple confiding girl could not delude one
who knew you as I do.”
“D—nation!” hissed Laurence between his teeth. “You infernal
charity-school whelp! Am I to meet you at every turn? I suppose you
want Miss Ashton for yourself, but I’ll balk you yet!” and, but that
Jabez had a quick eye and hand, his riding-whip would have seamed the
latter’s manly face.
Jabez dexterously caught the light whip, and wrenched it from him, a
simultaneous sharp blow of Mr. Ashton’s bamboo on Aspinall’s shoulders
tending to loosen his grasp. And then the two young men, with all the
fever of jealousy added to old animosity, closed and grappled with each
other as might a lion and a tiger in the arena. And Mr. Ashton, his
love of fair play yielding to his exasperation, made good use of his
bamboo whenever he could deal a blow without harming Jabez.
The two combatants were not unequally matched; there was little
difference in size and weight, but the scientific skill of Laurence had
more than a counterpoise in the nerve and muscle of Jabez, strengthened
by exercise and a temperate life, whilst vicious courses had somewhat
impaired his own athletic frame.
The struggle on the steep hill-side was too deadly for noise. At
length Laurence—himself booted and spurred—in striving to take an
unfair advantage and rip the unprotected calves of Jabez with the
rowels of his spurs, lost his foothold, and was borne to the earth,
falling heavily. He lay on the ground stunned and motionless. At once
Jabez, with a swift revulsion of feeling, knelt down by the side of
his prostrate foe, and raised his head; Mr. Ashton bending over them
inquiringly, just as Barret, whom curiosity and impatience had drawn
from his post below, came on the scene. A stifled groan, and a muttered
curse, having assured Clegg that his rival was not mortally injured, he
called to Barret—
“Here, sir, take charge of your worthy principal; and be careful,
when next you plan an elopement, that you have not a man to deal with
instead of a credulous girl.”
Mr. Ashton’s “Just so!” coming sharply in as chorus, the young man put
his arm in that of the elder and drew him away, leaving Barrett and
the postilion to restore Laurence Aspinall, and assist him into the
post-chaise by the side of Cicily—whose trepidation would have been
very much increased could she have seen how the blood was trickling
down from a wound in his head, staining still more the torn, miry coat,
and the disordered shirt-frill over which he was usually so fastidious.
Barret, leading his companion’s horse, rode on in advance of the
vehicle, to prepare the pompous gentleman, laid up with the gout in
Buxton Crescent, for the reception of his gentlemanly son in a highly
gentlemanlike condition—hatless, wigless, dirty, dilapidated, bruised,
bloody—and unsuccessful. The hat had rolled down-hill, to be crushed
under the wheels of the chaise; the wig and broken whip were found the
next morning by Crazy Joe, who exercised his witless head respecting
them and the trampled ground to small purpose; then brought them to his
friend Sim as playthings. Had they fallen into the hands of a reasoning
mortal, much more perplexity, and a very serious mystery, might have
been the result.
Buxton being only five miles from Whaley-Bridge, Barret again made his
appearance in the neighbourhood of the “White Hart,” whilst the new
sign still attracted rustic admirers; and, finding no rumours current
respecting the occurrence of the preceding night, he rode off again,
having first committed to Crazy Joe a scarcely decipherable missive
from the discomfited lover to the not less disconsolate damsel.
The evening coach bore the Ashtons and Ellen back to Manchester;
Augusta, still in a rebellious mood, the cause of which, being hidden
from her cousin, occasioned the latter no little perplexity. There was
something, too, in the manner of her uncle and aunt to Jabez, and of
Jabez to all, which, being undefinable and impalpable, struck her as
peculiar. He seemed suddenly to have risen to another footing. How was
it they had taken _him_ into their confidence?
Not until the last moment—when attention was distracted by the bustle
at the inn-door, the disposal of the luggage, and the taking of
seats—could Crazy Joe (with cunning worthy a better cause) contrive to
slip the billet-doux into Miss Ashton’s reticule, unseen by all but
herself.
Not until she reached her own room could she scan its characteristic
contents, which ran as follows:—
“Crescent, Buxton,
“September ——, 1821.
“ADORED AUGUSTA,
“Excuse this scrawl; I can scarcely hold my pen in consequence of a
ruffianly attack made upon me by your father’s favourite factotum,
Jabez Clegg, in Moor Lane last night. Can you disclose to me the
strange fatality which kept you from my expectant arms, and revealed
our plans to that upstart foundling? Had not Mr. Ashton also struck at
me with a stick, I could readily have disposed of his assistant; but
my foot tripped over a stone, and falling, I lay at their mercy. Yet,
sweet Augusta, if my blood flowed it was for thy sake, and for thy
sake I endure.
“Be constant, be firm; let no tyranny coerce you, and I will make a
way for our union, if I steal you from their very midst. I have a
dislocated ankle, a bruised and swollen hand, a plaistered crown, and
I write painfully. I shall feel every hour a year until I hold you in
my arms again. But if my angelic Augusta be only true to her promise,
she will soon, in spite of spies and informers, be the adored wife of
her
“Most devoted
“LAURENCE.”
CHAPTER THE THIRTY-NINTH.
LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON.
It is no uncommon thing for a woman to gild a block, wreathe it with
flowers, and then fall down and worship the idol she has adorned.
