THE MISS HUGHES'S HOME.
Marmaduke Carr, of whom mention has been made, was one of the Westerbury
manufacturers--a widower, and a wealthy man. He had only one son
living--Robert; two other children had died in infancy. Robert Carr,
about thirty years of age now, was not renowned for his steadiness of
conduct; indeed, he had been a sad spendthrift, and innumerable
unpleasant scenes had resulted therefrom between him and his father. It
could not be said that his heart was bad; but his head was certainly
light. Half the town declared that Robert Carr had no real evil in him;
that his faults were but the result of youth and carelessness; that he
would make a worthy man yet. The other half prophesied that he would be
safe to come to a bad ending, like wicked Harry in the spelling-book.
One of his escapades Mr. Carr was particularly sore upon. After a
violent quarrel between them--for each possessed a temper of his
own--Robert had started off clandestinely; that is, without saying a
word to anyone. At the end of a month he returned, and bills to the
amount of something like a hundred pounds came in to his father. Mr.
Robert had been seeing life in London.
In one sense of the word, the fault was Mr. Carr's. There cannot be a
greater mistake than to bring up a son to idleness, and this had been
the case with Robert Carr. He would settle to nothing, and his father
had virtually winked at it. Ostensibly, Robert had entered the
manufactory; but he would not attend to the business: he said he hated
it. One day there, and the other five days away. Idling his hours with
his friends in the town; over at his uncle's, Squire Carr's, shooting,
fishing, hunting; going somewhere out by the morning coach, and in
again; anything, in fact, to avoid work and kill time. _This_ should
have been checked in the onset; it was not, and when Mr. Carr awoke to
the consequences of his indulgent supineness, the habits had grown to a
height that refused control. "Let him take his pleasure a bit," Mr. Carr
had said to his own heart at first, "youth's never the worse for a
little roaming before settling down. I have made plenty of money, and
there's only Bob to inherit it." Dangerous doctrine; mistaken
conclusions: and Mr. Carr lived to find them so.
Squire Carr was his elder brother. He was several years older than
Marmaduke. He possessed a small property, and farmed it himself, and was
consequently called "Squire" Carr--as many of those small landed
proprietors were called by their neighbours in the days now passing
away. Squire Carr, a widower of many years, had one son only--John. This
John had made a marriage almost in his boyhood, and had three children
born to him--Valentine, Benjamin, and Emma, and then his wife died. Next
he married a second wife, and after some years she died, leaving several
young children. They all lived with the squire, but the three elder
children were now nearly grown up. It was to this house, and to see
these younger children, that Mrs. Dan Arkell purposed going, if she
could borrow Mr. Arkell's carriage. They lived about eight miles off,
near to Eckford, a market town. By the coach road, indeed, it was
considerably more.
Squire Carr and his brother were not very intimate. The squire would
ride into Westerbury on the market day, or drive in with his son in the
dogcart, but not once in three months did they call at Marmaduke's.
There was no similarity between them; there was as little cordiality.
The squire was of a grasping, mean, petty nature, and so was his son
after him. Marmaduke was open-handed and liberal, despising meanness
above every earthly failing.
Robert Carr had plunged into other costly escapades since that first one
of the impromptu sojourn in London, and his father's patience was
becoming exhausted. Latterly he, Robert, had struck up an acquaintance
with a young girl, Martha Ann Hughes; and there is no doubt that this
vexed Mr. Carr more than any previous aggression had done. The Carrs, in
their way, were proud. They were really of good family, and in the past
generation had been of some account. A horrible fear had taken hold of
Mr. Carr, that Robert, in his infatuation, might be mad enough to marry
this girl, and he would have deemed it the very worst calamity that
could fall upon his life.
For Robert was seen with this girl in public, and the girl and her
family were, in their station, respectable people; and the other
evening, when Mr. Carr had spoken out his mind in rather broad terms,
Robert had flown in a passion, and answered that he'd "shoot himself
rather than hurt a hair of her head." The fear that he might marry her
entered then and there into Mr. Carr's head; and it grew into a torment.
The two gentlemen, passing Mrs. Dan Arkell's house as William flew out,
were Robert Carr and a young clergyman with whom he was intimate, the
Reverend John Bell. Mr. Bell had had escapades of his own, and that
probably caused him to tolerate, or to see no harm in, Robert Carr's.
