to relate, coloured as passion or prejudice prevailed; but neither
could fully enlighten the other as to the share Mr. Clegg had had in
preventing the elopement.
He could tell her that Jabez had avowed overhearing their conversation
in the Lovers’ Walk, though where he could have been to overhear, or
what strange fatality could bring Mr. and Mrs. Ashton to Carr in time
to become the recipients of his eavesdropping and defeat their plans,
was a puzzle to both.
Be sure Laurence put the worst colour on the encounter in the lane,
and urged all he had himself endured to strengthen his claims upon
her—claims she was quite willing to admit, had she the power to concede
to them.
Having shown with very evident annoyance how impossible it was for her
to meet or give him a private interview, he exclaimed with indignation—
“What! not allowed to visit a relative, or to go abroad without a
gaoler! My dearest Augusta, this is a cruel state of captivity. But
my bird must not be allowed to fray her beautiful plumage in beating
against the bars of her cage. I must devise a better plan for her
escape. Any means are justifiable to obtain release from tyranny like
this. What says my love? Is she still willing to trust her Laurence?”
“To the death!” she whispered, emphatically.
“You are alone here every morning?”
Her lips could barely frame a “Yes,” when a voice and step in the
hall warned her to close the window with a hurried gesture to him;
and before Mrs. Ashton, who had lingered to give an order to James,
could enter the room, Black Ralph was cantering towards the Portico,
and Augusta occupied with the third volume of “Alinda, or the Child of
Mystery.”
Very little escaped Mrs. Ashton’s eye. The clatter of hoofs on the
flags, audible through the thick front door, had left no sensible
impression on her brain, but the heightened colour of Augusta
attracted her attention at once. She brought her work-basket from the
panel-cupboard, took thence a strip of cambric muslin, and handed it to
her daughter.
“My dear,” said she, quietly, “‘all play makes no hay.’ Your eyes are
younger than mine, and I think it will do you more good to hem your
father’s shirt-frills than to pore over sentimental books from morning
until night. So much romance-reading is not good for you. I see that
you are quite flushed and excited over the one you are perusing now.”
There was a sharp rat-tat on the lion’s head, and in burst Mr. Ashton,
much more flushed and excited than his daughter. He had met Mr.
Laurence on Black Ralph just as he was quitting the Portico, after an
angry discussion with Mr. Aspinall the elder.
“You are quite right, my dear, in saying, ‘Like father, like son,’”
cried he, “for I’ll swallow my snuff-box if that pompous old
cotton-merchant did not justify his scapegrace son in his attempt to
carry off our Augusta! He said that ‘the end justified the means,’
that we ‘ought to be proud of such an alliance’”—Mrs. Ashton’s lip
curled—“that ‘he was glad Miss Ashton had more discernment than her
parent,’ that ‘his boy had set his heart upon her, and should not be
thwarted in his choice by any beggar’s-inkle-weaver in England.’ And no
sooner had I left him in the reading-room, to digest _my_ opinion on
the subject, and put my foot on the steps of the Portico, than up rode
young Hopeful, and took off his hat to me, bowing down to his black’s
horse’s mane.”
Having delivered himself of this explosive intelligence, Mr. Ashton
walked about, and sought a sedative in his snuff-box; and Augusta, who,
folding the hem of the frill, had not lost one word, said, drily,
“I think Mr. Aspinall’s justification of his son’s design may at least
be taken as a vindication of Mr. Laurence’s _honourable_ intentions, of
which so many doubts have been expressed. And the bow equally absolves
Laurence from a charge of malice.”
With a proud toss of her shapely head, she walked towards the
dining-room, rejecting the proffered arm of Jabez, who had entered the
parlour whilst Mr. Ashton was speaking, and thus closed a discussion
which could not be continued in the presence of servants.
* * * * *
Jabez, on his return from Carr, had found his rough old clerical friend
confined to his room seriously ill. Tabitha was worn out with his
humours and eccentricities, and was glad when the young man offered to
relieve her twice or thrice a week; and old Joshua welcomed him as a
relief from the monotonous garrulity of an unlettered old woman. Jabez
could bring him news of another stamp. Through Ben Travis (who had
discovered that activity was the best antidote to melancholy), he kept
him informed of the progress of the incipient temperance movement, in
which the Parson took uncommon interest; through Mr. Ashton, he kept
him _au courant_ of town politics, and for general intelligence he
brought newspapers with him to read interrupted by many and unique
commentaries. In order that Tabitha might obtain repose, Mr. Clegg
usually remained until a late hour, Mrs. Ashton herself entrusting him
with a latch-key on these occasions.
