Chapter THE TENTH: First Antagonism (5)

“Now, Mother Clowes, don’t you give Jabez _humbug_ of that sort; it’s sweet, but not wholesome. ‘Fine feathers make fine birds.’ He’s as proud as a peacock already. _Mr._ Clegg, indeed!—and him a ’prentice lad not out of his time! Let him stick to the name we gave him at his baptism—it’s worth all your fine Misters.” And Joshua turned off, muttering, “Mr. Clegg, indeed!” as he went away.

Neither the old woman in her antiquated gown and kerchief-covered mutch, nor the old parson in his cassock and square cap, modulated their loud voices. Jabez blushed painfully. Both had touched sensitive chords.

But others had heard the “Mr. Clegg,” and _he_ heard it again, from Kezia and the apprentices in every tone of mockery and derision. Thence it travelled into the warehouse. He bore it with set teeth through many a painful week, until the title stuck to him, and the taunt was forgotten in the force of habit.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-THIRD.

IN THE THEATRE ROYAL.[19]

It has been said that Madame Broadbent had various subtle ways of advertising her “Academy” (as the directory has it), by which she generally contrived to “kill two birds with one stone.” One of these would scarcely have been practicable in any but a theatrical town like Manchester, where not even the fierceness of party politics could close the theatre doors. She was particularly fond of a good play, and as particularly careful of her own pocket. So she watched for such occasions as a special benefit or “Bespeak” night, to engage one of the dress-boxes, and take tickets for a select party of her pupils. The young ladies—apart from all natural love of amusement and display—were taught to regard their admission to Mrs. Broadbent’s train as a high honour—a mark of exceeding distinction; and few were the parents so stern or so niggardly as to refuse the four shillings for a box-ticket when Madame invited and Miss pleaded.

The then Theatre Royal, in Fountain Street, which was opened in 1807, under Macready’s management, and brought to the ground by fire in 1844, was, in 1820, a building so capacious—so solidly built—it might not fear comparison with Drury Lane. Stage, scene-rooms, dressing-rooms, were all on an extensive scale. There were three tiers of boxes, a large pit, and an immense gallery breaking the line of the third tier. With the exception of the large side boxes, which were partially on the stage, all these boxes were open to the view, having only a divisional barrier the height of the parapet, light iron pillars supporting the weight above. There were no chairs—only narrow, baize-covered benches, innocent of backs. And the theatre was lighted by sperm-oil lamps, those round the auditorium being suspended by cords over pulleys, so as to be lowered for lighting, trimming, &c. But the glory of that theatre, of which it was shorn at a later date, was its box-lobby, a lofty, open promenade, wide as a street, and long in proportion, for its one grand entrance was in Fountain Street, the other in Back Mosley Street. Only for the step or two at either end, carriages might have driven through, or depositing their living loads within at the saloon doors, have turned easily and driven back.

This lobby was naturally a lounge, as well as a waiting-place for servants and others with wraps and pattens, neither carriage nor hackney-coaches being numerous, and the streets being—well, not quite so clean or well-paved as at present.

The ten days’ trial of Henry Hunt and his compatriots at York had, as is well known, resulted in sentence of imprisonment for different terms, to the discomfiture of one party, the exultation of the other. Close upon the promulgation of this sentence came Easter week, at the beginning of April, 1820, when Jabez had little more than a month to serve of his apprenticeship. Edmund Kean was then playing at the Theatre Royal, supported by Sophia M‘Gibbon—daughter of Woodfall, the memorable printer of “Junius”—a favourite on the Manchester “boards.”

Either to mark their satisfaction at the result of the trial, or their admiration of the great tragedian, the officers of the Manchester Yeomanry Cavalry bespoke “Othello” for the Wednesday evening, and Mrs. Broadbent made the most of the glorious opportunity. She engaged a box close to the centre of the dress-circle, on terms well understood, and as small people take less room than large ones, and her front row was very juvenile, she contrived to make it a profitable investment even though she took a teacher with her (at a lower rate). The young ladies assembled at the school, and made quite a procession to the theatre, where Mrs. Broadbent’s own maid took charge of hats and cloaks, and waited drearily in the saloon. Then, duly marshalled by Madame Broadbent and Miss Nuttall, they filed into the box decorously, and took their seats, the youngest in the van—the whole programme having been re-hearsed and re-hearsed for a day or two beforehand.

A boquet of white rosebuds they might have been called, white muslin was so general; but one young lady blushed in pink gauze, and Augusta Ashton’s lovely head and shoulders were set off by delicate blue crape. There were round necklaces of coral or pearl, long loose gloves of cambric or kid, and every damsel in her teens had her fan. But of fans, commend me to Madame Broadbent’s. It was no light trifle of ivory or sandal-wood, but of strong green paper, spotted with gold, with ribs and frame of ebony, and it measured half-a-yard when closed. Her well-saved, long-waisted, stiff brocaded robe and petticoat might have been her wedding-dress kept for state occasions; but that fan, slung by a ribbon from her wrist, was part of her individuality—the symbol of her authority inseparable from her walking self. A relic of her younger days, she employed it—citing Queen Charlotte as her exemplar—to arrest attention, to admonish, to chastise; and woe to the luckless little lady on whom it came in admonition!

The box was filled to the very door, where Miss Nuttall kept guard. Madame Broadbent displayed her own important person on the third row above the curly heads of the smaller fry, and to Augusta Ashton—being a profitable pupil, of whom she had reason to be proud—was allotted a seat next to herself.

The house was full and fashionable, both stage-boxes being occupied by members of the Manchester Yeomanry, resplendent in silver and blue. Laurence Aspinall, John Walmsley, and Ben Travis were of the party. In the pit were the critics, pressing as closely as possible to the stage. Nods and smiles from friends in different quarters of the theatre greeted the component parts of Madame Broadbent’s bevy of innocents, and smiles responded.

