Chapter THE TENTH: First Antagonism (11)

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 fire shed 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 sneak nor 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 from _your_ father!”

“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. But the 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 “_not_ the 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.

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 the _qui 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 earliest friends 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 dear _nephew_ Jabez, 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 the _two 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 you _must_. 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 this _now_. 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’s safeguard, 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 domestic _tête-à-tête_ to 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 a _little_ more 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. How _can_ I 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 the _Royal 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 roll down 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 the _Excellent_, 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.”

CHAPTER THE FORTY-FOURTH.

MAN AND BEAST.

The January twilight had deepened into dusk, and from dusk to dark, before Jabez was sufficiently master of himself to descend into the light of the rooms below.

Whatever of surprise or satisfaction Richard Chadwick’s letter had held for him, a wave of sorrow had passed over soul and countenance for the sad fate of the parents whom he had never known. As his footstep was heard overhead, Ellen flew to meet him at the foot of the staircase, and threw herself into his arms.

“My love! my own husband!” was all she said, but such an intensity of devotion and sympathy was in the act and tone that he felt he had indeed a true heart beating with his, as he held her close, and his lips touched her forehead as a seal to a new bond.

It was but a single step to the parlour door, which opened on a room all aglow with light, and radiant faces. On Mr. Ashton’s inspiriting, Simon’s easy chair had been wheeled in from the house-place, there being no stately Mrs. Ashton at hand to demur at the innovation, or to whisper a syllable of class distinctions. And surely that was not—yes, it was—Ben Travis himself standing by the rheumatic old tanner, with both hands outstretched, to greet a new cousin in his long-time friend. And there was Bess, proudly glancing from his face to a piece of yellow paper. “It’s as like as two peas,” she cried for the twentieth time, handing to her tall foster-son a sketch which, though little more than a succession of brown smears, was a ludicrous resemblance to himself.

“Well, Jabez,” said Mr. Ashton, sitting by the fire, with his handkerchief over his knee, after the first hubbub of congratulation had subsided, “it is as well our new partnership has not been gazetted. I suppose there will have to be a change of name, and Ellen there will be Mrs. Travis after all.”

This was but a playful sally on his part, but Ben Travis visibly winced, and quick-eyed Jabez saw it.

“No, sir,” replied Jabez, calmly, with his hand on his wife’s shoulder, “there will be no change. I bear the name of the kind friends who saved my infant life; fed, clothed, and kept me through evil report and good report, through pinching poverty, privation, and pain” (he glanced towards Bess); “as Jabez Clegg I was enrolled as a Blue-coat boy; as Jabez Clegg I was apprenticed to you, sir; as Jabez Clegg I married my wife; as Jabez Clegg I have been honoured with a place in your firm; and Jabez Clegg shall go with me to the grave. I had no name when that good man” (pointing to Simon) “lent me his; time has made it mine, and I mean to keep it as honourable as it came to me.” He looked down: “Mrs. Clegg, are _you_ content?”

“Perfectly, Jabez.”

A long-sustained pinch of snuff spoke Mr. Ashton’s approbation, whilst Simon could only reiterate, “Eh, lad, when aw tuk thee eawt o’ the wayter, aw little thowt whatn a blessin’ theawd be to us, or the credit theaw’d bring on ar neäme! Aw nobbut wish Parson Brucks wur aloive neaw to yer thee.”

“Our relationship will only bind our friendship closer, whatever name you bear,” put in Ben Travis, warmly, in spite of himself pleased with the decision which would spare him the pain of addressing Ellen as Mrs. Travis.

“An’ meals come reawnd whatever neäme yo’ ca’ them by,” supplemented Bess, who, like Martha, troubled with much serving, had been running in and out during the colloquy, whilst a combination of savoury odours, and a clatter of knives and plates, came from the adjoining room; “it’s supper toime neaw, an’ nobbody’s had even theer tay yet.”

“Just so, just so, Mrs. Hulme. But never mind the tea,” said Mr. Ashton; “here comes your good husband in from the cellar, with a bottle or two of generous wine to drink to new relationships.”

“I think I shall go abroad for a few months, Cousin Jabez,” said Travis to him, as Mr. Ashton mounted first into the gig to return home next day. “I require to dissipate thought. If I were occupied as you are from morning until night there might be less necessity. But—I say, Chapman the landlord here tells me you painted this sign. I think the faculty must run in the blood, for I do a bit in that line myself sometimes. How is it I have not seen a brush in your hands latterly?”

