whose medical creed was to “let nature take its course,” pronounced
her out of danger, and fit for the removal contemplated by her
friends, and resisted by Laurence. Double doors, however, could not
exclude outer sounds, and so long as she shrank and shuddered at every
crunch on the gravel, every echo of his raised voice, recovery was
retarded. So the elder Mr. Aspinall, exasperated with his son, and most
solicitous for the welfare of his son’s charming wife, added his dictum
to that of the doctor, offered his own carriage for her conveyance, and
threatened to disinherit Laurence if he interfered.
Once in her childhood’s home she amended rapidly, but with increasing
strength came maternal yearnings for her infant, still in charge of
the wet nurse at Fallowfield. A hackney-coach was sent to bring Sarah
Mostyn with the child to its mother; but not a step would the nurse
budge. She had no orders from her master, and the master paid her
wages, and she, “shouldna tak’ orders from annybody else.” Messages
were sent, and notes were written to Laurence, which he tore to shreds;
but he kept away from his wife, and kept back the child.
At length she pined so much for her “dear babe,” that Mr. Ashton and
Jabez together sought Laurence out in one of his haunts (a tavern near
Cockpit Hill), to prevail on him to let Augusta have her boy with her.
“Mrs. Aspinall herself deserted her child,” he replied, all the more
haughtily that Jabez was Mr. Ashton’s seconder. “When Mrs. Aspinall
thinks fit to return home to her maternal and wifely duties, she will
find the nursery door open, and her son in trustworthy care. A true
wife’s place is by her husband’s hearth.”
“Yes, sir, when the husband is a true man,” replied Jabez, with
decision.
“And who dares to say I am not a true man?” retorted Laurence boldly.
“I do!” promptly answered the other. “No true man would have imperilled
his wife’s life by a reckless drive in the dark night in a tandem
Tilbury! Only a reckless madman or a ruffian would have forced a horse
into a wife’s sick-chamber, to drive her delirious with terror!”
“And pray, sir,” haughtily responded the other, “how long has Mrs.
Aspinall made _you_ her confidant?”
“I have not the honour of Mrs. Aspinall’s confidence,” answered
Jabez sturdily, looking him full in the face; “such facts are
trumpet-tongued.”
“Just so,” put in Mr. Ashton, drawing his arm through that of his
junior partner. “And the fact that Augusta shrinks at your name has
spoken so loudly to us that if ever she sits on your hearth again it
won’t be with my consent.—Come away, Clegg.”
After this declaration, Aspinall changed his tactics. He wrote to his
wife, requesting her return; then entreating it; and finally went in
person to beseech her to “come back,” vowing to “atone for the past
with the devotion of a life.”
The young mother yearned for her babe, the tender-hearted wife could
not resist the appeal of the husband whom with all his faults she
yet loved; and, regardless of the previsions of her mother, or the
entreaties of her father, she allowed him to drive her home again to
the Grange.
Her first thought was the nursery. There she found, in addition to her
own boy, drawing its sustenance from the nurse’s breast, a well-dressed
child, some two years old, playing with a wooden milkmaid-rattle on
the rug. Something in the child’s face and auburn curls made her ask,
“Sarah, whose child is that?”
“Mine. Whose should it be?” was the pert answer; and the boldness
of the woman’s manner checked further inquiry. But Augusta’s heart
had received a shock which shook the pedestal on which her idol sat
enthroned.
For a short pace Laurence kept terms with his wife; and before her
father or strangers he was her most devoted slave; but she underwent a
species of slow torture in secret.
She soon found that Sarah Mostyn was mistress of the house as well as
of the nursery, and that Sarah Mostyn’s child was of as much importance
as her own baby-boy.
Then he filled the Grange with his riotous associates, and compelled
his wife to do the honours of his table, though their oaths and
conversation overpowered her with disgust. And if one flushed with
wine, or more bold than the rest, paid her a compliment, or looked too
warm an admiration, Laurence was sure to find his way to her side with
his common undertone threat—“D—— n you, madam, you shall smart for
this!”—a threat always accompanied with sly pinches, which left their
marks beneath her sleeves. Then, straightway, “my dear,” or “my love”
would be asked, in the blandest of tones, to sing a song, play a rondo,
or perform some act of courtesy for the very guest who had excited his
jealousy.