Then rose the green curtain upon Edmund Kean’s Othello, and Mrs. M‘Gibbon’s Desdemona. The audience was enthralled. Act by act the players kept attention fixed, and all went well until the last scene. But, as Othello pressed the murderous pillow down, one of Madame Broadbent’s white-frocked misses in the front row, with whose relatives Desdemona lodged when she was not Desdemona, started up, and cried out piteously—

“He’s killing Mrs. M‘Gibbon! He’s killing Mrs. M‘Gibbon!”

The clear voice rang through the house, to the consternation of the actors, the amusement of some, and the annoyance of the audience. Some of the officers laughed outright in the very face of the tragic Moor; but Madame Broadbent was furious, all the more that she was bound to suppress her passion then and there.

For the credit of her “Academy,” she, however, felt bound to resent so flagrant a breach of decorum. Tapping the tearful culprit on the shoulder with her ready fan, in a stern whisper, scarcely less audible than the child’s impulsive tribute to the great tragedian, she asked, “How can you bemean yourself so far, miss, to the disgrace of the school?” and beckoning the child forth, she was passed to Miss Nuttall at the very back of the box, sobbing more for Mrs. M‘Gibbon than for Mrs. Broadbent.

This caused a change of places, which brought Miss Ashton more prominently into view. Laurence Aspinall, an ardent admirer of beauty, put his hand on the shoulder of the officer before him, and said—“Good heavens, Walmsley! Do you see that lovely creature in Mother Broadbent’s box?”

“Which?” was the obtuse answer.

“Which!” (contemptuously echoed.) “The divine beauty in celestial blue. Who is she?” And his admiring gaze brought a conscious blush to the young lady’s forehead, although the querist was beyond her hearing.

“In blue?” And Walmsley lazily scanned the group. “Oh! that’s Charlotte’s cousin, Augusta Ashton! Yes, she is rather pretty;” and the married man turned away to the stage.

“Rather pretty! She’s an angel! You must introduce me!”

“Well, well!” answered the other testily, anxious to end a colloquy which distracted his attention from the tragedy, “I’ll see. But she’s only a school-girl—not yet sixteen!”

“Egad! but she looks seventeen, and she’ll mend of that disqualification every day;” and still he kept his eyes on Augusta in a manner extremely disconcerting, though her romantic little heart fluttered, for in him she recognised the “Adonis” who had reared his horse so threateningly in front of her Uncle Chadwick’s house.

The green curtain came down amid universal plaudits. Ladies rose to rest themselves and chat, as was the custom. Gentlemen quitted their seats to join friends elsewhere, to lounge in saloon or box-lobby, or to take a hasty glass at the “Garrick’s Head” adjoining.

Amongst the latter were Walmsley and Aspinall; but they did not return when the prompter’s bell rang the curtain up. There was a _pas de deux_ of Tyrolean peasants by the chief dancers of the company. Then followed an interlude, and then a comic song, all before the last piece; but the comrades did not return; and Augusta found herself wondering whether the handsome officer, with the rich copper-coloured hair, would come back at all.

They did make their appearance during the progress of the drama (Monk Lewis’s “Castle Spectre,” in which Mrs. M‘Gibbon gave ocular demonstration that she was not killed), both seemingly exhilarated, but they left again before the drama concluded.

Well drilled as were Madame Broadbent’s pupils, they could not quit their box in the same order they entered it—big people so seldom recognise the right of little ones to precedence. They straggled into the saloon, separated by the crowd. There Madame Broadbent, assisted by Miss Nuttall, collected her brood, and passing on to the box-lobby, they looked around for their respective attendants.

There was one—a fine young man, in height some five feet ten—who sprang forward with shawl and calesh for Miss Ashton, at the same time bowing deferentially to the pompous dame with the big fan. He proceeded to adjust the shawl round the dimpled shoulders so very precious to him, and said—

“I hope you have had a pleasant evening, Miss Augusta.”

Then bowing again to Mrs. Broadbent, he offered his hand respectfully to the young lady, to conduct her home.

On the instant they were intercepted by Aspinall and Walmsley, neither so sober as he might have been.

“Augusta, here’s my friend, Aspinall; deuced good fellow—quite struck with you,” was Captain Walmsley’s unceremonious introduction—at a time, too, when introductions were somewhat formal.

“Quite, Miss Ashton,” he assented. “’Pon my soul, I am! Your charming face has quite captivated me, and those eyes pierce my heart like bullets. Permit me to escort you home.”

There was an amusing consciousness of his own attractions in this free expression of his admiration. A woman of the world, with her weapons ready, might have dismissed him either with hauteur, badinage, or cool indifference; but to Augusta Ashton, almost a child in years, it was bewildering and disconcerting.

Her eyes fell—her colour rose. She stood silent, abashed, and confused. Native modesty took alarm.

Jabez came to her relief.

“Miss Ashton is under my protection, sir; she requires no other escort.”

The words were cool as those of a man who, having his temper well under control, did not choose to quarrel, though his pulses were beating like drums. With cool effrontery his old antagonist looked him full in the face.

“So it’s you again, yellow-skirt! A nice fellow to protect a pretty girl: a fellow without skill to defend himself, or spirit to resent an insult;” and the speaker’s red lips curled with derision.

The eyes of Jabez kindled and his teeth set. There was no lack of spirit, but not the spirit of which common brawls are made. He was anxious to get the trembling Augusta away from the gathering crowd.

Madame Broadbent, shorn of half her pretty train, came up aghast.