“Well, I got a hint, through painting that very sign, that trade and art were incompatible, and seeing the force of the remark, as counselled—the ‘cobber has stuck to his last.’”

“Look you, cousin” (Travis seemed fond of the word), “the fabled shield had two sides—stick to your trade if you like, but don’t let your trade absorb you. A business man who allows himself no leisure, and has no resource out of his business, is apt to degenerate into a money-grubber. I hope better things of you.”

A nod, a shake of the hand, and the gig rolled off with its occupants, and Jabez stood looking after them, hesitating whether to go back to the mill or to the cottage. The casual word of warning had come not one whit too soon. That which was sending Travis abroad had kept Jabez close to business. He had not sought so much to dissipate thought as to circumvent it by substitution. If he had given his leisure to the cultivation of art, it had of late been art only as connected with manufacture and money-making. Even his honeymoon he was casting into the mill as grist. He was ever ready to take a hint. He turned his steps towards Carr with something like a sigh.

“Well, perhaps I might as well give my afternoons to Ellen whilst we are here. I did not come to work, and the poor thing does need some compensation for the lack of a lover’s ardour. God forbid that she should ever suspect that I married her out of pity, or that I should become a money-grubber. I wonder if Travis thought I was likely to neglect her? It is a thousand pities she should set her mind on me instead of him. And why she should passes my comprehension. He has every advantage of face, figure, and fortune, to say nothing of his evident devotion. Ah! women are strange creatures, and men are not much better. I fear I am very ungrateful not to reciprocate her attachment more fully. Why, here she is running down the avenue to meet me, as if I had been gone a month. I really ought to love her better than I do. But love can neither be forced nor crushed. Heigho!”

* * * * *

Back to Manchester they went, rather sooner than expected; and then, though Jabez threw himself into business with a will, he bore in mind the parting words of Ben Travis.

The contemplated amalgamation was effected, not without extra draughts on Jabez and his leisure. But as partner of a large firm, even though a junior, it was obvious he could not work as designer for calico-printers, or for any other than their own house. Consequently, not being a man of pleasure, his evenings hung rather heavily on his hands, especially as neither Ellen nor he cared for the card-parties which formed the visiting staple. His very marriage had driven away his closest friend, and broken in upon plans and schemes which otherwise would have found sufficient occupation for his spare hours. Other friends, however, dropped in for an occasional chat; notably George Pilkington (to whom the wine-trade had opened a road to fortune), with his reminiscences and jocularity, broke in on the monotony of married life, that monotony which is as much to be dreaded by young couples as is a first quarrel.

Ellen knew it not, but Augusta’s image often and often rose up between husband and wife, and would not be driven back; whilst Ellen’s very caresses were a source of pain to him, so much he felt himself a debtor to her love. There was a void in his breast which she could never wholly fill; he himself complained of a dearth of intellectual recreation, and when Henry Liverseege suggested a return to painting, he fell back upon his advice.

The fact is he needed to be alone, to have a place where he could shut himself up with himself, whether to indulge in day-dreams or to discipline his soul, or to think out the ideas of art, trade, or social economy which floated through his brain, and were dispersed by actual business or fireside chat; such a sanctum as had been his so many years in Mosley Street; but self-conscious, he had shrunk from making the proposal, afraid to wound his devoted wife by showing a desire to isolate himself. The young artist’s open remark was enough for Ellen. At once a small room, or rather closet, partitioned off from a large one, at the top of the house, was set apart for his use. He shelved one wall for books, set up an office-desk, carried thither easel, papers, and painting materials; enclosed the fly-leaf of his father’s prayer-book within glass and a black frame, suspending it on the wall before him as a sacred relic, and there after warehouse hours he was wont to shut himself in, and almost forget that he was a married man. But this room acted as a safety-valve.

Luckily, in Ellen’s eyes, Jabez could do no wrong; he was gentleness itself in all his comportment towards her, and the love which had sprung to life unsought, and lived so long without encouragement, asked but slight return to sustain it. It was treason for Mrs. Chadwick to hint that Jabez was “unsocial,” or gave them “too little of his company.” She was ever ready to resent it with the reply that—

“If he is not dull shut up there by himself, I am sure we three have no right to complain of dullness down here together;” yet if we analysed her heart very closely there were longings and yearnings for his society known only to herself.

