CHAPTER THE FORTY-THIRD.PARTNERSHIP.
BY dint of persuasion old Mrs. Clowes was induced to place her well-saved brocade at the table graced by the wedding-cake she had manufactured; though, as she afterwards said confidentially to Jabez, “I must have had as much brass in my face as I had i’ my pocket to sit down cheek-by-jowl wi’ grand folks with foine manners, who might come into my shop th’ next day to be served with a pound o’ gingerbread; but I’d not ha’ missed Mester Ashton’s toast for summat. And I don’t know as annybody turned up a nose bout it wur that spark Aspinall, who owes me for manny a quarter a pound of humbugs.”
Round that hospitable and substantial wedding-breakfast, which owed much of its success to the bride’s own deft fingers, also gathered the Cloughs, who had watched the career of the bridegroom with interest from his cradle—Miss Clough as bridesmaid; Mr. John M‘Connel and Henry Liverseege, who had cultivated his friendship from their first introduction; John Walmsley and Charlotte, who privately chafed at his reception into the family; and Augusta, whose brilliancy was somewhat dimmed by the overt watchfulness of too courteous and attentive Laurence; but there was no Ben Travis, and missing him, Jabez was disposed to gravity. But though there were uncongenial elements present, George Pilkington’s cheery voice and lively sallies sufficed to set mirth afoot and keep her dancing; whilst Mrs. Ashton, stately and proverbial, seemed to share some pleasant secret with which Mr. Chadwick and her husband were on thequi vive.
It was the age for toasts and sentiments. Some smart and witty things had been uttered, but not until the cake was cut and commended, and a post-chaise at the door waited to convey the newly-married pair to Carr Cottage and the earliestfriends of the bridegroom, did Mr. Ashton rise to his feet, snuff-box in hand, and with a merry twinkle in his eye propose—
“Success to the new partnership!”
“Stop, my friends!” said he, as glasses were elevated in honour of the toast; “perhaps I had better explain what is meant by the new partnership.”
“I should think that was pretty obvious,” whispered Laurence to his friend Walmsley across the table, but he changed his opinion presently.
“There are partnerships for life,” continued Mr. Ashton, “where the contract is attested in church, as we have had the pleasure of witnessing to-day, and, I am sure, with the best of wishes for its success; and there are partnerships in business, which are usually signed, sealed, and attested in a lawyer’s office; and it is to such a one I now refer, in conjunction with the former.”
He paused to consult his snuff-box, and smiled to see how suddenly inattentive heads were eagerly bent forward to listen.
“It may not be generally known that my dearnephewJabez, at the close of his honourable apprenticeship, declined an eligible offer from brother Chadwick, in order to remain with us.”
(Walmsley and Aspinall exchanged glances. Mrs. Clowes looked knowing.)
“It may not be generally known that he has a small amount of capital invested in our concern at present.”
(“Small enough, I should say,” muttered Laurence.)
“Now, there being no likelihood that his son Richard will ever leave his ship for a warehouse, Mr. Chadwick proposed to take his son-in-law Jabez into equal partnership, considering his integrity, his business tact, and energy to be equivalent to capital.”
“Hear! hear!” in which Mr. Chadwick’s stumbling tongue was loudest, and “Success to the new partnership!”
(The snuff-box closed, the bandana was disposed of, the speaker’s beaming face was all in a glow.)
“Stop! stop, gentlemen! not so fast. You will have to fill your glasses afresh. We have not yet got to the new partnership.”
(“What the d—— l is he driving at?” was Aspinall’s polite query to Walmsley, who shook his head in token of ignorance.)
“Brother Chadwick had concluded that Mr. Clegg was wholly without capital, whereas he happens to have more than a thousand pounds at his disposal.”
(Broadcloth made sudden acquaintance with chairbacks. George Pilkington grasped his friend’s hand; there was a puckering of Mrs. Clowes’s wrinkles; there were lowering brows from Laurence and John.)
“And Mr. Clegg being perfectly satisfied with his present investment, and anxious to join the gingham manufacturer without quitting the small-ware manufacturer, proposed”—pinch of snuff—“that thetwo concerns should be amalgamated, and he have a share. Gentlemen and ladies, the proposal was hailed as an inspiration; and as soon as the change can be legally effected, the firm will be gazetted as ‘Ashton, Chadwick, and Clegg!’ And now let us drink—‘Success to the new partnerships, matrimonial and commercial!’”