“Young lady! Miss Ashton! What is——”

A wave of the silver-braided sleeve set her aside, chafed and indignant at the freedom and impertinence.

“Keep out of the way, Mother Broadbent. Look after the rest of your lambkins. Miss Ashton’s cousin and I propose to see your pupil home.”

“All right, Augusta,” said Walmsley, thickly; “we’ll see you home.”

But she clung in dismay to the arm of Jabez; and not Hercules himself could have torn her from him. Ignoring the coarse taunt of Lieutenant Aspinall, he endeavoured to lead her past them, simply saying to Captain Walmsley—

“Mr. Ashton committed his daughter to my care. I am answerable for her safety.”

Aspinall, mistaking his calmness for pusillanimity, again intercepted their passage, and would have taken Augusta’s hand. But a will strong as his own—an arm strengthened by lifting and carrying heavy burdens—was opposed to him. Jabez struck no blow: he thrust out an arm with muscles like leather, swept the offensive lieutenant aside, and down he went on the stone pavement of the lobby.

“Bravo, Clegg!” exclaimed a voice from the rear; and the burly form of Ben Travis parted the curious crowd, as leviathan parts the waves, before the infuriated Aspinall could rise, or Walmsley interpose; “that’s right; take the young lady away, and leave these gallant bucks to me. I’ll guard the honour of our corps.”

The terrified young lady and the inebriated young bully were alike in sure hands. But consequential Madame Broadbent, ignored, forgotten, had received a blow to her importance she was not likely to forget or overlook.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FOURTH.

MADAME BROADBENT’S FAN.

They had made their exit from the Fountain Street end of the box-lobby, to avoid the rush from the gallery door in Back Mosley Street, which somewhat lengthened the short distance Jabez had to convey his precious charge, who appeared more apprehensive of offending Madame Broadbent by scant and unceremonious leave-taking than troubled by the impertinence of the young officers.

Truth to tell, the whole adventure had a savour of Miss Bohanna’s circulating library about it, and she felt herself elevated into a heroine by the occurrence. But her appearance before Madame Broadbent in the morning would be very real and unromantic, that lady resenting nothing so much as disrespect.

“You see, Jabez, I did not even make a curtsey to her as we came away. I am afraid she will be displeased.”

“If you think so, Miss Ashton,” he replied, respectfully, “I will hasten back as soon as I have seen you safely home, and bear your apologies to Madame Broadbent. She may not have left the theatre. Besides, I feel that I also owe an apology for leaving a lady of her age unprotected in the midst of such a scene. It was very remiss on my part,” he added; “but, indeed, at the time I thought only of placing you beyond reach of further insult;” and Augusta could hear him mutter between his teeth, “The impertinent puppy!”

The distance even from Fountain Street was very inconsiderable, and they had reached the broad steps of the door in Mosley Street, and his hand was on the lion-headed knocker when this ejaculation escaped him.

Service from Jabez was so much a matter of course that Augusta regarded his care for herself, and his proffer to run back at her bidding, only in the light of apprentice-duty; but that muttered exclamation spoke of smothered passion; and before James was roused from his doze in front of the far-away kitchen fire by that peal on the knocker, and sleepily opened the door, she had added a caution as an addendum to her message to Madame Broadbent.

“I hope, Jabez, you are not going back to—to interfere or quarrel with Mr. Walmsley and the other officer. If they are not quite sober, you must remember _they are gentlemen_.”

“I will forget nothing I should remember, Miss Ashton,” said he, as James unclosed the door for her entrance, and he darted off, the emphasis she had laid on her closing words having stung him keenly with a sense of his social inferiority in her sight. “She evidently thinks the apprentice College-boy has no right to raise his hand against gentility in uniform, however drunk or disorderly it may be,” he thought, as he ran along, spurred by a manly desire to show that it was not cowardice which had caused him to leave his prostrate enemy in the hands of a deputy.

He was not three minutes more in reaching the box-entrance in Back Mosley Street; but for all that, the short walk home, and the brief delay caused by sleepy-headed James, had given ample time to empty and close the theatre, from which more than half the audience had dispersed before they left. Even the oil lamps over the doors were extinguished; and though a few stragglers loitered about—the natural hangers-on to histrionic skirts—and there were brawlers in the neighbourhood, he saw none of those he went to seek.

The fact was, Captain Travis had hauled Lieutenant Aspinall from the ground with little ceremony, and, with a sharp reproof for “the disgrace he was bringing on their corps by insulting a young lady in a public place, as if sufficient odium did not attach to the Yeomanry already,” forced him into a waiting hackney-coach, giving the driver orders to bear him home to his father’s house on Ardwick Green, heedless of the young officer’s remonstrance to the contrary. But Jehu, who knew his fare, drove him instead to the “George and Dragon” on the opposite side of the Green, and Mr. Aspinall saw nothing of his hopeful son that night.

Nor would Charlotte Walmsley have seen much more of her husband, had not kind-hearted Ben gone far out of his own way to land John safely at home. Perhaps it would be hardly fair to calculate too nicely how far he was influenced to that by the relation of the Walmsleys to Ellen Chadwick, since the secret springs of action often lie too far down even for self-knowledge.

As for Madame Broadbent, no sooner had Miss Nuttall disposed of the last of the budding misses than she hid her indignation in the deep shadow of her large calesh, and, with an access of importance, left the theatre, slightly in advance of her humble dependants, and made her fearless way through Fountain Street and High street, with a step which augured unpleasantness for all beneath her roof if her supper were not done to a turn and served to a nicety.

Augusta was somewhat loth to leave her pillow in the morning, after the night’s unusual dissipation, and was still more reluctant to encounter her lessons and Mrs. Broadbent; and she for the first time remarked to Cicily that she thought she was “quite too old to go to school.” As if the world was not one huge school, wherein the dunces get punished most severely, and even the best and brightest do not escape the rod. But Augusta Ashton, buoyant, blooming, cherished, admired, adored, could not see that her real schooling would begin when Madame Broadbent’s reign ceased.