One night, towards the middle of October, when Joshua had been more
than ordinarily crusty, and Jabez did not quit the classic corner until
the “wee short hour ayont the twal,” he was struck as he turned the
corner from Market Street into Mosley Street to find Mr. Aspinall’s
carriage in waiting with four horses and postilions.
He stood still for a moment to re-assure himself, but carriages were
not so common that he should mistake that particular one; and his heart
drummed an alarm within his breast.
Hurrying on with sad misgivings, he passed two tall figures muffled in
cloaks, whom he had no difficulty in recognising, from build and walk,
to be the Aspinalls, father and son; and increasing his speed he gained
the door, inserted his key in the latch, and was on the stairs before
the cloaked individuals had finished their speculations respecting his
being a robber escaped from a constable.
Formerly, Augusta had to pass his room door to reach her own, on the
opposite side of the long corridor. Her new chamber was next to his
own, and nearer to the staircase. A thin stream of light shot through
the key-hole, and a bright narrow line cast upon the opposite wall
showed the door ajar. He stood still in his surprise.
As if a tipsy, musically-disposed man were going past, the refrain of
a rollicking song was trolled out in the street; and then Augusta,
equipped as for a journey, came forth from her chamber to descend the
stairs. She had calculated on the signal an hour earlier, and expected
Jabez an hour later. As she stole on tiptoe down the stairs Jabez
confronted her and barred her progress. Her silver candlestick dropped
from her hand, with the one word “Again!” and rolling down with a
clang, awakened Mr. and Mrs. Ashton, the only sleepers on that floor,
and set Nelson barking furiously. They were in the dark, but he had
caught her hand.
“Miss Ashton, this is infatuation—madness.”
“No matter, sir, let me pass; you have no right to detain me!”
“But I have, miss,” said her father coming behind, guided by their
voices, his scant apparel as invisible in the gloom as himself. “Is
this another attempt to disgrace us by eloping? Oh, my child, my
child, you are breaking your poor old father’s heart!”
“And mine!” floated like the echo of despair’s last sigh from the lips
of Jabez.
But the utter hopelessness of the old man’s tone touched a sensitive
chord of Augusta’s soul, and turning, she fell upon his neck crying
tearfully, “Oh, forgive me, father, forgive me. I did not think you
would take it so much to heart.”
The appeal of affection to affection had accomplished what reason and
authority had failed to effect.
CHAPTER THE FORTIETH.
WITH ALL HIS FAULTS.
Augusta’s penitence exhaled like dew from a flower. In the light of
her mother’s lofty displeasure her tears dried, and self-will once
more exerted its pre-eminence. She locked herself in her own room and
resolutely refused to come forth.
“So long as that odious meddler, Jabez Clegg, remains under our roof,
I will stay here; and, if you will not consent to my marriage with
Laurence Aspinall, I will starve myself to death!” was her angry
declaration, as she closed the door and turned the key.
“Leave her alone,” said Mrs. Ashton, “she will want her food before the
food wants her; and a little wholesome solitude is good for reflection.
She will change her mind before the day closes.”
This was at mid-day; but night came, and another noon, yet there was no
sign of Miss Ashton’s appearance; and Mrs. Ashton had made no overtures
to her refractory daughter. The tender-hearted father was in a pitiable
state of perturbation. In and out the warehouse he was twenty times
in the day—as Kezia observed, “For a’ th’ world like a hen on a hot
griddle;” and his snuff-box was hardly ever out of his hand. Business
seemed altogether beyond his grasp; he answered questions at random, or
was unconscious when addressed.
To this state of trouble Jabez unintentionally contributed his quota.
Over the tea-table, unenlivened by Augusta’s sparkling presence, though
she was the one sole topic of conversation—he said, and not without an
effort—
“It has occurred to me, and I have thought the matter well over, that
since my unfortunate position in relation to late events has made my
very presence obnoxious to Miss Ashton, it might be better for all
concerned if I were to shift my quarters without delay. There are
lodgings vacant close at hand; and I have no right to linger here and
disturb the peace of any one member of your kind family.”
“Jabez Clegg!” remonstrated Mr. Ashton, with wide-open eyes.
