Chapter THE TENTH: First Antagonism (12)

In the sudden emergency, Bob the old groom’s recommendation of his own daughter as a wet-nurse for the poor frail baby passed without cavil. Not until long afterwards was it known that Sarah Mostyn was the last woman to have entered that house, and on such a footing.

One month, two months wore out before Augusta rallied, and Mr. Windsor, whose medical creed was to “let nature take its course,” pronounced her out of danger, and fit for the removal contemplated by her friends, and resisted by Laurence. Double doors, however, could not exclude outer sounds, and so long as she shrank and shuddered at every crunch on the gravel, every echo of his raised voice, recovery was retarded. So the elder Mr. Aspinall, exasperated with his son, and most solicitous for the welfare of his son’s charming wife, added his dictum to that of the doctor, offered his own carriage for her conveyance, and threatened to disinherit Laurence if he interfered.

Once in her childhood’s home she amended rapidly, but with increasing strength came maternal yearnings for her infant, still in charge of the wet nurse at Fallowfield. A hackney-coach was sent to bring Sarah Mostyn with the child to its mother; but not a step would the nurse budge. She had no orders from her master, and the master paid her wages, and she, “shouldna tak’ orders from annybody else.” Messages were sent, and notes were written to Laurence, which he tore to shreds; but he kept away from his wife, and kept back the child.

At length she pined so much for her “dear babe,” that Mr. Ashton and Jabez together sought Laurence out in one of his haunts (a tavern near Cockpit Hill), to prevail on him to let Augusta have her boy with her.

“Mrs. Aspinall herself deserted her child,” he replied, all the more haughtily that Jabez was Mr. Ashton’s seconder. “When Mrs. Aspinall thinks fit to return home to her maternal and wifely duties, she will find the nursery door open, and her son in trustworthy care. A true wife’s place is by her husband’s hearth.”

“Yes, sir, when the husband is a true man,” replied Jabez, with decision.

“And who dares to say I am not a true man?” retorted Laurence boldly.

“I do!” promptly answered the other. “No true man would have imperilled his wife’s life by a reckless drive in the dark night in a tandem Tilbury! Only a reckless madman or a ruffian would have forced a horse into a wife’s sick-chamber, to drive her delirious with terror!”

“And pray, sir,” haughtily responded the other, “how long has Mrs. Aspinall made _you_ her confidant?”

“I have not the honour of Mrs. Aspinall’s confidence,” answered Jabez sturdily, looking him full in the face; “such facts are trumpet-tongued.”

“Just so,” put in Mr. Ashton, drawing his arm through that of his junior partner. “And the fact that Augusta shrinks at your name has spoken so loudly to us that if ever she sits on your hearth again it won’t be with my consent.—Come away, Clegg.”

After this declaration, Aspinall changed his tactics. He wrote to his wife, requesting her return; then entreating it; and finally went in person to beseech her to “come back,” vowing to “atone for the past with the devotion of a life.”

The young mother yearned for her babe, the tender-hearted wife could not resist the appeal of the husband whom with all his faults she yet loved; and, regardless of the previsions of her mother, or the entreaties of her father, she allowed him to drive her home again to the Grange.

Her first thought was the nursery. There she found, in addition to her own boy, drawing its sustenance from the nurse’s breast, a well-dressed child, some two years old, playing with a wooden milkmaid-rattle on the rug. Something in the child’s face and auburn curls made her ask, “Sarah, whose child is that?”

“Mine. Whose should it be?” was the pert answer; and the boldness of the woman’s manner checked further inquiry. But Augusta’s heart had received a shock which shook the pedestal on which her idol sat enthroned.

For a short pace Laurence kept terms with his wife; and before her father or strangers he was her most devoted slave; but she underwent a species of slow torture in secret.

She soon found that Sarah Mostyn was mistress of the house as well as of the nursery, and that Sarah Mostyn’s child was of as much importance as her own baby-boy.

Then he filled the Grange with his riotous associates, and compelled his wife to do the honours of his table, though their oaths and conversation overpowered her with disgust. And if one flushed with wine, or more bold than the rest, paid her a compliment, or looked too warm an admiration, Laurence was sure to find his way to her side with his common undertone threat—“D—— n you, madam, you shall smart for this!”—a threat always accompanied with sly pinches, which left their marks beneath her sleeves. Then, straightway, “my dear,” or “my love” would be asked, in the blandest of tones, to sing a song, play a rondo, or perform some act of courtesy for the very guest who had excited his jealousy.