They had few lady visitors. The neighbourhood was remote from town,
and sparsely inhabited. Mr. Laurence Aspinall’s reputation was as a
yellow flag to warn gentlewomen who had daughters or husbands to lose
against close intimacy with their neighbours of the Grange. Pitying
the isolation of one so formed to adorn society, Mr. Aspinall gave
mixed parties at Ardwick Green, in the name of Mrs. Laurence, when the
splendour of her attire and the assiduous attention of her husband
set rumour to contradict rumour. But save on an occasional family
gathering, she saw few of her own sex at Fallowfield.
And her position in her own home was rendered intolerable by the
continued presence of Sarah Mostyn, who at first familiar, then
impertinent, had become at last openly defiant.
It was not until all efforts to keep the nurse in her proper place had
failed, that Augusta appealed to Laurence to discharge her, the woman
having refused to take a dismissal from anyone but her master.
“Tchut!” said he, “I’ll soon settle that business!” and forthwith
stalked to the nursery, whence his voice was heard in loud command; but
the result was not the woman’s removal, only a temporary submission,
to be followed by fresh rebellion, and the confirmation of Augusta’s
worst suspicions. How often did the aggrieved wife then recall her
thoughtless declaration to her mother, that her “husband’s heart
must hold _her_ and _her only_,” not even business to share in its
possession! And how thankful she would have been to have had no rival
then but business! She was finding the bed she had made for herself a
wofully hard one; but she did not succumb readily, she had high spirits
and a buoyant nature, and would hardly admit to herself how much she
suffered or how great a mistake she had made.
But Cicily, that most faithful of faithful followers, cognisant of her
mistress’s wrongs long before her mistress, paid Sarah Mostyn off in
her own coin on various occasions, and took care that through one means
or other the Ashtons should know what a life their darling led.
Amongst his other little peculiarities Mr. Laurence was an epicure; and
one of his favourite tid-bits was that spongy lining of a goose’s frame
known as the _soul_. It chanced at a family dinner, rather more than a
year after Augusta’s return home, that a fine stubble goose formed part
of the bill of fare; and Cicily, who had long owed him a grudge for his
heartless treatment of her young mistress, determined to pay him off,
and expose him before the whole company. A good caterer for a dainty
palate, Cicily knew her power and privileges, but in this case she
overshot the mark.
One of the accomplishments of that generation was dexterous carving,
and Laurence prided himself on being able to dismember a large fowl
without once shifting his fork. The goose was set before himself, and
duly helped, but, lo! when his knife would fain have extracted his
favourite morsel it scraped bare bones.
The flat bell-rope was pulled violently. Cicily was summoned, and
Cicily, in clean linen cap and apron, stood in the doorway curtseying
respectfully.
“What have you done with the soul of this goose?” he demanded, in a
tone of suppressed passion.
Cicily came a step or two forward with an aspect of marvellous
innocence. “Eh, sir, it’s not a goose, it’s a gonder, and _gonders have
no souls_.”
Scarcely an individual present but took the covert inuendo, and glances
were exchanged across the board; but the look he shot at the woman
as, incapable of speech, he waved her to retire, was one never to be
forgotten, so much demoniac wrath was concentrated therein.
From the time when Jabez was acknowledged on ’Change as a Manchester
man, was admitted into Manchester “society,” and had absolutely become
a member of the same family as his son, Mr. Aspinall punctiliously
invited him with his wife; and Laurence, with widely different
feelings, followed suit.
It was not until after the noble exploit to which Augusta so nearly
fell a sacrifice that Mr. Clegg could be induced so far to listen
to Ellen’s desire for conciliation, “now that they were all of one
family,” as to accept one of these invitations. After that event he was
of Mrs. Ashton’s mind that, “as offenders never pardon,” Augusta needed
a friend to watch over her. So he left his books, and his brushes,
and his schemes for the class amongst whom he had been reared, and
(believing his growing affection for his wife, and the babe she had
borne him, a sufficient guarantee to his own heart for his own good
faith,) when the Aspinalls next invited, he accepted.