“Have you any _other_ reason to be dissatisfied with present
arrangements?” asked Mrs. Ashton stiffly.
“Oh! Mrs. Ashton, how can I have? This house has been my home for
years, and such a home as rarely falls to the lot of the fatherless. To
you, my benefactors, I owe everything—almost myself; and I should ill
repay your uniform kindness by remaining to create discord.”
“If your only desire to remove is to gratify Miss Ashton’s whims,
you will oblige me, Mr. Clegg, by remaining,” replied Mrs. Ashton,
with grave decision; whilst Mr. Ashton, looking the very picture of
consternation, laid his hand upon the young man’s sleeve, and said
slowly—
“My lad, you have been one of the household for many years; do not be
the first to make a breach in the family. If the child of our blood
and our affections goes forth to strangers wilfully, and repudiates
us, do not let the son of our adoption leave us to lament her loss in
solitude.”
This was strong language, but Mrs. Ashton did not gainsay it, and
Mr. Clegg could not longer press the point though his own pain was
intensified by the fear of adding to the distress of Augusta, who, he
was confident, regarded him as an interloper and a mischief-maker.
Little had been seen of Ellen since the return from Carr Cottage. A
message despatched by Mrs. Ashton to her sister, in her dilemma, was
answered by another to pray them to “excuse Miss Chadwick, who was not
well enough to go out.”
This somewhat disconcerted Mrs. Ashton, who, more alarmed than she
would admit, and disturbed by the restless uneasiness of her husband,
had looked for Ellen to act as a mediator without any compromise of her
own dignity.
At the close of the second day, as Augusta pertinaciously refused
to open the door, at the instance of Jabez the lock was forced; and
even then a barrier of chairs and boxes had to be thrust back by
sheer strength. She was exhausted from want of food, but her will was
indomitable, and neither her father’s entreaties, nor her mother’s
commands could induce her to partake of the viands spread before her.
Jabez was in agony. Delicacy and her obvious dislike had kept him
from intruding upon her privacy, but as hour after hour was added to
the night, and Augusta persistently dashed aside the food placed to
her lips, he joined his prayers to those of her father; and neither
availing, rushed out of the house, and in less than a quarter of an
hour returned with Dr. Hull. _He_ was not a man to stand any nonsense.
“Here, sir”—to Jabez—“you are young and strong, hold the silly child’s
arms whilst her teeth are forced apart. If she will not take food, she
shall take physic, and see which she likes the best.”
But the struggle to nourish her frame through set teeth was prolonged
and painful, and the parents were likely to yield before the child.
Servants may be faithful, but they have eyes and ears, and not always
discreet tongues. Family matters discussed freely in the kitchen before
apprentices, found their way into the warehouse and beyond it, and Mrs.
Ashton’s nerves tingled when she became acquainted with the rumours
afloat.
From Tim, the Ashton stable-boy, Aspinall’s emissary (Bob the groom,
once more in his old service) had no difficulty in obtaining all the
information his young master needed.
Laurence waylaid Mr. Ashton, inquired anxiously after the obstinate
girl’s health, and, having paved the way by as much contrition as
he thought necessary, called at the house the following morning, in
company with his father, to renew proposals for Miss Ashton’s hand.
Worn out by Augusta’s obstinacy, which she and Laurence agreed to
call “constancy,” father and mother were in a different frame of mind
to receive this proposition than when they had given their former
peremptory rejection. They were not one whit more convinced by Mr.
Laurence’s assurance that he meant to “reform,” or Mr. Aspinall’s
quotation of the adage, “A reformed rake makes the best husband”; but
rather than see their child starve herself to death before their very
eyes, they yielded; and Laurence Aspinall, profuse alike in thanks
and professions, was permitted by aching hearts and reluctant lips to
introduce Augusta to his father then and there as his bride elect.
It was a moment of triumph for Laurence when Augusta refused to come
down without an assurance under his own hand. He pencilled on a card,
“My Augusta, I wait for you,—Laurence.” And presently, supported by a
maid-servant, she entered the room, her dress of purple poplin serving
to show how wan and transparent her fair skin had grown, how unnatural
was the brilliance of her eyes.