Aspinall’s voice alone remained silent amongst the enthusiastic cheers with which the toast was drunk. Ellen, with humid eyes, escaped to change her garments, and Augusta also rose; but as she passed the new Manchester Man, around whom friends crowded with congratulations, she put out her hand with a smile, and said, “Cousin Jabez, I wish success to both your partnerships with all my heart.”
Laurence was at her elbow, apparently to lead her with courteous ceremony from the room, and whilst offering one hand with a graceful inclination of his head, he contrived with the other to pinch the upper part of her arm, and to whisper in her ear, between his set teeth—
“D—— n you, madam! You shall smart for this!”
An irrepressible ejaculation of pain burst from her. More than one turned round. There was real concern on the brow of Jabez as he asked—
“What is the matter, Mrs. Aspinall? Are you hurt?”
She made light of it.
“Oh, nothing, nothing. I struck my foot against a chair—that was all.”
But Jabez saw the white, frightened face, and felt there was something more; and that scared look haunted him for many a day.
Laurence attended his wife to the staircase, smiling blandly whilst within sight or ear-shot. Ere he left her at the stair-foot he gripped her tiny hand till her jewelled rings cut the flesh; and the smile became satanic as he whispered—
“You are discreet, madam. I charge you to remain so—for your life!”
Once in Ellen’s crowded bedchamber she became hysterical, to her cousin’s great grief. But she overmastered her emotion by a violent effort, excused it on the plea of recent indisposition, and was consoled by her mother and other sagacious matrons with the remark that such affections might be expected. The newly-married pair were whirled away down Oldham Street and up Piccadilly; old Mrs. Clowes took her departure, and then Augusta, acting on Mrs. Clough’s advice, lay on the drawing-room sofa to rest.
Not until night did the guests depart, Mr. Liverseege being the first to retire. There was a late dinner at six o’clock, and when the gentlemen rose from their post-prandial wine, and sought the drawing-room, all considerably elevated, Laurence Aspinall was too intoxicated to move. The Aspinall carriage had been waiting an hour. The coachman and Bob the groom grew anxious and impatient about the horses.
“Mr. Laurence drunk? Eh! that matters nowt!” exclaimed the latter. “Steve an’ me’ll manage him.” And taking the limp young Hercules between them, they somehow hauled him to the carriage, and ensconced him in one corner, with his head drooping on his breast.
Augusta shrank from joining him, afraid lest he should awake to malicious consciousness on the road.
“Oh! I dare not go home with him! Indeed, I dare not go home with him!”
“My dear,” said her mother gravely, “I am afraid youmust. A wife cannot absent herself from home because her lord and master indulges in too much wine, even though he may occasionally make a beast of himself. It is too late to think of thisnow. What cannot be cured must be endured. As you made your own bed, you will have to lie on it to the end. Those who leave the spring for the stream must expect muddy water. However, there is nothing so bad but it might be worse. Once is not always, and love overlooks lapses.”
Augusta’s persistence that she dared not be “shut up with him alone,” caused Mrs. Ashton to say—
“Well, my daughter, the occasion has been so unusual that even your own father has taken more wine than his wont, or he might bear you company. That groom seems a steady man; suppose he rides inside to support his master; and whatever you do, remember when wine is in wit is out, silence is a wife’ssafeguard, and you will have to make the best of a bad bargain.”
A month back Augusta would have tossed her head, and laughed lightly at her mother’s pet philosophy. That night she rode home from Jabez Clegg’s wedding feast with a groom and a drunken man, pondering whether spirited resentment or tame submission was her best course. The morning dawned on a wife pinched black and blue, with hardly strength or spirit to sob.
Then followed a reaction, and a period of remorseful uxorious penitence, during which Laurence submitted with a tolerable grace to a lecture from Mr. Aspinall, who saw that something was amiss; and chivalrous gallantry towards woman being part of this gentleman’s creed, he did not spare his son.
Nor did Laurence spare himself. He knelt at his wife’s feet, called her “an angel,” and himself “a savage,” implored her forgiveness, excused his jealousy on the ground of passionate love, lavished his means on extravagant gifts for her, and exhausted language in fair promises. But so proud was he of his wife’s beauty, that he must needs exhibit at theatre and assembly the jewel he had won; whilst the admiration she excited set his jealous brain on fire, and she paid the penalty in the silence of night, or even in the close carriage driving home.