They had few lady visitors. The neighbourhood was remote from town, and sparsely inhabited. Mr. Laurence Aspinall’s reputation was as a yellow flag to warn gentlewomen who had daughters or husbands to lose against close intimacy with their neighbours of the Grange. Pitying the isolation of one so formed to adorn society, Mr. Aspinall gave mixed parties at Ardwick Green, in the name of Mrs. Laurence, when the splendour of her attire and the assiduous attention of her husband set rumour to contradict rumour. But save on an occasional family gathering, she saw few of her own sex at Fallowfield.

And her position in her own home was rendered intolerable by the continued presence of Sarah Mostyn, who at first familiar, then impertinent, had become at last openly defiant.

It was not until all efforts to keep the nurse in her proper place had failed, that Augusta appealed to Laurence to discharge her, the woman having refused to take a dismissal from anyone but her master.

“Tchut!” said he, “I’ll soon settle that business!” and forthwith stalked to the nursery, whence his voice was heard in loud command; but the result was not the woman’s removal, only a temporary submission, to be followed by fresh rebellion, and the confirmation of Augusta’s worst suspicions. How often did the aggrieved wife then recall her thoughtless declaration to her mother, that her “husband’s heart must hold _her_ and _her only_,” not even business to share in its possession! And how thankful she would have been to have had no rival then but business! She was finding the bed she had made for herself a wofully hard one; but she did not succumb readily, she had high spirits and a buoyant nature, and would hardly admit to herself how much she suffered or how great a mistake she had made.

But Cicily, that most faithful of faithful followers, cognisant of her mistress’s wrongs long before her mistress, paid Sarah Mostyn off in her own coin on various occasions, and took care that through one means or other the Ashtons should know what a life their darling led.

Amongst his other little peculiarities Mr. Laurence was an epicure; and one of his favourite tid-bits was that spongy lining of a goose’s frame known as the _soul_. It chanced at a family dinner, rather more than a year after Augusta’s return home, that a fine stubble goose formed part of the bill of fare; and Cicily, who had long owed him a grudge for his heartless treatment of her young mistress, determined to pay him off, and expose him before the whole company. A good caterer for a dainty palate, Cicily knew her power and privileges, but in this case she overshot the mark.

One of the accomplishments of that generation was dexterous carving, and Laurence prided himself on being able to dismember a large fowl without once shifting his fork. The goose was set before himself, and duly helped, but, lo! when his knife would fain have extracted his favourite morsel it scraped bare bones.

The flat bell-rope was pulled violently. Cicily was summoned, and Cicily, in clean linen cap and apron, stood in the doorway curtseying respectfully.

“What have you done with the soul of this goose?” he demanded, in a tone of suppressed passion.

Cicily came a step or two forward with an aspect of marvellous innocence. “Eh, sir, it’s not a goose, it’s a gonder, and _gonders have no souls_.”

Scarcely an individual present but took the covert inuendo, and glances were exchanged across the board; but the look he shot at the woman as, incapable of speech, he waved her to retire, was one never to be forgotten, so much demoniac wrath was concentrated therein.

From the time when Jabez was acknowledged on ’Change as a Manchester man, was admitted into Manchester “society,” and had absolutely become a member of the same family as his son, Mr. Aspinall punctiliously invited him with his wife; and Laurence, with widely different feelings, followed suit.

It was not until after the noble exploit to which Augusta so nearly fell a sacrifice that Mr. Clegg could be induced so far to listen to Ellen’s desire for conciliation, “now that they were all of one family,” as to accept one of these invitations. After that event he was of Mrs. Ashton’s mind that, “as offenders never pardon,” Augusta needed a friend to watch over her. So he left his books, and his brushes, and his schemes for the class amongst whom he had been reared, and (believing his growing affection for his wife, and the babe she had borne him, a sufficient guarantee to his own heart for his own good faith,) when the Aspinalls next invited, he accepted.

As previously stated, Augusta had not dropped into tame submission all at once; her old wilfulness would have way at times; and the light shafts of her satire were frequently aimed with effect against her recalcitrant lord. More than once Jabez had averted disastrous consequences by checking her vivacity ere it went too far. But never had he been so thankful for his self-appointed guardianship as on the night when Cicily thought to pay back her darling’s wrongs.