No doubt Mr. Ashton would have been coaxed into granting an extension of his darling daughter’s Easter holiday, and suffered her to remain at home that Thursday morning, but he was at Whaley-Bridge; and mamma met her request with:—

“No, my dear, you have had quite holiday enough. It would be setting a bad example to infringe Madame Broadbent’s rules. Go, my dear, and go cheerfully. I will send Cicily for you at noon. The streets will be rather rough this week.”

She went, though not cheerfully, and Cicily was duly despatched to bring her home; but neither Cicily nor Miss Ashton had returned when dinner was put upon the table at half-past twelve o’clock. Then Mrs. Ashton recalled her own words respecting the rough streets, and the insult offered as unwelcome tribute to Augusta’s beauty over-night; and, though by no means a nervous woman, the mother grew restless and apprehensive—a lovely daughter who is an only child is so very anxious a charge. As she sat down to her solitary meal, another thought crossed her mind.

“James, ask Mr. Clegg to oblige me by stepping this way.”

Mr. Clegg was with her in an instant: the summons was unusual.

“Jabez, I’ll thank you to ascertain why Miss Ashton has not returned from school at the usual time. Cicily has been gone almost an hour. Should Madame be keeping her in for any breach of etiquette last night, pray offer an apology for me and my daughter also, but at the same time politely insist on Miss Ashton’s immediate return to dinner.”

“I believe I owe Madame Broadbent an apology myself,” answered Jabez, smiling. “I shall be glad of an opportunity to discharge the debt.”

* * * * *

The school-room door was midway down the dark, narrow, arched entry. Groups of girls, with slates and bags in their hands, loitering on the pathway at the entrance and in the passage, made way for him, with curious looks and whispers among themselves (Jabez was not unknown to some of the senior pupils). The school-room door stood ajar: the whole place was in a commotion unprecedented in that precise establishment.

Madame Broadbent, holding by the copy-slip axiom, “Familiarity breeds contempt,” preserved her dignity and that of her high office by avoiding personal contact with her pupils, save at stated hours. Her assistant-governesses were at their posts from nine until twelve, from two until four; but Madame herself only sailed into the long room from the house-door across the entry at eleven o’clock to receive reports, inspect work, dispense rewards, or administer reproof and chastisement. “Spare the rod and spoil the child” had not been abolished from the educational code fifty-five years back.

The double shock her importance had received at the theatre sent her home to quarrel with her supper; and as a meal dispatched in an ill-humour does not easily digest, Othello and the Castle Spectre haunted her pillow, and broke her rest with nightmares.

She rose late, and stepped into her schoolroom later than usual, to visit her accumulation of disagreeables on minor delinquents, as well as on the primary offenders.

Let us be just: Madame Broadbent had gracious smiles and approving words to dispense to the ultra-good, and their very rarity made them valuable. But if she rewarded any that day, it was only that severity might stand out in contrast. Little hearts beat, little fingers plied industrious needles, little eyes bent over work, when Madame’s step was heard in the entry; but when her august presence fairly filled the room, every little damsel rose simultaneously, and saluted her entrance with a low, formal, deferential curtsey.

Two rooms had evidently been thrown into one to give required space, the back portion being curiously lit by a narrow small-paned window extending along the side, high above the rows of racks and pegs. It was the writing end of the room. Madame Broadbent occupied a seat in the front portion, almost opposite to the door; and as she marched towards it with more than ordinary loftiness, and beat her fan on her table with one peremptory tap, instead of a short rapid quiver, to enforce her command, “Attention, ladies!” the very youngest of those ladies could interpret the signs portentously. Lucky was the young lady whose work passed muster that morning; so many were condemned to stocks, backboard, columns of spelling, recitations from the “Speaker” and Thomson’s “Seasons,” lengths of open hem, back-stitching, or seaming!

At length Madame Broadbent, having dismissed ordinary business, rapped her fan upon the table, and in a sharp peremptory tone called “Miss Ashton!”—and Miss Ashton, who had been expecting the summons all the morning, came forward at her bidding, but not with the ordinary alacrity of pupilage. She had left her childhood (I had almost said her girlhood) behind her, in the box-lobby of the Theatre Royal.

“Miss Brookes!” cried the same sharp voice; and with a painful start the little girl who had committed such a terrible breach of decorum before a whole theatre as to utter her impromptu commentary on the tragedian’s art, rose, trembled, burst into tears, but was too agitated to obey with sufficient promptitude. Her seat was on a low front form. Madame took a step forward, stretched out her arm, and dragged the child by the ear to the side of Augusta, then gave her a smart cuff as an admonition to more prompt obedience another time.

Then with another rap of her fan on the table, which set all hearts palpitating, she began an inflated harangue to the mite of a child and the budding woman, in which she reproached them both with bringing disgrace on the “Academy,” hitherto so irreproachable. The one had drawn the attention of a whole theatre to her ill-breeding and want of proper training; the other by “boldness of look and manner had licensed the free speech of loose men;” and, as if that were not enough, had “been the cause of an unpardonable insult to herself.” She, Madame Broadbent, so highly honoured and respected by the chief people in the town, to be called “Mother Broadbent!”—it was an outrage not to be endured!

Her temper interrupted her oration; she shook Augusta violently, and condemned her to remain in school until she had learned one of Mrs. Chapone’s letters by heart. Then she darted on the smaller Miss as the primary cause of all, shook her till the little teeth chattered, and dragged her by the lobe of the ear towards a dark closet, set apart for heinous offenders.