But his contrition and the old plea of “excessive love” for his jealous infirmity won her over, and not even Cicily more than suspected half his cruelty.
Great preparations had been made at Whaley-Bridge for the reception of Mr. and Mrs. Clegg; the factory windows were extra burnished; the landlord of the White Hart hoisted a flag; the mill-hands lined the road to greet them; the avenue gate was thrown open that the chaise might drive on to the cottage; somebody had put Crazy Joe into a new suit of clothes for the occasion, and he stood by the side of little Sim on the step of the Gothic arch (the greater child of the twain) to laugh and chuckle a welcome, as sincere in its way as the homely greetings of the orphan’s fosterers.
It was a fine stalwart young man, of open but grave countenance, around whom Bess threw her motherly arms, while Tom Hulme helped the bride to alight, and marshalled the way for the pair, who followed arm-in-arm into the house-place,where Simon, stiff with age and rheumatism, kept possession of the padded chair set apart for the sick or aged.
In some way the knowledge that Mr. Clegg came as a master, and not as a servant, had preceded him.
“Eh, Jabez, lad,” exclaimed Simon, tears of joy coursing down his cheeks, “that aw should ever live to see this day! Would annyone ha’ thowt as th’ little lass ’at played wi’ ar Jabez an’ his toys, an’ kissed him when he wur a babby, would come to wed him when he wur a mon—an’ a gentlemon into th’ bargain! an’ neaw let thi wife goo an’ tak’ oft her pelisse while thah talks to me; hoo’ll be tired wi’ th’ lung journey, aw reckon. Theere’s a fire i’ th’ best parlour, that’s th’ place fur gentlefolk, an’ yo’r supper’s laid theer.”
Old Simon naturally concluded that young lovers wanted no society but each other. On five-year-old Sim such a consciousness had not yet dawned, and so he penetrated into the “best parlour,” and, much to the relief of the bridegroom, broke into that first domestictête-à-têteto exhibit some wonderful pictures he had drawn with red ruddle picked from the gravel-path.
They had been at Carr Cottage little more than ten days or a fortnight, the first week being wet; Jabez, without neglecting Ellen, busied himself with contemplated changes and improvements at the mill, and thus the great bane of the modern honeymoon was avoided. The occupation thus found for the mind and hand of Jabez at that particular epoch of his life was a blessing for which Ellen had need to be thankful in after years, if she had but known it.
As it was, she did fancy he might have given her alittlemore of his time, and not have needed her suggestion to revisit Taxal and the spot where he had wooed her for another, and not for himself. Yet a very slight hint was sufficient, and, taking advantage of a clear, dry day, the two re-trod the old path by the Goyt, which awoke reminiscences that could but be flattering to that self-love of which every human being has a share.
Sitting down as man and wife on the lightning-scathed tree-trunk, which had never been removed, he remembered the confession wrung from her agony on that very spot; his arm stole round her waist in the pitiful compassion it evoked. A new emotion stirred within his breast. He folded his wife in his arms, and pressed upon her answering lips his first spontaneous kiss of dawning affection.
Half-way home they were met by Crazy Joe, who had been sent to seek them. A consecutive message was beyond his grasp. All they could make out was, “Back! Sharp! Quick!” And, hastening on in alarm, they at length discerned Mr. Ashton at the gate, on the look-out. His pleasant nod was reassuring.
“My dear,” he cried to Ellen, as they advanced, “Dick has got his promotion at last; Lieutenant Chadwick has been duly gazetted. Here is his letter to your mother, dated from Mal—— Stop, my dear!”—Ellen had put out her hand for the thick, heavy missive—“A communication which called your old uncle Ashton out of his way to act as courier is not to be dealt with lightly. And before it is read I must know whether you would rather be Mrs. Clegg or Mrs. Travis?”
Closer she clung to the arm of Jabez.
“Oh, uncle! How can you ask?”
There was a sly gleam in the corner of his eye.
“Ah! just so. That’s it. HowcanI ask?”
But his face sobered. He handed the letter to his new nephew.