It was judged advisable for the further introduction and extension of Ashton, Chadwick, and Clegg’s business that one of the partners should travel occasionally as their commercial representative; and naturally this duty devolved upon the active junior, whose capacity for the undertaking revealed itself not only in heavy remittances and a full order-book, but in a paucity of bad debts. Of course he travelled with a horse and gig for the carriage of samples, and now and then he would take Ellen with him on a short journey, an indulgence which appeared to fill the cup of her delight. And altogether the marital yoke in a few months adjusted itself to their shoulders very naturally.

It was during their absence on one of the earliest of these journeys that an event occurred which set the indignant blood of Jabez on the boil, and showed there was a fire smouldering, not extinguished.

The Aspinall home at Fallowfield was an ancient, many-gabled grange, with mullioned windows, recessed window-seats, expansive two-leaved entrance arched above; noble hall, with trophies from the hunting-field; grand staircase, with massive carved oak balusters, flights of broad low steps, and wide square landings; long corridors, three or four rooms of magnificent proportions, and clusters of little ones grouped around unsuspected passages and stairs; open fire-places recently enclosed, and double doors to the chief chambers. Antiquity had set its seal upon the place, and filled the panelled rooms with quaint or obsolete furniture and adornments, as each successive generation had left its quota. High-backed chairs, sofas of grotesque device with dim worsted-work cushions and covers, heavy draperies of silk or velvet, and tables with legs of all possible patterns.

It had come to the former Mrs. Aspinall from her ancestors, and from her to her son on his marriage; consequently this was the home proper of Laurence and his wife, although they had a suite of rooms set apart for them at Ardwick, and Mr. Aspinall would fain have had his fascinating daughter-in-law abide there always, instead of making his house a mere convenience for visiting in town.

Stabling and other outhouses were attached, the gardens were well laid out, there was a good quantity of grass land, all enclosed within a high wall, and it lay away from the main road. Mr. Aspinall’s carriage was a close one, for service as well as show. Mr. Laurence, on his accession to his mother’s property and his wife’s dowry, added to other extravagances not a like carriage, but a new Tilbury, and astonished the crowd by driving tandem.

Whitsuntide is the great annual festival of Manchester. It is the race week, the time when the Sunday-school children dress in their best to walk in procession and have excursional treats into the country. In 1823 Whitsunday fell on the 18th of May, when the hawthorn scented the air, and cherry-blossom snowed on the carriage which Mr. Aspinall sent for his daughter-in-law, that she might witness from his drawing-room windows the interesting spectacle on the Green, and preside over the hospitalities of his open house during the week. At that time, as now, Monday was the day set apart for the children of all the Established Church Schools to assemble at the Collegiate Church, sing anthems, and thence defile in long procession six abreast, attended by their respective clergy and teachers, until they reached the Green, where the girls in their white caps and frocks were ranged within the enclosure of the Pond, the boys forming a dark cordon around them, and the crowd a motley one beyond. And then from the multitudinous young throats poured forth anthems of praise, in a volume of swelling harmony which hushed to silence the listening birds above them.

Augusta, not in robust health, lay on a couch by the window and looked on; her father-in-law watching her and anticipating her wants with the homage of old world gallantry, for young Mrs. Aspinall was becoming an important person in his eyes.

Nor was Laurence much less attentive. He had been on his best behaviour for some time, and would scarcely let the wind of heaven blow too roughly upon her.

At that period Manchester races were held on Kersall Moor, an extensive tract of land generously set apart for the purpose by the owner, Miss Byrom.

“The glass of fashion and the mould of form,” was the handsome man who patted Augusta’s shoulders, and stooped down to kiss her, on Wednesday, the first race day; but it was with something more than a shade of anxiety she saw him draw on his buckskin gloves, take the long reins, and mount his high Tilbury, with Bob beside him, and dash round the lower end of the Green at a canter.

Evening came to verify her fears. Back from Kersall Moor came the tandem and the tandem’s master, but the biped was _ebrius_. He was in that stage of self-satisfied elation which a contradictory word would change to fierceness, and the whim of the hour was to drive his wife to Fallowfield, and show her how dexterous a whip he was, and that not Ducrow could manage a tandem better than he.

It was in vain she or his father pleaded her delicate health, the height of the vehicle, the shaking she would sustain; he laughed at her fears, then fiercely insisted, and not daring to disobey, she was hoisted to her perilous seat.

In much alarm, Mr. Aspinall mounted Bob on a saddle-horse to follow. The roads were dotted with vehicles and people, the latter shouting and singing, or muttering tipsy oaths, as the fortune of the day inclined them. He proved his dexterity in guiding his far-off leader through all intricacies, but so close did wheel often come to wheel, that Augusta’s heart seemed to leap into her throat, and her teeth chattered, although it was May.