As previously stated, Augusta had not dropped into tame submission
all at once; her old wilfulness would have way at times; and the
light shafts of her satire were frequently aimed with effect against
her recalcitrant lord. More than once Jabez had averted disastrous
consequences by checking her vivacity ere it went too far. But never
had he been so thankful for his self-appointed guardianship as on the
night when Cicily thought to pay back her darling’s wrongs.
To his surprise and pleasure, Ben Travis, just returned from the
Continent, was of the party. He had not yet called on the family in
Oldham Street, and Jabez never asked him wherefore. The cousins had
much to talk over, and whilst Laurence Aspinall was pouring wine on his
wrath, they discussed a project in which Jabez took an interested part,
and which eventuated the following year in the Manchester Mechanics’
Institution. But through all their discussion Jabez never once lost
sight of Laurence, and from his excessively polite manner to her he
augured ill for Augusta when the restraining presence of friends was
removed. He communicated his fears to Travis and when the good-byes
were said, and the various conveyances rolled out of the great gates,
a fee to Luke the gardener, who was also gatekeeper, kept them open. A
whispered word was sufficient for those who had seen the look Laurence
directed across the dinner-table from Cicily to his wife, and who knew
the character and disposition of the man.
Mr. Travis’s gig and the Ashton’s hackney-coach were kept in waiting
close at hand, Mrs. Ashton and Ellen, well wrapped up within, waiting
anxiously for they knew not what.
Back towards the closed house went Mr. Ashton and the cousins, treading
carefully over the gravel. There was a flagged footway round the
building, and from the windows of dining and drawing-rooms lights were
still streaming. The last owner had lowered the middle window of the
drawing-room as a door of access to the lawn.
As if by accident the curtains had been dragged a little aside in each
apartment, and now there were watchers at the apertures. The elder Mr.
Aspinall had made an excuse and retired to bed early. Augusta, with a
shawl wrapped round her, sat weeping on a sofa in the drawing-room,
afraid to go to bed. High words had evidently passed whilst those
outside had made their arrangements at the gate.
Presently, into the dining-room sauntered Laurence, with his arm round
the shoulders of Sarah Mostyn the shameless nurse. They sat down to the
supper table; he poured out wine into a goblet, and they drank from the
same glass, he fed her with delicacies, and kissed and caressed her
with an assured familiarity which told it was no new experience.
Long they lingered drinking and dallying, and the watchers might have
thought no danger need be apprehended. Suddenly a word of the woman’s,
like a match to petroleum, set the whole man ablaze. He rushed from the
room with a loud oath, the woman after him, apparently in alarm. The
movement her friends made outside in gaining the other window caused
Augusta to raise her beautiful head, and at that moment her husband
stood before her, brandishing his cavalry sabre, and with his eyeballs
glaring, fiercely vociferating, “I’ll teach you madam, to set my
servants to insult _me_!” he made a fearful slash at her.
As she sprang aside with a terrified shriek, the old woodwork of the
glass-door gave way, and before the tipsy madman could recover his
guard to strike a fresh blow, his sabre was wrenched from him, and
himself struggling in the grasp of three powerful men, his own gardener
being one.
Poor Mr. Ashton’s care was his stricken child, whose white shoulders,
bathed in blood, were washed by a father’s tears. Thankful then was
Jabez to have been at hand, and on the alert, with so powerful an ally
as Travis; thankful to have saved Augusta’s life at any sacrifice of
personal feeling; and only himself could tell what his presence under
that roof cost him.
Even Laurence had no inkling of it; the marriage of Jabez had closed
his jealous eyes. But now, finding in his old opponent an unseen
watcher over his wife—her defender when he had least expected—his
baffled rage was something terrible to look upon. He fought,
struggled, vociferated, threatened, and foamed at the mouth; and Mr.
Aspinall, coming thither in his dressing-gown, aroused by the uproar,
could barely master his indignation and disgust as he ordered the
men-servants, crowding in half-dressed, to “help to bind that murderous
maniac down!”
It was well, too, that Mrs. Ashton and Ellen were close at hand, and a
vehicle ready to despatch for a surgeon, for Augusta needed all their
care.
Before three days were over there was a little coffin in the house,
holding a still-born child, and there was a young mother, with a
plaistered shoulder, lying, white as her pillow, in a state of coma.
Dr. Windsor having exercised his best skill, as was his wont left
nature to do the rest, and youth and nature, between them, did their
work effectually.
