CHAPTER THE FORTY-SECOND.BLOWS.
RICHARD CHADWICK, who had served as a midshipman under Admiral Collingwood, and shared in the victory of Trafalgar, was a midshipman still, and his vessel had long been away on a foreign station. Few, brief, and far between had been his opportunities to visit home and friends. Ships had been paid off, but he had been exchanged, several years had elapsed since he had set foot in Manchester, and the hearts of his kin yearned towards their sailor.
His very whereabouts was unknown to them, and when written communication was necessary, letters had to be forwarded through the Admiralty.
Ellen’s engagement and prospective marriage called forth a voluminous epistle, crossed and recrossed like a trellis, from Mrs. Chadwick to her son, whose presence she craved, if leave of absence could possibly be obtained. The letter was a singular compound of gratulation and apology, through which a thin undercurrent of dissatisfaction meandered like a stream. His sister’s strange malady and infatuation for a man of apparently low origin, whose name and parentage were alike unknown, were set forth to be deplored. Still, since the sole remedy for Ellen’s ailment rested with this obscure Mr. Clegg whose career upwards, from his floating cradle to his honourable position in the Ashton house and warehouse, was circumstantially detailed, his personal worth was a matter for congratulation; and the deep obligation of the whole family to him for the service rendered on Peterloo-Day seemed dragged in as a sort of extenuating circumstance. Clearly the Mr. Travis, whose name and pretensions cropped up here and there throughout the letter would have been a more acceptable son-in-law in the sight of Mrs. Chadwick and his other sister, Charlotte Walmsley, and just as clearly it was made apparent that hisparalysed father (hale and strong in all other respects) was as much infatuated with the young man as was Ellen, having “positively offered to take him into partnership on his entrance into the family.” And even there Mrs. Chadwick felt “constrained to admit that the clear head, business tact, and energy of Mr. Clegg would be a great acquisition.”
This item of news closed the missive, which must have gone a circuitous round of red tape it was so long upon its travels. Months came and went; Father Christmas shook his snowy locks over the town; but neither the midshipman nor a written substitute put in an appearance.
Meanwhile Jabez, who had crushed down in the garden of his heart those roots of his love for Augusta which mocked his strength to eradicate, did his best to plant and foster above them a grateful affection for the one who had chosen him, and hoped in time that the newer growth might utterly extinguish the old. His attentions to Ellen were more assiduous than, under the circumstances, might have been expected; but he argued with himself—
“I must endeavour to atone to her for a proposal in which love had no part. She must never have occasion to suspect the truth. I should be a brute did I remain insensible to the unconquerable love she has so long cherished in secret for me. Augusta’s face, alas! was more divinely fair, her manner more enchanting; but Ellen, though she is older than myself, will doubtless make the best wife for a business man who has to carve his way to fortune, andshe loves me!”
Ellen, too, had her seasons of doubt and perplexity. She had been so sensitively alive to the silent homage of Jabez Clegg to her younger and fairer cousin that at first her mind had refused to realise the fact that he desired to marry her, even though his proposal had been preceded by direct and palpable attention. She had been at first inclined to attribute his many acts of kindness and courtesy to friendship and compassion for her failing health. And when he had spoken of being won by her many estimable qualities to seek her for a wife, she had listened incredulously; then, overpowered by contending emotions, sank back amongst her cushions, in a state of insensibility. Even her tremulous acceptance had been uttered as in a blissful dream, which might vanish all too soon. From time to time she perplexed herself with questions of the motive for so sudden a change in one so steadfast as Jabez, and at last wavered between the two suppositions thatAugusta’s wilfulness had wearied him, or that she owed her lover to pique. Of the real state of the case she had no inkling.
She was not alone in her latter supposition.
“A happy new year to you, Mrs. Clowes!” said our friend Jabez to his friend the old confectioner, as at one stride he took the two steps to her confined shop on the bright frosty second of January, 1823, and extended his hand to her across the counter, where she still kept up a show of activity in spite of age and wrinkles.
“Same to you, Mr. Clegg.”
She had been one of the first to recognise his right to the prefix, and with all her old-fashioned familiarity never dropped it.