To his surprise and pleasure, Ben Travis, just returned from the Continent, was of the party. He had not yet called on the family in Oldham Street, and Jabez never asked him wherefore. The cousins had much to talk over, and whilst Laurence Aspinall was pouring wine on his wrath, they discussed a project in which Jabez took an interested part, and which eventuated the following year in the Manchester Mechanics’ Institution. But through all their discussion Jabez never once lost sight of Laurence, and from his excessively polite manner to her he augured ill for Augusta when the restraining presence of friends was removed. He communicated his fears to Travis and when the good-byes were said, and the various conveyances rolled out of the great gates, a fee to Luke the gardener, who was also gatekeeper, kept them open. A whispered word was sufficient for those who had seen the look Laurence directed across the dinner-table from Cicily to his wife, and who knew the character and disposition of the man.

Mr. Travis’s gig and the Ashton’s hackney-coach were kept in waiting close at hand, Mrs. Ashton and Ellen, well wrapped up within, waiting anxiously for they knew not what.

Back towards the closed house went Mr. Ashton and the cousins, treading carefully over the gravel. There was a flagged footway round the building, and from the windows of dining and drawing-rooms lights were still streaming. The last owner had lowered the middle window of the drawing-room as a door of access to the lawn.

As if by accident the curtains had been dragged a little aside in each apartment, and now there were watchers at the apertures. The elder Mr. Aspinall had made an excuse and retired to bed early. Augusta, with a shawl wrapped round her, sat weeping on a sofa in the drawing-room, afraid to go to bed. High words had evidently passed whilst those outside had made their arrangements at the gate.

Presently, into the dining-room sauntered Laurence, with his arm round the shoulders of Sarah Mostyn the shameless nurse. They sat down to the supper table; he poured out wine into a goblet, and they drank from the same glass, he fed her with delicacies, and kissed and caressed her with an assured familiarity which told it was no new experience.

Long they lingered drinking and dallying, and the watchers might have thought no danger need be apprehended. Suddenly a word of the woman’s, like a match to petroleum, set the whole man ablaze. He rushed from the room with a loud oath, the woman after him, apparently in alarm. The movement her friends made outside in gaining the other window caused Augusta to raise her beautiful head, and at that moment her husband stood before her, brandishing his cavalry sabre, and with his eyeballs glaring, fiercely vociferating, “I’ll teach you madam, to set my servants to insult _me_!” he made a fearful slash at her.

As she sprang aside with a terrified shriek, the old woodwork of the glass-door gave way, and before the tipsy madman could recover his guard to strike a fresh blow, his sabre was wrenched from him, and himself struggling in the grasp of three powerful men, his own gardener being one.

Poor Mr. Ashton’s care was his stricken child, whose white shoulders, bathed in blood, were washed by a father’s tears. Thankful then was Jabez to have been at hand, and on the alert, with so powerful an ally as Travis; thankful to have saved Augusta’s life at any sacrifice of personal feeling; and only himself could tell what his presence under that roof cost him.

Even Laurence had no inkling of it; the marriage of Jabez had closed his jealous eyes. But now, finding in his old opponent an unseen watcher over his wife—her defender when he had least expected—his baffled rage was something terrible to look upon. He fought, struggled, vociferated, threatened, and foamed at the mouth; and Mr. Aspinall, coming thither in his dressing-gown, aroused by the uproar, could barely master his indignation and disgust as he ordered the men-servants, crowding in half-dressed, to “help to bind that murderous maniac down!”

It was well, too, that Mrs. Ashton and Ellen were close at hand, and a vehicle ready to despatch for a surgeon, for Augusta needed all their care.

Before three days were over there was a little coffin in the house, holding a still-born child, and there was a young mother, with a plaistered shoulder, lying, white as her pillow, in a state of coma.

Dr. Windsor having exercised his best skill, as was his wont left nature to do the rest, and youth and nature, between them, did their work effectually.

Fain would Mr. Ashton have removed his child once and for all. He offered to set up a carriage for her, if she would but leave her husband, and seek a legal separation, insisting that she owed a duty to herself, as well as to her husband. Mr. Aspinall himself begged that she would take up her abode with him, at Ardwick, if only for her own security. He had ceased to find excuses for his son, and his son’s charming wife stood high in his esteem.

But Laurence had been beforehand, and with plausible promises and penitential tears, and an adroit parade of her little Willie, also in tears “for mamma,” won her over to pardon, and to give him another trial; and not all Mr. Ashton’s eloquence, nor Mrs. Ashton’s proverbial battery, could win her from her decision.