Certain it is they were firm, almost inseparable friends; and rumour
went that Mr. Bell was upon visiting terms at Miss Hughes's house,
introduced to it by Robert. The Reverend John Bell had had his first
year's curacy in Westerbury; he was now in priest's orders, hoping for
employment, and, meanwhile, helping occasionally in the services at a
church called St. James-the-Less, whose incumbent, one of the minor
canons, had fits of gout.
William joined them. He did not say anything to Robert Carr then, in the
presence of Mr. Bell; but he did intend, the first opportunity, to
recommend him to drop the affair as profitless in every way, and one
there seemed to be trouble over. They walked together to the end of the
old cathedral outer wall, and there separated. William turned to the
left, which would lead him to his home; while Mr. Bell passed through a
heavy stone archway on the right, and was then within the precincts of
the cathedral, in a large open space, surrounded by the prebendal and
other houses; the deanery, the cloisters, and the huge college
schoolroom being on one side. This was the back of the cathedral; it
rose towering there behind the cloisters. Mr. Bell made straight for the
residence of the incumbent of St. James-the-Less, the Reverend Mr.
Elwin--a little old-fashioned house, with no windows to speak of, on
the side opposite the deanery.
Robert Carr had turned neither to the right nor the left, but continued
his way straight on. Passing an old building called the Palmery--which
belonged, as may be said, to the cathedral--he turned into a by-street,
and in three or four minutes was at the end of the houses on that side
the town. Before him, at some little distance, in the midst of its
churchyard, stood the church of St. James-the-Less, surrounded by the
open country. The only house near it, a poor little dwelling, was
inhabited by the clerk. That is, it had been inhabited by him; but the
man was now dead, and a hot dispute was raging in the parish whether a
successor should be appointed to him or not. Meanwhile, the widow
benefited, for she was allowed to continue in the house until the
question should be settled.
Robert Carr, however, had no intention of going as far as the church. He
stopped at the last house but one in the street--a small, but very neat
dwelling, with two brass plates on the door. You may read them. "Mr.
Edward Hughes, Builder," was on one; "The Misses Hughes, Dressmakers,"
was on the other.
Yes, this was the house inhabited by the young person who was so
upsetting the equanimity of Mr. Carr. Edward Hughes was a builder, in
business for himself in a small way, and his two elder sisters were the
dressmakers--worthy people enough all, and of good report, but certainly
not the class from which it might be supposed Robert Carr would take a
wife.
Two gaunt, ungainly women were these two elder Miss Hughes's, with wide
mouths and standing-out teeth. The eldest, Sophia, was the manager and
mistress of the home, and a clever one too, and a shrewd woman; the
second, Mary, not in the least clever or shrewd, confined her attention
wholly to her business, and went out to work by day at ladies' houses,
and sat up half the night working after she got home.
She had been out on this day, but had returned, by some mutual
arrangement with her patrons, earlier than usual; for it was a busy time
with them at home, and the house was full of work. They were at work at
a silk gown now; both sisters bending their heads over it, and stitching
away as fast as they could stitch. The parlour faced the street, and
some one else was seated at the window, peeping out, between the staves
of the Venetian blind.
This was Martha Ann, a young girl of twenty, pretty, modest, and
delicate looking; so entirely different was she in person from her
sisters, that people might have suspected the relationship. Perhaps it
was from the great contrast she presented to themselves that the Miss
Hughes's had reared her in a superior manner. How they had loved the
pretty little child, so many years younger than themselves, they alone
knew. They had sent her to school, working hard to keep her there; and
when they brought her home it was, to use their own phrase, "to be a
lady"--not to work. The plan was not a wise one, and they might yet live
to learn it.
"I wish to goodness you could have put Mrs. Dewsbury off for to-morrow,
Mary!" exclaimed the elder sister.
"But I couldn't," replied Mary. "The lady's-maid said I must go
to-morrow, whether or not. In two days Mrs. Dewsbury starts on her
visit."
"Well, all I know is, we shall never get these dresses home in time."
"I must sit up to-night--that's all," said Mary Hughes, with equanimity.
"I must sit up, too, for the matter of that," rejoined the elder sister.
"The worst is, after _no_ bed, one is so languid the next day; one can't
get through half the work."
Martha Ann rose from her seat, and came to the table.
"I wish you would let me try to help you, Sophia. I'm sure I could do
seams, and such-like straightforward work."
"You'd pucker them, child. No; we are not going to let your eyes be
tried over close sewing."
"I'll tell you what you can do, Martha Ann," said the younger of the
two. "You can go in the kitchen, and make me a cup of coffee. I feel
dead tired, and it will waken me up."