After they turned off from the Stockport Road at Longsight, they “spun along at a rattling pace,” as he said; but she had to hold by the rail to keep her seat, notwithstanding which, at the sharp angle by Birch Fold, the vehicle gave a lurch which almost pitched her off. At their own gate there was an abrupt stoppage for opening, their return being unexpected. Then the foremost horse refused to obey the rein and canter up the drive. Laurence plied his whip, which did not mend the matter, and but that Bob and the gardener were there to soothe the animals, and lead them to the house, worse might have followed.

As it was, Mrs. Laurence Aspinall was half-dead with fear and the shaking. She was lifted down and carried, almost insensible, into the house. Cicily and one of the maids got her to bed, whilst Aspinall himself, calling groom and gardener from the stables into the drawing-room, sat down to have a drinking bout with _them_.

Presently Cicily put a white face in at the door, and beckoned forth Bob, whom no drink seemed to affect, and sent him off as fast as four legs could carry him, to bring back a doctor, and acquaint Mr. Aspinall and the Ashtons that his young mistress was very ill.

In less time than might have been expected, Mr. Aspinall’s carriage brought to the Grange that gentleman, Mrs. Ashton, and Mr. Windsor, a young Quaker practitioner from Piccadilly. A competent nurse from the Infirmary was on the box.

There was no doubt she was in a critical state, but the immediate danger was warded off; and though Augusta was not able to leave her room in the interim, the scent of June’s roses came in at the open windows before her baby was born, when penitent Laurence went into raptures over wife and son.

For two or three days he hovered about the house, nervously anxious lest any sound should disturb the young mother. He saw that every domestic was shod with list, stopped the great hall clock, and had the rolled-up carpets laid down on the polished oaken stairs.

Four days sufficed. On the fifth he rode off to town on Black Ralph on a pretence of business; but very little did Cannon Street see of Mr. Laurence that day. With every acquaintance he met was a glass to be drunk, “to wet the child’s head.” At the Scramble Club, where he dined, he paid for two or three bottles of wine, also “to wet the child’s head,” according to the practice of the club. Riding home, he stopped at the George and Dragon, Ardwick Green, and went through the same process.

There some one remarked that he was too drunk to stand, much less ride home, when he swore with an oath that he would show them how he could ride; he and Black Ralph were equal to anything. And then amid roars of derisive laughter he flung out another oath, and laid a wager which was regarded merely as the boasting of drunken braggadocio.

He had kissed his wife’s pale lips on leaving in the morning, and she faintly implored him to be home early—she did not dare add, “and sober.” Towards nightfall she began to listen for his return. Hour after hour went by, and at one in the morning she heard the great gates and the door thrown open for their impatient master by the watching servants, and the strong steed come tearing up the gravel—ay, and on up the broad, flat steps, clattering through the great oaken hall, and, urged with whip and spur, and a madman’s voice, mount the freshly-carpeted stairs, cross the landing at a stride, and driving back the affrighted nurse, enter that sick chamber where, with her baby at her side, lay the fair young wife, gasping and shrinking with terror, and there stand with quivering flanks and panting nostrils, as the reckless rider on his back cried in exultation—

“By G—d, I’ve done it!”

He had done it! No matter what noise accompanied the removal of horse and rider, the wife, whom in his sober hours he professed to love so passionately lay insensible to sight or sound, and wakened only to a morrow of delirium.

CHAPTER THE FORTY-FIFTH.

WOUNDS INFLICTED AND ENDURED.

The spark lies cold in the flint until it is struck; and Ellen had not believed her quiet husband capable of so much passionate indignation as burst from him on the receipt (at Sheffield) of the details just given.

“Brute! ruffian!” burst from his lips, as the letter he had crushed in his grasp fell to the floor; and with a stamp he rose to his feet, pressed one hand across his knitted brows, and paced the dingy carpet from end to end in a state of restless perturbation, his wrath finding vent in epithets and invectives foreign to his tongue.

“Whatever is the matter, Jabez, love?” Ellen asked in amazement.

“Oh, Ellen, dear! that brute Aspinall——” He could get no further. Feeling choked his utterance.

She picked up the crumpled letter, and with almost equal exasperation and pain made herself mistress of its contents, in her womanly indignation and love for her cousin losing sight of her husband’s excessive emotion.

Jabez left his journey unfinished, and drove back home with all speed. Ellen shared with Mrs. Ashton and her own mother the anxious watch in that large dim room, where the favourite of the family tossed her head from side to side, and muttered incoherent words.