“My dear mother,” said she, “remember you told me ‘what could not be cured must be endured,’ and that ‘as I made my bed so must I lie.’ It is a long lane, mother, that has never a turn, I have heard you say many a time; and who knows but Laurence may take a turn now, and reform? At all events, it is my duty to give him a fair trial, and keep my own wayward nature in check, so as not to provoke him; and I must not leave Willie alone with that woman. I think Mr. Clegg would say I am right.”

I am afraid she overrated Mr. Clegg’s magnanimity much as she overrated her wild husband’s promised reformation, for her decision struck a pang in the heart of Jabez, little dreamed of by Ellen. Indeed, it cost him a sore struggle to subdue his concern for Augusta within the bounds of duty to his own wife, whose many virtues were gradually winning their way into his heart, and towards whom his attention never relaxed.

CHAPTER THE FORTY-SIXTH.

THE MOWER WITH HIS SCYTHE.

Years went by—Laurence had promised to remove Sarah Mostyn, but the woman laughed, refused to stir, and he let her remain—a thorn in his wife’s side—training up the boy she had nursed, and whom he idolised, to scorn and jeer at his own mother; whilst her red-haired girl ran wild about the place as a young hare. He broke out from time to time, and his wife was the sufferer; he horse-whipped her, shot at her, and tortured her in every way that malignity could devise.

No wonder that so many tiny coffins of immature babes should be carried from the gates of the Fallowfield Grange. No wonder if Augusta began to compare her lot with Ellen’s, and to repent her scorn of a true heart because of its plebeian origin.

Meanwhile, the firm of Ashton, Chadwick, and Clegg prospered beyond expectation, the business tact and integrity of the junior partner alike aiding the extension and stability of the firm. To make way for its expansion more warehouse room was required. The Ashtons, not without a sigh for old association, relinquished their house, and removed to another close at hand in George Street, little less commodious, however much Kezia might grumble at it. This was when Ben Travis, lacking employment for time, mind, and money, offered them to the growing establishment, and his influence as “Co.” was accepted. This combination of capital and energy, as Jabez had foreseen, worked wonders for them commercially, enabling them to tide over the trade distress of 1826 with security and advantage. Long before then Jabez had offered to pay Mrs. Clowes her loan, with interest; but she told him she was going to render up her account where, not the coin she had, but that which she had given away, would be put to her credit; and so, as at first proposed, she made it over to her little god-son, Joshua Clegg, before she was gathered to the great garner.

But the universal mower reaped a heavier harvest in 1828, when he swept his keen scythe over the bed of the river.

In 1822 Mr. Ashton (one of the first promoters of the Chamber of Commerce), notwithstanding his advancing years, took an active part in the formation of a New Quay Company, for the better navigation of the river Irwell. The company was established, quays were constructed, warehouses erected, boats built, traffic was extended, and the town generally benefited.

In the February of 1828 the axe, the adze, and the hammer made a busy noise in the boat-building yard of the company, and sail-makers were active with their needles; for a flat, destined to convey cargoes of merchandise to and from Liverpool, was to be ready for the launch on the 26th, a day destined to send a thrill of horror tingling through the veins of Manchester, so sad was the catastrophe it closed upon.

The launch of the _Emma_ was an event in the annals of the company, and of the town; consequently a large number of spectators assembled, a goodly proportion being admitted to the yard to take part in the ceremony, and go with the flat on her trial trip under Captain Gaudy.

Mrs. Ashton, saying, “that when the cat’s away the mice will play,” had decided on remaining at home to watch the mice, but Mr. Ashton compensated himself by taking Ellen and her two eldest boys, leaving baby with its grandma; Jabez, detained by business in the counting-house, promising to overtake them before they were on board. Mr. Aspinall, too, was there, and on his arm was his son’s wife, and Laurence, with his boy Willie, close beside them. He was too jealous of the admiration she excited, to permit her to go into company, even with his father, unless he had also his own eye upon her, especially where there was a chance of meeting Jabez Clegg. He brought the boy for a treat.

It was quite a gala-day, and as the pleasant company mounted the deck, peered into the cabin, and chatted gaily to one another, they little thought to how many that would be a launch into eternity.