Something akin to rebellion had been growing in Augusta’s breast all the morning. She was a girl of quick impulses and sympathies, and was not only struck by the disproportion of punishment meted out, but by the terror on the little one’s face. She threw herself in their path, and to the utter astonishment alike of pupils and teachers laid hold of the child to release her, exclaiming as she did so, “You shall not lock her in the dark! you will kill her with fright, you cruel Madame Broadbent!”

If Madame Broadbent had been wrathful before she was furious now. Never in her long experience had she been so braved. Without thought, without premeditation, she raised her heavy fan and struck sharply at Augusta. The blow fell on her beautiful bare neck, the collar-bone snapped, as it will do with a very slight matter, and Augusta dropped!

Cicily, waiting outside at the time, heard Madame’s raised voice and Augusta’s impetuous remonstrance; then a thud, a fall, and a suppressed scream from the girls; and without pausing to knock, she pushed open the door, Cicily had been too long the recipient of Augusta’s school-girl confidence to stand in much awe of Mrs. Broadbent at best of times. Now she darted forward to raise her young mistress, whom she almost worshipped, and certainly did not consult either Madame’s feelings or dignity in the epithets she launched at her.

No one had been more electrified at the effect of that stroke with the fan than Mrs. Broadbent’s self. She seemed petrified, and Cicily’s indignant outburst fell on deaf ears; but as Miss Nuttall ran for water, and Cicily cried out for a doctor, she roused to self-consciousness, and closed the school-room door as if to keep the outer world in ignorance of what was going on inside.

A wide latitude was then allowed for school discipline; but even Madame Broadbent was sensible that the blow which had felled Mr. Ashton’s only daughter was a blow to imperil her seminary.

Augusta did not revive. Miss Nuttall suggested that the school should be dismissed, and a doctor fetched; and, before either could be effected, Jabez was on the spot. He took in the scene at a glance; Augusta, white as her frock, her hair all in disorder, lay extended on a form, her head supported by the kneeling Cicily, whilst excited girls and teachers flocked helplessly around.

“Good heavens! what is the matter? What has happened to Miss Ashton?” was his hurried and agitated inquiry.

One said one thing, one another. Wrathful Cicily came nearest to the mark. “That old wretch has struck ar darlin’ wi’ her great fan. Aw’m afeared her neckbone’s brokken!”

“Impossible! She could not be so heartless!” he cried, as the group made way for him to pass, and he knelt down opposite to the sobbing Cicily, on the other side of the form, and sprinkled the pallid face so dear to him with water some one had brought in.

There was no sign of revival. “My God! this is terrible! Oh, madam, how could you do it? Mrs. Ashton will be distracted!” and he started to his feet, inexpressible anguish in every feature. “But this is no time for revilings. Where is the nearest doctor?”

“There is Mr. Campbell in Hanover Street—and——”

Brushing unceremoniously past his informant, he was with the Scotch surgeon before Miss Nuttall had recovered from her surprise, or Madame from her stupor.

Mr. Campbell was quickly on his way to attend his new patient, and Jabez speeding towards the top of Market Street. There he hired a Hackney coach from the stand, close as he was to home, and drove straight to Dr. Hull’s. He bore the doctor from his unfinished dinner with impetuosity, brooking no delay. They found Augusta Ashton faint, pale, but restored to consciousness, in Madame’s own dingy parlour, where the author of the mischief was doing her best to put a favourable colour on the disaster.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIFTH.

RETROSPECTIVE.

The collar-bone was broken; there was no mistake about that; but Jabez, mindful of Mrs. Ashton’s protracted anxiety, lingered no longer where he would fain have remained than to see the surgeon prepare—under Dr. Hull’s supervision—to reduce the fracture; a delicate process, since to the collar-bone no splints can be applied.

Augusta’s affection for her mother overcame her pain.

“You will be careful how you tell mamma, Jabez, I know; do not frighten her more than you can help; she will be so terribly distressed,” faintly murmured she, as he again departed.

With all his haste and care, so much time had been spent, Mrs. Ashton’s fears had already conjured up all manner of evils, all of course wide of the mark. That something was wrong she felt assured, and he found her dressing to follow her dilatory messengers. The stoppage of the coach and his evident agitation were confirmatory; but the absolute facts roused as much indignation as grief.

Yet Mrs. Ashton never forgot herself; and though the waiting coach bore her to Bradshaw Street, to add her maternal reproaches to the wrathful utterances of Cicily, the rough rebukes of Dr. Hull, and the prickings of Madame Broadbent’s own conscience, the natural dignity of her manner more overawed and impressed the resentful schoolmistress than all which had gone before. She was as profuse in apologies as in extenuating pleas, but she was not prepared to combat Mrs. Ashton’s proverbial argumentation.

“Facts are stubborn things, madam, and she who cannot govern herself is not fit to govern others.”

Neither coach-making nor road-making had reached the acme of perfection, and Augusta’s removal home, without the displacement of the bone, had to be considered.

A sedan chair—the last in the town—was still kept for invalid use at the Infirmary. Jabez was aware of this, and before Dr. Hull could make the suggestion he had proposed to go for it, and was back with the black, brass-nailed sedan long before the doctors thought their patient fit to be removed.

As the unfamiliar vehicle waited at the “Academy” door, it attracted the notice not only of neighbours and returning school-girls, but of passers-by, until Madame Broadbent was in a fever. The reputation of her school was at stake, and she felt that every extra moment that hand-carriage and wheel-carriage remained standing there, the bruit of the lamentable occurrence was spreading farther afield.