Fain would Mr. Ashton have removed his child once and for all. He
offered to set up a carriage for her, if she would but leave her
husband, and seek a legal separation, insisting that she owed a duty
to herself, as well as to her husband. Mr. Aspinall himself begged
that she would take up her abode with him, at Ardwick, if only for her
own security. He had ceased to find excuses for his son, and his son’s
charming wife stood high in his esteem.
But Laurence had been beforehand, and with plausible promises and
penitential tears, and an adroit parade of her little Willie, also in
tears “for mamma,” won her over to pardon, and to give him another
trial; and not all Mr. Ashton’s eloquence, nor Mrs. Ashton’s proverbial
battery, could win her from her decision.
“My dear mother,” said she, “remember you told me ‘what could not be
cured must be endured,’ and that ‘as I made my bed so must I lie.’
It is a long lane, mother, that has never a turn, I have heard you
say many a time; and who knows but Laurence may take a turn now, and
reform? At all events, it is my duty to give him a fair trial, and keep
my own wayward nature in check, so as not to provoke him; and I must
not leave Willie alone with that woman. I think Mr. Clegg would say I
am right.”
I am afraid she overrated Mr. Clegg’s magnanimity much as she overrated
her wild husband’s promised reformation, for her decision struck a pang
in the heart of Jabez, little dreamed of by Ellen. Indeed, it cost him
a sore struggle to subdue his concern for Augusta within the bounds of
duty to his own wife, whose many virtues were gradually winning their
way into his heart, and towards whom his attention never relaxed.
CHAPTER THE FORTY-SIXTH.
THE MOWER WITH HIS SCYTHE.
Years went by—Laurence had promised to remove Sarah Mostyn, but the
woman laughed, refused to stir, and he let her remain—a thorn in his
wife’s side—training up the boy she had nursed, and whom he idolised,
to scorn and jeer at his own mother; whilst her red-haired girl ran
wild about the place as a young hare. He broke out from time to time,
and his wife was the sufferer; he horse-whipped her, shot at her, and
tortured her in every way that malignity could devise.
No wonder that so many tiny coffins of immature babes should be carried
from the gates of the Fallowfield Grange. No wonder if Augusta began to
compare her lot with Ellen’s, and to repent her scorn of a true heart
because of its plebeian origin.
Meanwhile, the firm of Ashton, Chadwick, and Clegg prospered beyond
expectation, the business tact and integrity of the junior partner
alike aiding the extension and stability of the firm. To make way
for its expansion more warehouse room was required. The Ashtons,
not without a sigh for old association, relinquished their house,
and removed to another close at hand in George Street, little less
commodious, however much Kezia might grumble at it. This was when Ben
Travis, lacking employment for time, mind, and money, offered them to
the growing establishment, and his influence as “Co.” was accepted.
This combination of capital and energy, as Jabez had foreseen, worked
wonders for them commercially, enabling them to tide over the trade
distress of 1826 with security and advantage. Long before then Jabez
had offered to pay Mrs. Clowes her loan, with interest; but she told
him she was going to render up her account where, not the coin she had,
but that which she had given away, would be put to her credit; and so,
as at first proposed, she made it over to her little god-son, Joshua
Clegg, before she was gathered to the great garner.
But the universal mower reaped a heavier harvest in 1828, when he swept
his keen scythe over the bed of the river.
In 1822 Mr. Ashton (one of the first promoters of the Chamber of
Commerce), notwithstanding his advancing years, took an active part
in the formation of a New Quay Company, for the better navigation of
the river Irwell. The company was established, quays were constructed,
warehouses erected, boats built, traffic was extended, and the town
generally benefited.
In the February of 1828 the axe, the adze, and the hammer made a busy
noise in the boat-building yard of the company, and sail-makers were
active with their needles; for a flat, destined to convey cargoes of
merchandise to and from Liverpool, was to be ready for the launch on
the 26th, a day destined to send a thrill of horror tingling through
the veins of Manchester, so sad was the catastrophe it closed upon.
The launch of the _Emma_ was an event in the annals of the company,
and of the town; consequently a large number of spectators assembled,
a goodly proportion being admitted to the yard to take part in the
ceremony, and go with the flat on her trial trip under Captain Gaudy.