"There now, Mary!" cried the young girl. "I knew you were not in bed
last night, and you are talking of sitting up this! I shall tell
Edward."
"Yes, I was in bed. I went to bed at three, and slept till six. Go and
make the coffee, child."
Martha Ann quitted the room. Mary Hughes watched the door close, and
then turned to her sister, and began to speak eagerly, dropping her
voice to a half whisper.
"I say, Sophia, I met Mrs. Pycroft to-day, and she began upon me like
anything. What do you think she said?"
"How do I know what she said?" returned Miss Sophia, indifferently, and
speaking with her mouth full of pins, for she was deep in the
intricacies of fitting one pattern to another. "Where did you meet her?"
"Just by the market-house. It was at dinner-time. I had run out for
some more wadding, for me and the lady's-maid found we had made a
miscalculation, and hadn't got enough to complete the cloak, and I met
her as I was running back again. She never said, 'How be you?' or 'How
bain't you?' but she begins upon me all sharp--'What be you doing with
Martha Ann?' It took me so aback that for a moment I couldn't answer
her, and she didn't give time for it, either. 'Is young Mr. Carr going
to marry her?' she goes on. So of course I said he wasn't going to marry
her that I knew of; and then----"
"And more idiot you for saying anything of the sort!" indignantly
interrupted Sophia Hughes, dropping all the pins in a heap out of her
mouth that she might speak freely. "It's no business of Mother
Pycroft's, or of anybody else's."
The meeker younger sister--and as a very reed had she always been in the
strong hands of the elder--paused for an instant, and then spoke
deprecatingly.
"But Mr. Robert Carr is _not_ going to marry her that we know of,
Sophia. Where was the harm of my saying the truth?"
"A great deal of harm in saying it to that gabbling, interfering Mother
Pycroft. She has wanted to put her nose into everything all these years
and years since poor mother died. What do you say?" proceeded Miss
Sophia, drowning her sister's feeble attempt to speak. "'A good
heart--been kind to us?' _That_ doesn't compensate for the worry she has
been. She's a mischief-making old cat."
"She went on like anything to-day," resumed Mary Hughes, when she
thought she might venture to speak again; "saying that young Mr. Carr
ought not to come to the house unless he came all open and honourable,
and had got a marriage-ring at his fingers' ends; and if we didn't mind,
we should have Martha Ann a town's talk."
Sophia Hughes flung down her work, her eyes ablaze with anger.
"If you were not my sister, and the poorest, weakest mortal that ever
stepped, I'd strike you for daring to repeat such words to me! A town's
talk! Martha Ann!"
"Well, Sophia, you need not snap me up so," was the deprecating answer.
"She says that folks are talking already of you and me, blaming us for
allowing the acquaintance with young Mr. Carr. And I think they are,"
candidly added the young woman.
"Where's the harm? Martha Ann is as good as Robert Carr any day."
"But if people don't think so? If his folks don't think so? All the
Carrs are as proud as Lucifer."
"And a fine lot Robert Carr has got to be proud of!" retorted Sophia.
"Look at the scrapes he has been in, and the money he has spent! A good,
wholesome, respectable attachment might be the salvation of him."
"Perhaps so. But then--but then--I wish you'd not be cross with me,
Sophia--there'd be more chance of it if the young lady were in his own
condition of life. Sophia, we are naturally fond of Martha Ann, and
think there's nobody like her--and there's not, for the matter of that;
but we can't expect other people to think so. I wouldn't let Martha Ann
be spoken of disparagingly in the town for the world. I'd lay my life
down first."
Sophia Hughes had taken up her work again. She put in a few pins in
silence. Her anger was subsiding.
"_I'll_ take care of Martha Ann. The town knows me, I hope, and knows
that it might trust me. If I saw so much as the faintest look of
disrespect offered by Robert Carr to Martha Ann, I should tell him he
must drop the acquaintance. Until I do, he's free to come here. And the
next time I come across old Mother Pycroft she'll hear the length of my
tongue."
Mary Hughes dared say no more. But in the days to come, when the blight
of scandal had tarnished the fair name of her young sister, she was
wont to whisper, with many tears, that she had warned Sophia what might
be the ending, and had not been listened to.
"Here he is!" exclaimed Sophia, as the form of some one outside darkened
the window.
And once more putting down her work, but not in anger this time, she
went to open the front door, at which Robert Carr was knocking.