“Jabez, I think you had better carry it to your own room for private perusal. I will communicate its contents to all whom it may concern besides.”
Jabez had deep feelings, though he was not demonstrative, and long before he had mastered its contents he was thankful for the delicacy which had spared him an open display of irrepressible emotion.
The writer, who was stationed at Malta, after dwelling on his own promotion, and answering sundry maternal questions relative to himself, went on to say—
“And so our Nell’s going to be married. Well, it’s about time—she’ll be twenty-six next April, or I’ve lost my reckoning.
“And so she was fretting herself to fiddle-strings for a fellow younger than herself, and without a shilling or a name, when she might have had a finer fellow, with name and shiners to boot. Bravo! Nell, for choosing a brave lad instead of a money-bag! She’s the sister for a sailor, whatever Charlotte may think.
“But your story of the flood and the cradle, and your mention of Mr. Travis, coming both together, recall a story I had forgotten, which may perhaps furnish a name for Nell’s hero of the Irk and Peterloo.
“We had a broad-set sailor on board theRoyal Sovereign, who was always getting into scrapes for chalking caricatures of the officers on the bunks and cabin-doors; but there wasn’t a man fore or aft that hadn’t at some time or other coaxed a picture or portrait out of him, to send to mother or sweetheart, and never a Jack Tar amongst them would split on good-natured Ben Travis.”
Down dropped the shaking hand that held the letter.Ben Travis!What strange coincidence was this?
“His father had been a Liverpool shipbroker, and Ben took to me because I was a Lancashire lad like himself, though he was old enough to be my father. He had been pressed, and as I was the youngest middy, and he the master of the forecastle, many a time had he told me the sad story of his life. His father had died without a will, and Ned his eldest brother had laid his clutches on everything but a hundred pounds or so, which had been the mother’s. Ben turned his back on Liverpool and his brother, and being smart with his pencil, took to that to get a living. He wandered about to pick up bits of scenery, and at Crumpsall fell in with a widow and her daughter, both named Ann Crompton, and went to lodge with them. After awhile he married the lass, and thinking if he meant to earn a living for his wife and the child that was coming he’d best seek a large town, he removed to Manchester, and took an old cottage in Smedley Vale, where he hoped to turn his talent to account.”
The paper rattled, and Jabez leaned against the window-frame, as much for support as light, as he read on with panting lips.
“He tried portrait-painting, but lacked a patron; he turned his head to pattern-designing, but no one would employ a raw beginner. His money was dwindling, and a birth was near at hand. He doted on his wife, and for her sake wrote to his brother, who was married when their father died. Ned wrote back, enclosing a bank-note, and begging to see him at once. His wife had died, leaving a baby-boy, whom he had christened Ben, after his runaway brother. Ned said her loss was killing him, and he wished to leave his boy in his brother’s care before he died. Poor Ben Travis kissed his wife, and went by coach to Liverpool. Before he could reach his brother’s office in Castle-street, near the docks, he was pounced upon by a press-gang, dragged on board a ship in the Mersey, and never saw brother, or wife, or home again. I have seen Ben’s tears rolldown his weather-beaten cheeks many a time as he told this. He was one of the first sent down to the cock-pit at the battle of Trafalgar, and when Admiral Nelson’s glorious remains went home to be buried, Ben went likewise, to hospital, and I lost sight of him. When I was exchanged to theExcellent, Ben turned up again, hearty, but aged with grief. He had sought his dear ones, but a flood had swept through Smedley Vale in 1799, and left no trace of his home. A man at the dye-works remembered something about an old woman they called stiff-backed Nan being killed by the falling house in trying to save a baby; but Ben could learn no more, and his own impression was that wife, child, and mother-in-law had perished in the same catastrophe. He went to Liverpool. Death had swept off his brother; executors swept off the son Ben, his namesake. He went back to sea, and I saw the brave Ben Travis drowned in trying to save a bumboat woman, who fell overboard off Spithead.
“And now, mother, you used to be a good hand at patch-work—piece my story and your story together, and see if Ellen’s poor cradle-friend is not near of kin to your rich friend, Mr. Benjamin Travis, with quite as good a right to be called Mr. Travis too.
“I should have a rough sketch of the old sailor, drawn with a quid of ’bacca on the fly-leaf of his Prayer-book. I’ll look it up for Nell.”