“Eh, but now I look at thee, thah doesn’t look ower bright an’ happy;” and she peered into his face inquiringly.
He smiled.
“Looks are not always to be relied on. I ought to be happy, for I am about to be married, and my errand hither is to——”
She interrupted him with—
“So I’ve heard. But what o’that? Is she th’ reet un? For I wouldna give a mince-pie for thi happiness if she isna.”
The blood mounted painfully to his forehead.
“Miss Chadwick is all that is estimable and amiable, Mrs. Clowes,” he answered steadily, “and if I am not happy with her it will be my own fault.”
The old dame was not satisfied. The white linen lappets of her antiquated mutch flapped like a spaniel’s ears as she shook her head.
“Eh, well!” sighed she, opening and shutting a drawer in the counter abstractedly, “you should know best, but both me and Parson Brookes (dead and gone as he is) thought you’d set your mind on th’ lass that rantipollin lad Aspinall snapped up. I hope thah’s not goin’ to wed th’ cousin out o’ spite,” and she looked up in his face, over which a cloud had swept. “It would be the worst day’s work you ever did, either for her or you.”
He had mastered his emotion, and answered cheerfully—
“Make your mind easy, Mrs. Clowes. I am not marrying from any unworthy motive, and I think our prospect of happiness is about the average. I came to ask you, as the oldest friend I have in the town, to be present on the occasion.”
Mrs. Clowes was overpowered.
“What! Mr. Clegg! Me, in my old black stuff gown and mutch, among your grand folk? Nay, nay; I’m too old to don weddin’ garments. But I tell you what”—and her face puckered with pride and pleasure—“you shall have the finest wedding-cake that ever was baked i’ Manchester, and the old woman will mebbe look on the weddin’ from some quiet nook, out o’ the way. It’s a thousand pities Jotty is not alive to marry you?”
“There will be no grand folk, Mrs. Clowes; I am but a poor man struggling upwards, and Miss Chadwick has not had good health of late; so we shall be married very quietly on Wednesday week. Only very near relatives, or old friends are invited.”
Customers interrupted the colloquy. When the shop was clear, she asked where he was going to live after marriage, and was told, with his bride’s parents.
“Eh! but that’s a bad look out. Now, I’ve built some houses in a new street off Oxford Road as they call Rosamund Street, an’ I’ll tell you what, you shall have one to live in at a peppercorn rent, and I’ll lend you the money to furnish it. Young folks are best by themselves.”
Clear and bright were the eyes that met hers in reply.
“Thank you, Mrs. Clowes, thank you heartily for your kind offer; but I think you lose sight of Mr. Chadwick’s infirmity. He has acted very liberally towards me—in fact, has offered to take me into partnership—and I should ill repay him by removing from his hearth the good daughter on whom he relies. It is rather my duty to add to the comfort of his declining years.”
“Oh!” said she, sharply; “if that’s how you raise your crust I’d best keep my fingers out of your pie.”
Jabez was going. The shop was full.
“Stay, Mr. Clegg,” said she, beckoning him into her parlour, and closing the door. “It’s hard cheese for a man to owe everything to his father-in-law. I’ve got £500 hanging on hand. It’s not much, but the least bit of capital would make you feel independent, and its heartily at your service; and if you don’t like to take it without interest, you can pay me one per cent., and repay me when you’ve made a fortune; and if that doesn’t come till I lay under a stone bed-quilt, you can hand it over to my first godchild.”
That same evening Augusta Aspinall stood before a large oval swing-glass in her luxurious dressing-room, the blazing fireshed its warm glow on polished furniture, amber silk hangings, bright fire-irons, costly mirrors, and expensive toilet ware (of execrable shape). She was robing for a ball at the Assembly Rooms, and Cicily, who, although cook, insisted on retaining her post as lady’s maid on such occasions, had just fastened the last hook of a delicate lilac figured silk as soft as it was lustrous, with swansdown fringing skirt, sleeves, and bodice, as if to show how fair was the symmetrical neck of the wearer to stand such test.