She would have fallen, as much from weakness as emotion, on her
entrance into the parlour, but that Laurence darted forward and caught
her in an embrace which brought back somewhat of her lost colour; and
if anything could have softened the pain of that hour to her parents,
it was the apparent ardour and sincerity of the lover, the hope that
a genuine passion might tend to wean him from his old habits and
associates.
Mr. Aspinall’s reception of Augusta was characteristic.
“My charming Miss Ashton, I see my son has brought back the roses to
your cheeks. May they never fade again, but bloom perennially without
a thorn! I rejoice to kiss your hand paternally on this auspicious
occasion, and to assure you that I shall be proud to welcome such
beauty and such constancy as the wife of my noble son.”
Consent once obtained, the Aspinalls were as eager to press forward
the marriage as the Ashtons were to retard it, neither her father nor
mother affecting a satisfaction they did not feel.
“My dear,” said the latter to Augusta one day, when her eyes were
sparkling over a costly present just received from Laurence, “your
father was in hopes you would have fixed your heart on some good steady
man like Jabez Clegg, who would have been a comfort and a credit to all
of us, and have kept the business in the family after we were in our
graves.”
“Pshaw, mamma! how preposterous! I am surprised at my father’s
infatuation for that young man. I esteem him quite sufficiently for a
friend, but”—and she locked an emerald earring in her delicate ear—“I
could not exist with a husband whose heart was in his business. My
husband’s heart must hold me and me only; and I must have something to
look at as well as to love.”
“Ah! Augusta, it must be a very small heart indeed which cannot find
room both for a wife and a business to maintain her fittingly. The
sheen of a dress which must last a life is of less consequence than its
durable texture.”
“Well, mamma, so long as the material pleases my eyes, I will take the
wear upon trust. And do not be surprised that _your_ daughter prefers
a fine man and a gentleman to one whose fortune is in the clouds, and
whose origin is so obscure, he has not _even a name_ to call his own.”
She was standing to admire herself and her new jewellery in the
Venetian glass between the windows as she said this, and her mother’s
figure filling in the frame, Jabez Clegg came and went unseen, a pang
in his heart and an intensified resolve to make both fortune and name
for himself even though his master’s daughter vanished from his vision.
Nothing would induce Mr. Ashton to part with his child until she was
at least eighteen; and in that particular he was proof against the
importunities of Laurence and the cajoleries of Augusta. So for ten
months (during which the lawyers had ample time to quarrel over the
settlement of Augusta’s £18,000, so that too much or too little should
not be tied down on the lady) the dashing young blade was on his trial,
so to speak, and contrived to beguile both father and mother of their
prejudices; whilst to Augusta a new world of gaiety was opened out.
As her daughter’s chaperon, Mrs. Ashton renewed her acquaintance with
the yellow satin cushions of the Assembly Rooms, the Gentlemen’s
Concerts discoursed sweet music in their ears, Miss Ashton could take
her seat in the boxes of the Theatre Royal without fear of Madame
Broadbent’s fan, and Kezia was in her glory, so many balls and parties
had to be catered for; and Mr. Laurence Aspinall was in the ascendant.
All this was inexpressibly painful to Jabez, but as he had written
to Ben Travis that “there was something more for men to do than die
of disappointment or blighted love,” so he set his face like a rock
against the breakers, and gave himself entirely to business. He said
to himself it would be cowardice to flee from that which must be borne
and mastered, so never another word was heard of his seeking a home
elsewhere. If he was brave, he was not foolhardy enough to court pain
in the sight of his rival’s triumph, and though in his determination to
“stick to his last,” he had eschewed all art which came not within the
scope of pattern designing, to that he turned with redoubled assiduity
after business hours, having found a profitable market apart from Mr.
Ashton’s firm, as his account with the Savings Bank in Cross Street had
borne witness from the date of its establishment in January, 1818.
But for a brief space, and that whilst the wound was raw and new, his
ministrations to the dying chaplain of the Old Church not only carried
him out of sight and hearing, but in a measure drew his thoughts away
from his own sorrow.
Once only did Joshua scarify the sore. In an interval of pain he said
with his customary abruptness,
“And so that pretty lass of thy master’s is going to throw herself away
on the wild rascal who pitched thee over the wall?”
Jabez could not trust himself to answer save by a movement of his head.
“Ugh! she’d better ha’ takken a fancy to thee!”
Half-an-hour or more elapsed. Waking from a doze, he said—
“Dost thou remember my telling thee to look at ‘Hogarth’s Apprentice’
in Chadwick’s parlour?”
