Part 26

“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.

Each had the separate experience of that memorable September night 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!”