In came Laurence fresh from the Spread Eagle in Hanging Ditch, where he, a newly-elected member of the Scramble Club, had spent the afternoon with one or two others, forgetful that the origin of the club was the fourpenny pie and glass of ale, or at most the slice from a joint despatched in a hurry or “scramble” by business men to whom time was money.
Neither time nor money seemed of much value to Mr. Laurence, who was equally lavish with both, taking as much from his father’s business and adding as little as could well be imagined. His step on the threshold caused Augusta to turn round, beaming and beautiful, and dart towards him, exclaiming—
“I’m so glad you’ve come!” simultaneously with his “Clear out, Cis!” and a warm embrace which somewhat disarranged the dainty dress. His wife was yet a new toy, and his passion had not had time to evaporate. She was a something to admire and exhibit for admiration as a possession of his own; and though her love had received one or two rude shocks, he was still a glorified being in her eyes, and she clung to him as a true wife should cling. She was still but a girl in her teens, proud of the admiration she excited. Disengaging herself, she cried—
“Oh, Laurence, see how you have crushed my swansdown! and now, dear, do make haste and dress, we shall be so late,” and putting the fluffy trimming in order, she unlocked a small jewel case on the table, and took thence the pearls she had worn on her wedding-day.
“What will you say for these, Augusta?” cried he, dangling before her eyes a gossamer scarf and an exquisite ivory fan, whilst his other arm thrown over her white shoulders again threatened the elastic down.
“Oh, Laurence, you are a darling! Where did these beautiful things come from?” and she gave him more than one kiss in payment.
“India, my love: they are ‘far-fetched and dear-bought,’ and so must be good for you, my lady. I met your uncle Chadwick with an old sea-captain, from whom I bought them. By the way, matrimony seems catching. We are invited to a wedding,” and he began leisurely to undress as he spoke.
“A wedding! Whose?”
He laughed.
“Ah, woman all over! I thought I had news for you. Guess!”
In small things as well as great it was his delight to tantalize, so he kept her guessing whilst he proceeded with his toilet, and she began to clasp her pearls on arms and neck, and in her pretty ears.
“Well,” said he at length, “who but your cousin Ellen!”
“Ellen?” She had gone so little near her own family that this was indeed news for her.
“Yes; I thought she meant to die an old maid, but it seems she’s not too proud to wear your cast-off slippers.”
“My cast-off slippers? What do you mean?” and she paused whilst clasping her bracelet with a look of bewildered interrogation.
“Now, Augusta, pray don’t look so innocent!—Your father’s favourite fetch-and-carry, that sneaking, canting fox, Jabez Clegg, finding that Miss Ashton was a sour grape, has straightway gone wooing to Miss Ashton’s cousin as fruit ripe enough and near enough to drop into his vulpine jaws; and by G—— the girl has had no more spirit than to drop when he shook the boughs, rather than hang on untasted!”
The speaker’s lip and nose had curled with contempt as he began, then his nostril dilated, and he struck his wet hand on the washstand with a force which threatened the earthenware and set it jingling.
Augusta was not yet schooled to silence; her generous spirit rose to repel these allegations.
“Oh, Laurence, how can you? Ellen has had plenty of admirers; she has no need to wear anyone’s cast-off shoes. And as for Mr. Clegg! He is no cast-off slip”——she checked herself; a thousand trivial and forgotten things flashed across her mind at once; there was no doubt that Jabez had aspired to her own hand—he must have offered himself to Ellen in pique, to look as if he didn’t care; she could not add the “of mine,” which should have rounded her sentence; she substituted, with barely a moment’s pause, “He is neither a sneaknor a cant, and if Ellen marries him she will have a good husband;” adding, with marvellously little tact or knowledge of her own husband, “I’m sure, Laurence, dear, you have no right to speak ill of the man who saved your life in the very pond that is frozen over now before our doors! And you cannot really think him mercenary, when he refused the £500 your father offered as a reward for his bravery.”
Not lightning was more quick and scathing than the fury which flashed from her husband’s eyes and almost paralysed his tongue, as the last words fell from her lips. With the damp towel in his hand he struck across her beautiful bare shoulders with a force which traced red lines upon their snow; then marked her round arm with a band as red by tearing away the suspended fan and scarf, which he threw behind the fire without one thought of either “far-fetched” or “dear-bought.”