“Indeed, I do! They have influenced my life,” answered Mr. Clegg with a
sigh, pouring out a dose of medicine as he spoke.
“More physic, eh? Ugh! doctors kill more than they cure with their
stuff! Ay, lad, thah’st mounted up, thou’lt be a master thyself some
day, if thou dost not forget that _Jabez_ must be an _honourable_ man!”
“I never did forget it sir, even though the apprentice boy was mad
enough to aspire to his master’s daughter! But losing her, I have
learned a new lesson. The prayer of the olden Jabez, which has been
mine night and morn from boyhood, was a prayer for _self_, and _self_
only, and I had no right to look for an answer to all the hopes I based
upon it. If I have not been ‘kept from evil,’ and it _has_ ‘grieved
me,’ I prayed for myself _alone_, and in grief I have my answer. Prayer
should take a wider range.”
“Right, lad, right! now let me sleep.”
When he waked again he remarked—
“It’s time for thee to be off, Jabez; but time is running faster with
me than thee, lad. Here, reach yon Terence from the bureau. It is the
Edinburgh edition. Keep it for the sake of the rough old Parson who
gave thee thy name. And take care of it. Good night. How thick the fog
is!” He had lost the sight of one eye, and the other was rapidly going.
That was the ninth of November. When Jabez came again on the eleventh,
the fog had cleared away from Joshua Brookes’s sight for ever; and
fountains of tears ran freely from many eyes for the hot, hasty,
single-minded, and learned Parson whose name was a household word in
the town, and who had ever been a kind friend to Jabez. In his life he
had been at war with huckster-women, street-urchins, school-boys, and
his ecclesiastical brethren. In his death the wide parish, and more
than the parish, united to reverence his memory, those who had laughed
loudest at his eccentricities being foremost to bewail him.
Even the November clouds hung thick and heavy as a pall over the Old
Church and churchyard, crowded with mourners, when his silent remains
were carried to their bed in the cross aisles his feet had trodden so
many active years, and if others besides Jabez shed tears over the
open and honoured grave, there was many an old creature mourning in
solitude, besides the queer old woman in kerchief and mutch, who sat
amongst her sweets in a closed shop, and lamented that so young a man
as Parson Brookes should be carried off before her.
“Well-a-day! and only sixty-seven! He’ll want no more humbugs, and no
more cakes for his pigeons. Poor Jotty!”
There was no mention of Jabez in his will, but when the young man took
the old worn Terence sadly and reverently down from the shelf where he
had first placed it, on turning over its leaves he found a bank note
for £300 pinned to the fly-leaf, on which was inscribed his own name
and that of the eccentric donor.
CHAPTER THE FORTY-FIRST.
MARRIAGE!
Had Jabez been vindictive, the opportunity, or at least the promise of
revenge on his successful rival was not wanting. Various efforts had
been made to call the Manchester Yeomanry to account for their doings
at Peterloo, and many had been the overtures and suggestions to Jabez
Clegg by members of the Radical party to join in the prosecution of the
offenders. But he resolutely refused to identify the trooper who struck
him, saying—
“I forgave the man at the time, believing him to be drunk, and
incapable of discrimination. If I have since had reason to think
otherwise, I cannot be so mean as to allow private feeling to influence
a public act.”
It would be false to say there never was a tug at his heartstrings when
the tempters were again at his elbow, before they made their final
attempt in 1822. But he said to himself—
“If it would have been revengeful at the time when the bodily injury
was fresh, it would be doubly revengeful, mean, and dishonourable now
that he has supplanted me in love. And in striking at him I should
wound Augusta, and that must never be.”
The temptation to expose his adversary was set aside, and thus it
was that Laurence Aspinall’s name was not added to those of the four
defenders on the record of the trial at Lancaster in April; and as
that trial, after the examination of nearly a hundred witnesses of all
ranks, terminated unsuccessfully for the prosecution, the forbearance
of our friend Jabez spared him at least the mortification of defeat.
The year rolled on. At the instance of Mr. Ashton, Jabez withdrew
the bulk of his deposits from the Savings Bank, and adding to Joshua
Brookes’s gift the £200 he had accumulated by working late and early
and saving small sums even during his apprenticeship, placed all in
his master’s hands, to be invested in the business and so return him a
higher rate of interest. And this was the first absolute start of Jabez
as a capitalist.