Augusta’s hero needed no outward embellishment, so she fitted the fair
exterior with the perfections and virtues of the high-spirited, noble,
generous Mortimers and Mowbrays, whose acquaintance she had made in
print, and had set him on a very elevated pedestal, in spite of all
warnings. With that misleading letter of his before her, no wonder if
the “blood shed for her sweet sake” converted the hero into the martyr,
and placed Jabez and her father in the category of cruel persecutors.
It did more. It erected a barrier against reconciliation. In vain her
placable father held out a flag of truce; she kept aloof resentfully,
though in the solitude of her own chamber she gave way, and wept at her
isolation from all who loved her.
Mrs. Ashton, whose sense of propriety had been outraged, whose maternal
pride had received a terrible shock, was less readily disposed to
condone her daughter’s offence; and, being a better business woman than
a psychologist, her tactics showed none of her ordinary shrewdness.
The failure of Augusta’s banishment to Carr should have taught her that
romance is nursed in solitude, and that conciliation is better than
coercion. Had she spared a few hours from the warehouse to arrange a
dance, or a gipsy-party to Dunham Park; chaperoned her lovely daughter
to assembly, theatre, or concert-room; invited her companionship
in a stroll through St. Ann’s Square and King Street, calling at
Mrs. Edge’s fashionably-frequented library by the way; joined the
after-morning-church promenaders in the Infirmary Gardens, or given
a little time to morning calls, she would have brought Augusta into
contact with young people of her own age, and with the attractive of
the opposite sex, and so have supplied an antidote for the poison
Laurence and ultra-sentimental literature had instilled.
Instead, never was the golden fruit of the Hesperides more vigilantly
guarded. She was kept much within doors. The modern notion that a
daily airing is indispensable had not been promulgated, or had not
become the creed of the manufacturing community. Mrs. Ashton had “no
leisure for gadding,” and Augusta cared little to drive in the gig
with only James for her charioteer, or even to walk with Ellen, so
long as the mulberry-coloured livery was in attendance. (It might have
been otherwise, had not the said James held it as much “beneath his
dignity” to accept a bribe as he had formerly done to wait upon Mr.
Clegg.) From her old bed-room, which overlooked Mosley Street, she was
relegated to one in the rear, which commanded no wider prospect than
their own courtyard, nor anything more interesting than Nelson and his
kennel—by-the-bye, Nelson had been in favour since the sad accident
on the ice. Then, visits to Marsden Square were prohibited, lest she
should there meet John Walmsley’s undesirable friend; and altogether
her escapade had converted home into a cage, in spite of its gilding.
As might have been expected, the high-spirited, wayward girl, so long
her father’s pet, so long indulged in her caprices, chafed and rebelled
against every fresh token of restraint, and contrasted the dull
monotony of her life with the freedom and gaiety promised so frequently
by Laurence as the certain concomitants of wifehood with him.
With all her haughty spirit, she had a clinging, affectionate nature,
tinged though it was with poetry and romance; and now that her father
looked so unusually grave, and her mother so frigid, and she felt
herself an alien from both their hearts, instead of bewailing her
premeditated flight as a crime, the tendrils of her love only clung
closer to him who professed so much, and the more she was isolated
from them, the more she brooded on the ill-used and maligned Laurence,
his manly beauty and accomplishments, his lavish generosity, his
fascinations of voice and manner, and the fervour of his passion for
her.
Meanwhile, Tom Hulme had resumed his duties at Whaley-Bridge Mill, and
Jabez returned home to his. Much to Augusta’s surprise, he was not only
invited to dine with them on the day of his return, but to take his
place henceforth at their board as one of the family.
With Laurence’s misrepresentations fixed in her mind as truths, she
construed the daily association thus thrust upon her as a deliberate
affront, and resented it with a silent scorn which cut Jabez to the
soul. He knew nothing of Aspinall’s letter, or that he was accused of a
“ruffianly attack;” only felt that he would have died to serve her, and
had done what he had to save her from life-long misery without a single
thought of keeping her for himself.
A few more days, and back to Manchester came Mr. Aspinall senior,
having left a little of his portliness with his gout in the Buxton
Baths. Back with him came his son, and his son’s congenial companion,
Mr. Edmund Barret; the former still smarting under his defeat at Carr,
and all the more resolutely determined to carry off Augusta, jealousy
adding a new element to his love, a new aliment to his hate.
Sitting idly by the parlour window on the third of October, with her
head leaning against the frame, meditating on her own unhappiness and
her parents’ harshness, Augusta suddenly started to her feet with a
suppressed cry of delight, a vivid glow upon her cheeks, a brilliant
sparkle in her eye. Laurence Aspinall, mounted on Black Ralph, his
favourite hunter, was riding up the street, the dislocated ankle
apparently not affecting his enjoyment of equestrian exercise. As he
raised his new beaver in graceful salutation, even the flutter into
which she was thrown could not prevent her missing his glorious curls.
He had not deemed it necessary to replace his wig, and the poll shorn
during fever had not yet grown a fresh crop ripe for harvest. The
unfavourable impression passed with the moment, as he brought his
obedient steed on the flagged pavement close under the window, and
without a moment’s hesitation, she raised the sash, and leaned forward
to speak with him, glad of the opportunity.
“Oh, Laurence!”
“My own Augusta, this is indeed fortunate!”
Their hands clasped upon the window-sill,—the elevation of the house
raising her to his level—her tearful eyes looked up in his for traces
of suffering after the “ruffianly attack,” and found there, mingled
with the fierce light of violent love, a bitter sense of defeat, a
resolve to obtain her by fair means or foul.