There had been no cessation of afternoon school duties, albeit the teachers alone presided, and discipline was somewhat relaxed. But when patient, doctors, friends, and vehicles had gone their way, and the school was soon after dismissed, the harrassed, agitated, and prescient disciplinarian surrendered herself to alternate fits of hysteria, passion, lamentation, and overweening assumption.

That first outburst over, the self-important dame stood on her “right to maintain discipline,” even when confronted by Mr. Ashton, no longer the easy-going, pleasant parent of a paying pupil, but the angry father of an injured only child, who had posted from Whaley-bridge, on the first intelligence of the mischance, leaving his business incomplete.

Not alone to the inmates of the house in Mosley-street was Augusta Ashton precious. Notwithstanding her sometime waywardness (the result of her father’s over-indulgence), she had endeared herself, by her affectionate heart and winsome ways, to a wide circle of friends; even Joshua Brookes was less grim with Augusta; so no wonder Jabez was secretly devoted to her heart and soul. Great and general was the sympathy expressed on the occasion.

Mrs. Chadwick and Ellen were with Mrs. Ashton before the afternoon was out, and at Augusta’s eager desire her cousin remained behind, not only for companionship, but as chief nurse, an office for which Ellen had that peculiar fitness observable in some women, coupled with the deftness and experience gained in long attendance on her father.

And now, leaving Augusta in the hands of love and skill, with all that affection and wealth can lavish upon her in furtherance of recovery, let us step backwards to the previous September, when Peterloo was fresh, and Jabez yet wore his left arm in a sling.

Whaley-bridge has been mentioned more than once, for in that village, near the high road from Manchester to Buxton, Mr. Ashton possessed a water-mill on the picturesque banks of the river Goyt, which there divided the counties of Cheshire and Derbyshire. It had been established in the previous century, together with another in the contiguous vale of Taxal, by a speculative ancestor of Mrs. Ashton, whose old hall was in the locality. The two places had been chiefly colonised by his workpeople, many of whom had been pauper apprentices from Manchester and Warrington.

Besides the mill, Mr. Ashton owned the “White Hart” Inn, close to the bridge, where the Buxton coaches stopped; and Carr Cottage, a long, low, rough-cast building, nestling under the shadow of a fine old farm-house which crowned the elevated ridge of Yeardsley-cum-Whaley, lang-syne the Gothic stone Hall of the warlike Yeardsleys.

From this farm-house, Carr Cottage was separated by a retired walk at the back, which, itself a wilderness of nettles, gave access to the cellarage and a clear well, and led the adventurer away up the hill between the cottage grounds and the farmer’s tall high-banked hedges, which almost overtopped the cottage roof. And on the left of the cottage (as viewed from the high road) spread the granaries, stabling, and farmyard, enclosed by remains of the ancient wall, and entered by a step or two through an ancient Gothic doorway, over which ivy and honeysuckle clambered in luxurious rivalry.

The cottage, which on each floor contained four capacious rooms in its length, was on the ground divided in the middle by a respectable lobby; the house-place and kitchen lying on the left, the parlours to the right as you entered. There were two staircases, one at each end of the building, the one running upwards in the kitchen itself, the other from a small enclosed space at the back of a parlour, containing also a china closet door, and lit by a low window close to the foot of the staircase, from which it was possible to step out into the garden, unseen by anyone in the house. Otherwise, both chambers and parlours had doors of communication from end to end of the building, the two middle chambers being only accessible through the others.

The lower windows in the front—at least, those of the large parlours—were brought close to the ground, and overlooked a charming landscape; descending, at first suddenly, from the wide-spread flower-garden (with its one great sycamore to the right of the cottage for shade), then with a gradual slope to a bean-field below, to a meadow crossed by a narrow rill, then, after a wider stretch of grass, the alder and hazel fringe of a trout-stream, skirting the high road, on the far side of which tall poplars waved, and in Autumn shed their leaves in the wider waters of the Goyt fresh from the bridge, where the road bends. Rivulets, road, and river ran parallel. And from the road a broad wooden gate gave access (over a bridge across the trout stream) to a wide, steep avenue between trim hedges, which rose to the level of the cottage, in itself as delightful a retreat as any wearied denizen of town could desire. To Mr. Ashton it was necessary as an adjunct to his factory; an occasional home for his family in the summer, a lodge for himself when a visit of inspection was desirable.

Hearing that the general discontent was spreading amongst his own work-people at Whaley-bridge, Mr. Ashton, without waiting for the stage-coach, put himself into a long-skirted drab overcoat, with high collar and small double cape, ordered reluctant James to “find another for Clegg,” and having stowed away a carpet bag and a case of pistols, lest they should be molested on the road, he mounted his high gig, with Jabez by his side, and set off to “take the bull by the horns,” as Mrs. Ashton had advised.

Away they went through the mild September air, up London road (where houses had been growing in the years since we scanned it last) and past Ardwick Green Pond, where a dashing young buck, booted and spurred, lounged at the door of the quaint “George and Dragon,” and followed them curiously with his eyes; yet not so swiftly but Jabez had time to recognise with accelerated pulse his former assailant, Laurence.

Longsight, Burnage, Fallowfield left behind; Stockport-bridge gained, they go walking by their horse’s head up the steep hill, between frowning houses, to the “Pack-Horse” in the Market-place, where the beast was baited, and the travellers dined at the same table, Jabez not for one moment forgetting the social distance between his master and himself.

Again seated, they quickly left the smoke-begrimed, higgledy-piggledy mass of brick and mortar called Stockport behind, and were away on country roads, where yellow leaves were blown into their faces, where brown-faced, white-headed cottage children were stripping blackberries from the wayside brambles, or ripe nuts from the luxuriant hazels which have since changed the very name of the Bullock-Smithy through which they drove at a gallop to Hazelgrove.

