CHAPTER THE THIRTY-EIGHTH.DEFEATED.
JABEZ CLEGG and the young ladies occupied adjoining chambers (the two inner rooms of the suite), but the door of communication was locked, and they were attained by different staircases. Thus, as he was compelled to pass through the Hulmes’ sleeping apartment, so Ellen and Augusta were constrained to go backwards and forwards through that of Mr. and Mrs. Ashton—an arrangement to which long use had probably reconciled them.
It was this fact which had so much disconcerted Augusta, since she foresaw a difficulty in escaping unheard; and not meeting with Joe (that most unpromising of Cupids), she was as equally unable to convey a message to her expectant lover. She repented her rash promise, and would fain have availed herself of a pretext for delay; but the night came, and, haunted by imaginary pictures of Laurence with a pistol to his head, she dared not disappoint him. She had promised to meet him at that entrance of the Lovers’ Walk which opened below Yeardsley-Hall Farm into Moor Lane, whilst, the lane being a steep declivity, he was to keep the post-chaise in waiting at the foot.
Her headache served as an excuse for retiring to bed earlier than her cousin, and scarcely could her father and mother restrain themselves as she kissed them lingeringly before she went. Indeed, Mr. Ashton would much have preferred to “have it out with the girl at once, and have done with it,” there not being much “waiting” blood in his veins.
He had kept out of her sight most of the day, fidgeting over one thing and another, whilst his waistcoat and shirt-frill bore testimony to the constant raid on his snuff-box.
“I don’t like to see my poor lass trapped like a bird in a cage,” he said, in confidence, to Jabez, whose opinion healready knew agreed with his own, as did the desire to “thrash the infernal scoundrel within an inch of his life.”
The last straw had broken the camel’s back, and Jabez was no longer inclined to be passive.
Laurence had bid Augusta take no care for her wardrobe; his purse was ample, and he would dress her like a queen if she would only consent to fly with him. So, after collecting a few immediate necessaries and trinkets, and placing the reticule which contained them out of sight, she crept into bed, to lie and listen for the household to follow her example. How lazily the hours lagged! She heard old Simon shuffling about, and the creaking of his camp-bedstead, as he settled his old rheumatic bones for the night, but the firm foot of Jabez she did not hear, though the house clock struck nine, and Ellen came up with the last stroke.
In answer to a question, Ellen said that Mr. Clegg was asleep on the squab, and that she understood he had slept there the previous night, to be able to go to the mill very early, without disturbing anyone else.
“I saw him as he lay there, where he had fallen asleep shortly after tea, and I have been speaking to my uncle about him; he looks so dreadfully worn and jaded, I am sure he is either killing himself with overwork, or has some great trouble on his mind,” and a deep sigh followed this expression of opinion.
Augusta was silent. Something within her secret heart whispered that the trouble of Jabez Clegg would be intensified sevenfold by her act of that night; and haughty as she was betimes, she pitied him. And whatever were her compunctions, fears, or emotions, Jabez certainly shared with her parents in her thoughts.
Ellen slept. The clock struck ten. Father and mother entered their room, and through the door which Augusta had artfully requested Ellen to “leave open on account of the heat” came the sound of their voices in low but earnest converse—“You leave her to me, William,” spoken with decision, being the only words she could distinguish, though she heard her father walk about for some time. Indeed, she thought he would never go to bed.
Eleven! She slipped stealthily from the side of her sleeping cousin, and by the light of the moon, clear enough to-night, dressed as noiselessly and rapidly as her trepidation would permit. From habit she knelt to pray, but as she came to thepassage, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,” a new meaning seemed to flash through the words, and she half wavered in her purpose.
“Poor Jabez!” she murmured to herself, as she caught up her shoes and reticule, and listened in the open doorway for the deep breathing which came from behind the dimity curtains of the four-post bed. Re-assured, she stepped lightly across the room in her stocking-feet, turned the drop-handle of that chamber door as silently as the squeaking latch would permit and fled swiftly down the stairs, sitting down at the bottom to put on her shoes.
She had raised the sash, and was in the very act of stepping over the low window-sill, when a foot was heard on the stair, and turning her head, she saw her mother fully dressed close by her side, and felt her slight wrist grasped as in a vice.
“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 IWILLmarry 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 andwhistled 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, andraised 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 seemedsuddenly to have risen to another footing. How was it they had takenhiminto 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.”
“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.”