The boat, a large flat, fully rigged, painted white above the water-line, and black below, with sails set and flags flying, rested in well-greased cradles, her head down; the shipwrights stood ready with their daggers; painters with their cans and brushes to dab her sides as she slid past them; a band upon the quay played lively tunes, and (fatal mischance) the people on deck flocked to one side to listen. The sponsor, a Miss Grimes, with her sister and our friends, advanced to the bows The word was given; the ready daggers struck away the shores; the boat began to move; Miss Grimes caught firmly the bottle (suspended by a ribbon), and shattered it upon the vessel, proclaiming, with that baptism of wine, the boat was henceforth the _Emma_. Hurrahs and exclamations followed. The bows touched the water, which first splashed the faces, then lifted from their feet the christeners and the Ashton party. The flat had _dipped too deeply_, it heeled over on her _crowded_ side, and _sank_ with her living cargo clinging and fettering each other in the swirling waters, whilst shrieking spectators looked on helpless from bridge and bank, watching others braver and bolder, or better skilled, rush to the rescue to their own risk.

Who shall picture the horror and confusion of that moment, when some scores of holiday people—men, women, children—were precipitated at one fell swoop into the water, shrieking and clinging to one another with that tenacity of grip proverbial with the drowning?

The bridge, the Old Quay, the open space in front of the New Bailey Prison—railed off at an elevation far above the stream—the steep steps, and the towing-path beneath, were all lined with spectators, though the fatal launch was made from a yard lower down the river on the Manchester side. (The New Bailey is in Salford).

As the vessel struck the ground, shuddering from stem to stern, before turning over on her side, and the final catastrophe was imminent, Laurence (sober for once) snatched his darling boy up in his arms, whispered a hasty word of instruction and confidence, and, regardless of aught besides, sprang with him into the water in the contrary direction, far as possible beyond the eddy and suction, and keeping clear of the struggling wretches who were pulling each other down, swam with him to the towing-path. But not until he had placed Willie under safe charge, beyond danger from the scurrying throng, did he hasten back to attempt the rescue of wife or father; and then neither was to be seen.

Mr. Aspinall had been an able swimmer in his day, and made a bold effort for self-preservation; but cramp seizing his gouty limbs, he was one of the first to disappear and perish, though boats and swimmers had put out to the general rescue.

It was vain to search for individuals; though well was his son’s prowess tested that day; more than one drowning wretch he clutched from behind by clothes or hair, and urged forward to the bank, where the Humane Society’s men, with ropes and grapnels, were ably seconded by volunteer humanity, and strong hands were outstretched to haul the helpless up.

Ben Travis had waited for Jabez, detained in the warehouse by courtesy to Mr. Gregson, the buyer for Messrs. Leaf of London, and the two, hurrying to make up for lost time, only reached the New Quay with Nelson at their heels as the hurrahs died out in appalling screams, and the waters of the Irwell closed over all the twain held dearest in life.

With the celerity of light, coats were doffed and shoes cast off, and the two leaped from the stone quay in hope and dread, but the good dog was before them, its teeth in a child’s coat, swimming to the shore. Almost as Jabez touched the water, a sinking woman clutched his legs. With a plunge he freed himself, then catching at her long hair, towed her behind him to the side, and swam back to seek: and save his own wife and little ones, if that were possible.

A floating scarf, a mass of matchless brown curls, a hand and arm above the water, and Jabez knew that Augusta Aspinall was sinking there before him. A few strokes brought him to the spot; he dived; a youth was clinging to her shirts, and held her down. One or both must have drowned. With a blow which went to his heart, he freed her, and, catching her beneath the armpit, held her well from him as he made for shore. To the Humane Society’s men he yielded her—so far gone, the men shook their heads over the lovely woman, as though she were beyond help. But they bore the dripping lady to the sail-room close at hand, whilst Jabez, taking the precaution to secure a rope to his waist, plunged boldly into the midst of the entangled mass in quest of his own.

It was a vain search; he brought one strange child, and then another to bank, and then a man; but he was again laid hold of when his strength was exhausted; and only for the precautionary rope, he would have given to the greedy river the life Simon Clegg had saved from it.

Travis had the good fortune to rescue Mr. Ashton, but he had been some time in the water, and the old man was far spent; but there was no trace of Ellen or her boys, even though he dived close by the sunken flat, and brought up lifeless bodies in their stead.

Jabez and he could only hope some other of the brave men, putting their own lives in peril, had saved them.

The governor of the gaol had opened his house doors, the recovered dead were carried into the gaol itself, the sail-maker’s room was crowded, every tavern near was filled, but no trace was found of Ellen or their sons, and Jabez was like one distraught.