“Soh, madam!” he hissed rather than spoke, whilst Augusta shrank from him in affright, “soh! you dare defend the wretch who played the spy on us at Carr—attacked me, an unarmed man, with a stick, like a coward, and left me bleeding there for dead, hoping to win the heiress for himself!”
From her father and Cicily both she had gathered the truth of that night’s exploits. His misrepresentations no longer misled; but for very fear she held her peace.
He went on—
“Madam, that night’s savage attack cancelled every debt of gratitude I owed the calculating knave who turned his back on my father’s £500, thinking to multiply it by thousands fromyourfather!”
“It is not true!” she dared to say, her sense of justice and her spirit of resistance rising in defence of one she knew to be foully aspersed. Not because he was Jabez Clegg but because he was an absentee maligned.
A shriek rang through the big house, and servants came scurrying up, with Mr. Aspinall in their midst; and Cicily, the first to dash between them, caught on her well-covered back the blow from the madman’s brace, which would else have fallen afresh on the naked shoulders of his wife, already scored by it with livid welts.
Carry away the fainting lady—soothe the infuriated savage—apply raw beef to shoulders as red, if not as raw—let the brute steep himself in brandy unto stupefaction. The morning will come, when the fumes of passion and brandy will alike have passed away, and the man will repent him of his cruelty. Butthe sting of groundless jealousy will remain, and the broad livid stripes across the white shoulders. Time and care will efface those marks, but neither kisses, nor caresses, nor presents, nor time itself can obliterate the hieroglyphics stamped with that buckskin brace on the young wife’s heart. He has fixed the name of Jabez Clegg there, and in conjunction “brute” and “liar,” as equivalent to his own.
It might have been expected after this that the Aspinalls would have been conspicuous by their absence from the cousin’s wedding, or that Augusta might have laid her wrongs before her mother. But, no; your jealous man never spares himself a pang if he hopes to inflict one; and the wilful woman who finds she has made a mistake in marriage is the last to confess it.
Cold weather and recent indisposition served as an apology for the violet velvet spencer which, worn above the pale lilac silk, covered bust and neck; and it was far from unbecoming to the young matron or the occasion.
Old Mrs. Clowes—who had kept her word anent the cake, which was a triumph of confectionery skill—from some long-closed coffer brought forth a stiff brocade of ancient make and texture, placed a bonnet on her unaccustomed head, and from a far seat in the choir watched Jabez Clegg enter with his college friend and groomsman, stalwart George Pilkington, though she did not see them linger to read the inscription over the grave of Joshua Brooks, or look up with grateful remembrance to the Chetham Gallery, where they had worshipped together. But she remembered them as boys in long blue gowns and yellow under-skirts, and could not help contrasting the college dress of the past with the high-collared bright blue coats, the gilt buttons, lemon-coloured vests, light trousers, and white kid gloves, in which they found their way to her to shake hands, whilst waiting for the trembling white-robed bride and her friends.
And there Mrs. Clowes sat and listened to the irrevocable words which bound Jabez to “love and cherish” the woman who loved him with her whole soul; whilst in spite of himself his very brain was reeling with memories of that other wedding-day, when Laurence Aspinall and Augusta Ashton, now standing calm and beautiful in the background, had breathed the selfsame vows before that altar; and somehow the old dame had a secret misgiving when all was over that it was “notthe reet one after all.”
“All over!” had been the cry from the heart of Jabez then. “All over!” was the echo now, as the last “Amen” sounded, and he registered a silent oath, not down in the rubric, to keep the troth he had plighted, although no electric thrill answered the shy touch of Ellen’s hand, or the dumb devotion of her glance, and although Augusta’s greeting of her new “cousin” jarred a still sensitive nerve.
All over! so men delude themselves. “All over!” they say, when disappointment closes the door of the past, and veils their eyes to the vista of the future. “All over!” when the curtain falls on the prologue of life’s drama. Yet it rises again, and they find that the play has but just begun.