It was a glorious treat for Jabez, was that drive, and Mr. Ashton, conversing with him as they went, was surprised to discover his love of Nature, and his knowledge of her secrets. This induced reminiscences of the early years of Jabez when Simon took him pick-a-back in the fields on Sundays; and Mr. Ashton led him on to dilate on his childhood among his first friends, until he had a closer insight into the young man’s heart than in all the years he had served them.

But the object of their journey had not been forgotten; and at Disley, hearing Mr. Ashton remark that they were but three miles from Whaley-Bridge, Jabez ventured to suggest—

“Do you not think, sir, as I am unknown in Whaley-Bridge, I might make inquiries, and ascertain the feeling of the people better if I went on foot, having no apparent connection with you?”

“That is a wise thought of yours, young man. Just so. I will put you down at the next milestone. Here is a guinea for your expenses at the ‘White Hart.’ But country people are inquisitive; what do you propose to be?”

“Well, sir, I took the liberty to bring a sketch-book with me—I don’t get many such opportunities—I could represent myself as an artist; or I could cram my pockets with plants and roots as I went along, and say I was a botanist in search of specimens.”

“Stick to the artist, Jabez; our country botanists would soon floor you on their own ground—they know more of plants than pencils, I’ll warrant.” And Mr. Ashton, handing the reins to Jabez, took a pinch of snuff on the strength of it.

Mr. Ashton, putting up the collar of his coat, drove direct to Carr, much to the surprise of his unprepared overlooker and wife, who had charge of the cottage. He said nothing of any companion; and Jabez some twenty minutes later walked into the bar of the “White Hart,” dusty and weary, as if with long walking; called for bread-and-cheese and ale; intimated his intention to remain the night, if he could have a bed; talked of the scenery, and led the host to tell of the best points for sketching.

Professing fatigue, he kept his seat in the bar-parlour the remainder of the day. The sling, not yet wholly discarded, drew attention, as he expected it would. The incomers, eyeing him askance, talked politics before him, and finding him less glib than themselves, whispered that he was a refugee from Peterloo, and, to show their sympathy with the party to which he was supposed to belong, freely discussed the political aspect of the district before him.

He was young, free with his money, and they were not reticent. He found that the overlooker had made himself, and his master through himself, obnoxious to his weavers, and that only prompt measures would prevent an outbreak.

The next morning Mr. Ashton put his head into the inn, greeted “Mr. Clegg” as some one he was surprised to meet in so remote a spot, and invited him to Carr Cottage.

Jabez accepted the invitation for the afternoon, saying he could not spare the morning. Under pretence of sketching, he took his way by the Goyt to the neighbourhood of the mill with pencils and sketch-book: women and children flocked inquisitively round him in their dinner-hour, and talked to him; then he rested in weaver’s cot, and when he found his way to Carr in the afternoon, and sat with Mr. Ashton for privacy under the dropping keys of the sycamore, he had brought with him the key to the prevailing discontent.

Mr. Ashton listened, took an enormous quantity of snuff, dropped an occasional “Just so,” and, knowing the sore, set about healing it. He drove back to Manchester, leaving Jabez as his temporary deputy—high honour for so young a man—and the overlooker was required to render up his accounts.

A fortnight later, as Jabez was midway up the avenue to Carr in the afternoon, he turned, hearing the blithe bugle of the coming Buxton coach, and watched its dashing progress along the road. To his astonishment it stopped at the gate. He himself reached the spot at a run.

His eyes had not played him false. Simon Clegg, in his best clothes, was there on the box seat; Tom Hulme and Bess and little Sim sat close behind him. Mr. Ashton was himself an inside passenger.

In the bustle and confusion of alighting, and dragging boxes from the boot and from the top, curiosity was kept on the stretch. It was not until the entire party were under the roof of the cottage that Jabez was enlightened. Tom Hulme was the new overlooker, Bess the new caretaker of Carr Cottage, which was henceforth their rural rent-free home: and to Simon, long disqualified by rheumatism for the wet and slush of the tannery was given the charge of the garden, with a boy under him. And of all the group old Simon and little Sim were most delighted.

Some eight months before, Sim (then about two years old) had slipped on the frosty stones in the old Long Millgate Yard and, rolling down its rugged declivity, was supposed to have injured his spine, and he had been too delicate ever since to run about freely. To the child, therefore, whose shoulders seemed unnaturally high, the change from the stifling court was something too exuberant for expression. To Simon Clegg, who, in losing his crony Matt, had felt the old haunts oppressive, the bountiful expanse of nature before him, and the comfortable fragrant home, were matters of deep thankfulness.

“Moi lad,” said he to Jabez, when the latter was about to depart with Mr. Ashton, after they were fairly inducted, “ar Bess said thah would be a Godsend to us, an’ thah has bin. This Paradise o’ posies has o’ grown eawt o’ thy cradle. God bless thee!”

“I think, my dear, the experiment will succeed. There is a matronly air of respectability about Mrs. Hulme, that will help to uphold her husband’s position amongst the workpeople, and I can trust his soldierly discipline for keeping the rebellious in order.”

Thus said Mr. Ashton to his good lady, sitting by the fire-side after supper, the night of his return home. Then, after a little pondering and trifling with his snuff-box, he added, as if reflectively—

“It is all very well, my dear, to serve the young man’s friends and ourselves at the same time, but I should like to do something for Jabez himself. It is entirely to his clear head and his tact that we owe the preservation of peace at Whaley-Bridge. I should like to give _him_ a rise.”

“My dear William, make no more haste than good speed, and never do things in a hurry,” replied his calm proverbial philosopher. “We must not excite the envy of his fellow-clerks, or we shall surround him with enemies from the first. In removing his humble friends you have cleared one barrier to his advancement.”