Mrs. Ashton, saying, “that when the cat’s away the mice will play,”
had decided on remaining at home to watch the mice, but Mr. Ashton
compensated himself by taking Ellen and her two eldest boys,
leaving baby with its grandma; Jabez, detained by business in the
counting-house, promising to overtake them before they were on board.
Mr. Aspinall, too, was there, and on his arm was his son’s wife, and
Laurence, with his boy Willie, close beside them. He was too jealous of
the admiration she excited, to permit her to go into company, even with
his father, unless he had also his own eye upon her, especially where
there was a chance of meeting Jabez Clegg. He brought the boy for a
treat.
It was quite a gala-day, and as the pleasant company mounted the deck,
peered into the cabin, and chatted gaily to one another, they little
thought to how many that would be a launch into eternity.
The boat, a large flat, fully rigged, painted white above the
water-line, and black below, with sails set and flags flying, rested in
well-greased cradles, her head down; the shipwrights stood ready with
their daggers; painters with their cans and brushes to dab her sides
as she slid past them; a band upon the quay played lively tunes, and
(fatal mischance) the people on deck flocked to one side to listen.
The sponsor, a Miss Grimes, with her sister and our friends, advanced
to the bows The word was given; the ready daggers struck away the
shores; the boat began to move; Miss Grimes caught firmly the bottle
(suspended by a ribbon), and shattered it upon the vessel, proclaiming,
with that baptism of wine, the boat was henceforth the _Emma_. Hurrahs
and exclamations followed. The bows touched the water, which first
splashed the faces, then lifted from their feet the christeners and the
Ashton party. The flat had _dipped too deeply_, it heeled over on her
_crowded_ side, and _sank_ with her living cargo clinging and fettering
each other in the swirling waters, whilst shrieking spectators looked
on helpless from bridge and bank, watching others braver and bolder, or
better skilled, rush to the rescue to their own risk.
Who shall picture the horror and confusion of that moment, when some
scores of holiday people—men, women, children—were precipitated at one
fell swoop into the water, shrieking and clinging to one another with
that tenacity of grip proverbial with the drowning?
The bridge, the Old Quay, the open space in front of the New Bailey
Prison—railed off at an elevation far above the stream—the steep steps,
and the towing-path beneath, were all lined with spectators, though
the fatal launch was made from a yard lower down the river on the
Manchester side. (The New Bailey is in Salford).
As the vessel struck the ground, shuddering from stem to stern, before
turning over on her side, and the final catastrophe was imminent,
Laurence (sober for once) snatched his darling boy up in his arms,
whispered a hasty word of instruction and confidence, and, regardless
of aught besides, sprang with him into the water in the contrary
direction, far as possible beyond the eddy and suction, and keeping
clear of the struggling wretches who were pulling each other down, swam
with him to the towing-path. But not until he had placed Willie under
safe charge, beyond danger from the scurrying throng, did he hasten
back to attempt the rescue of wife or father; and then neither was to
be seen.
Mr. Aspinall had been an able swimmer in his day, and made a bold
effort for self-preservation; but cramp seizing his gouty limbs, he was
one of the first to disappear and perish, though boats and swimmers had
put out to the general rescue.
It was vain to search for individuals; though well was his son’s
prowess tested that day; more than one drowning wretch he clutched
from behind by clothes or hair, and urged forward to the bank, where
the Humane Society’s men, with ropes and grapnels, were ably seconded
by volunteer humanity, and strong hands were outstretched to haul the
helpless up.
Ben Travis had waited for Jabez, detained in the warehouse by courtesy
to Mr. Gregson, the buyer for Messrs. Leaf of London, and the two,
hurrying to make up for lost time, only reached the New Quay with
Nelson at their heels as the hurrahs died out in appalling screams, and
the waters of the Irwell closed over all the twain held dearest in life.
With the celerity of light, coats were doffed and shoes cast off, and
the two leaped from the stone quay in hope and dread, but the good dog
was before them, its teeth in a child’s coat, swimming to the shore.
Almost as Jabez touched the water, a sinking woman clutched his legs.
With a plunge he freed himself, then catching at her long hair, towed
her behind him to the side, and swam back to seek: and save his own
wife and little ones, if that were possible.