Mr. Ashton did not say “Just so!” for a wonder; he turned his gold box round and round in his fingers, and at length gave utterance to a thought which took Mrs. Ashton by surprise.

“If we remove all the young man’s old associations, don’t you think we ought to provide him with new ones?”

“I think, William, we ought to ‘leave well alone;’ smooth paths are slippery paths. The young man will be out of his time in six months; you can then advance him if you think proper—in the warehouse—but I do not feel disposed to open our drawing-room to him if that is what you are driving at;” and she drew herself up as if her dignity had received a blow.

“We-ll no—not exactly!” and Mr. Ashton, unable to express what he did mean exactly, shuffled and fidgeted till he upset his snuff on the Brussels carpet.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SIXTH.

ON THE PORTICO STEPS.

Between that expedition to Whaley-Bridge, with its terminal connubial conversation, and the breakage of Augusta Ashton’s collar-bone, rather more than six months intervened—six months during which Mr. Clegg, as his good master had anticipated, felt the solitary state of his trim sitting-room somewhat oppressive, the permission to receive his old friends becoming a nullity on their removal. He occupied a position midway between parlour and kitchen—above his old associates of the porringers, the fireside settle, and the sanded stone floor, and beneath the family seated round the tea-urn, on cushioned chairs and Brussels carpet. Towards the former he cast few backward looks of regret—he had put his past behind him—but, oh! who shall tell his unuttered longings for the “Open Sesame!” to that paradise of which he had had one rapturous glimpse, and one only—that paradise where his master’s daughter, so high above him, moved like a seraph, and filled the air with harmony!

I am afraid that at this time he brooded over his orphanhood, and that unknown father who had disappeared so mysteriously, and strained his soaring thoughts in their flight towards possibilities more than was good for him. He was too much alone for one of his years, and there were times in those long candle-lit winter evenings, when books and pencils dropped from his wearied hands, and for lack of a companion he held dreamy converse with the fire.

Of course his library was restricted, and there were no institutions in Manchester at that time where young men of his class could meet for mutual improvement, or that mental polish caused by the attrition of mind upon mind. Occasionally, at long intervals, and at first to the utter confusion of James, Captain Travis had inquired for “Mr. Clegg,” and been shown into the little sitting-room, with a disregard to “caste” very creditable to both of them; and now and then Mr. Chadwick and Mr. Ashton would drop in together for half-an-hour’s chat, the gratitude of the former being deeper than the surface.

But rarely did a feminine face save Cicily’s brighten up his solitude, and she, devoted to her young mistress, had always something to say about Augusta, if only what she wore or how she looked, which sent him off into dreamland immediately.

Sunday was a very chequered day, when he missed his old friends most. True, he followed the family to church, perhaps carried Augusta’s prayer-book, exchanged a word of kindly greeting with old Mrs. Clowes, and Parson Brookes, who was not as hale as he had been; but there was no old Simon to grip his hand, no Bess to give him a motherly smile, and unless the weather was fine enough for a ramble in the fields with Nelson for companion, the rest of the day was very dull indeed.

The fan which broke Augusta’s collar-bone broke down a barrier for Jabez. No personal sacrifice attended the service he rendered. He but went and came as an active messenger. But he went and came with intelligence and promptitude, and exercised for mother and daughter both the care and forethought of a much older man.

In the father’s absence the father was not missed. What came under Mrs. Ashton’s own eye Mrs. Ashton could appreciate, and the commendation of Dr. Hull was not without its weight. He had said,

“Capital fellow to send for a doctor, that messenger of yours, Mrs. Ashton! A determined, persistent fellow! Would see me, and haul me off with only half a dinner, though I protested, and he had already got a surgeon there before me!”

His thought about the sedan chair, which he had accompanied to Mosley Street to insure care on the part of the chairmen, and had ordered into the very lobby of the house; the cautious manner in which he had lifted Augusta thence, and borne her to the ready couch, coupled with his protection of her daughter in the theatre the night before, weighed down the scale already trembling in the balance, and Mrs. Ashton’s “Jabez, I am deeply indebted to you,” was not mere words. He was her messenger to the Chadwicks, her amanuensis to Mr. Ashton; and when Ellen and her mother arrived somewhere about tea-time, for the second time he was invited to join their party; and one, if not two, pair of cheeks burned as the invitation was given.

Then, the night Mr. Ashton returned home, to find Augusta an invalid, he was gratified to see Jabez again at the tea-table, and after that at odd times, until the restraint upon him gradually wore away, and he would read to Augusta and Ellen, as the latter sat at work, and do his best to make the time pass pleasantly.

Next Mr. Ashton took it into his head to teach him backgammon and cribbage, to help to make his own evenings at home more lively.

And Mrs. Chadwick, who for some occult reason had resisted her husband’s desire to show courtesy to his preserver, could scarcely be less gracious than her grander sister, who owed him so much less; so now the green-parlour door in Oldham Street was opened to him, and as Jabez refreshed his memory with Hogarth’s prints, he felt that he had made another step up the ladder.

Those were halcyon days; while Augusta, too tall to be robust, recovered so slowly, and was so much gratified by his attempts to entertain her. Halcyon days for more than one.

Yet, ere Jabez was out of his apprenticeship, or Augusta had left her pillowed sofa, a pebble was thrown into the stream which broke the surface of the tranquil waters, and disturbed them for ever.

Mr. Ashton was one of the original shareholders in the Portico, a classic stone building erected in 1806 as a library and reading-room, on the other side of Mosley Street, which, with its pillared _facade_ and flight of steps, like an Ionic temple, looked down on the plain red-brick front of the Assembly Rooms, though its opposite neighbour stood quite as high in repute, and was equally exclusive in its constitution.