He was but one agitated atom in that seething, surging, frantic crowd, where women shrieked for their husbands, parents for their children, children for their parents; where passing strangers threw themselves into the water to save life, and lost their own; where ignorance lifted the hapless by the heels “to pour the water out” and extinguished the last spark of vitality; and where yelping dogs astray were caught and slaughtered, that medical skill might transfuse the warm blood of the lesser animal into the veins of the human, as a last resource to restore suspended animation. Even gallant old Nelson narrowly escaped falling a sacrifice to the surgeons.

Jabez entered the room where Augusta Ashton was lying, to all appearance, dead—ordinary means of resuscitation having failed; and a surgeon was about so to operate on her from a bleeding spaniel on the ground. Jabez shrank with a strange loathing; in an instant bared his arm to the doctor’s lancet; and if he did not give his life to serve her, as he had once said, he gave his life’s blood to save her; and as the warm fluid passed from his quick veins to hers, he saw the blue quivering lids tremble, light pass into the brown eyes, breath part the blue lips once more; and from the depths of his anguished heart he thanked God as a faint “Jabez” indicated recognition as well as returning animation.

He had restored a wife to thankless Aspinall; but who should restore to him the darling boys who had crept about his knees and round his heart, and the good wife who had won a place there, in spite of fate, by her own patient, but intense, love?

The _Emma_ was raised and floated, so little damaged that she was speedily ready for use, and continued so for many years. In her cabin were found the remains of Ellen and her sons, where the childish curiosity of the elder one had doubtless led all three; but they were raised from the water only to be committed to the earth, and covered up out of sight and hearing for evermore; and never did Jabez know fully all she had become to him until he stood with Travis by the side of an open grave, and heard the clods rattle on the coffin-lid. She was all as one then to the man who had worshipped her, and the man she had worshipped; and though the babe she had left behind was nearer to the one, it would be hard to say to which little Nelly was the dearest in the aftertime.

Including the bodies found beneath the flat and those laid out in the gaol and elsewhere for inquest, thirty-three lives were sacrificed on the altar of the _Emma_; and of these must be reckoned the brave men who cast their lives away to rescue others.

Among the early saved were the Captain, Miss Grimes, and her sister, the two latter being hastily conveyed home in a private carriage (mayhap Mr. Aspinall’s), with coats and cloaks wrapped around their saturated garments.

Good, kind, genial Mr. Ashton never recovered from the effects of his long immersion. He was a man far advanced in years, and the shock was too much for him. He hobbled about the warehouse, snuff-box in hand, a few months, and then dropped asleep in his easy-chair after a game of cribbage with Jabez—never to wake again.

And then the excitement and agitation consequent on the loss of his dear Ellen and her romping boys having brought on Mr. Chadwick a fresh attack of paralysis, which left him still more helpless (though he survived many years to pet and spoil Ellen’s baby-girl), Mrs. Ashton, lonely in her large house, proposed that her sister’s family (Jabez included) should join her in George Street; but when she would have said “the more the merrier,” the words died on her lips. Who were they but the survivors of two wrecked households?

After a little hesitation the offer was accepted, and the whole family gathered in their shorn proportions under one roof. But there was another proposition from another quarter, to which there was considerably more demur. Mrs. Hulme, in a warm grey-duffel cloak, for the preservation of her new mourning, travelled from Whaley-Bridge, to ask as a favour that baby Nelly should be committed to her care.

“You see, Mrs. Chaddick, th’ poor little babby’ll thrive better yond than here i’ th’ smooak; an’ aw’d fain do summat for Mester Clegg, he have done so much fur feyther an——.”

Jabez interrupted her.

“Hush! Mrs. Hulme. I owe life and all that life has given to your father and yourself. What little I have done in return has been but dust in the balance. Yet as it is your desire, and I know baby would be best in your hands, if grandmother will consent to part with her, Nelly and her nurse shall go back with you for the coming summer months.”

And so, though parting with Ellen’s baby seemed parting with Ellen over again, the little blossom went away to other blossoms on the healthy hill-side.

Tom Hulme was no longer overlooker, but responsible manager at the Whaley-Bridge Mill, with a good salary; and if Jabez gratefully traced his fortune back to his cradle, so too did they trace their amended position to the same source. But Bess more immediately referred to the benefit Simon Clegg had derived from the Buxton Baths, whither Jabez had sent him year after year, for the relief of his rheumatism, and to his care of steadfast little Sim. He had first placed the crippled lad with a doctor celebrated for his treatment of bodily deformities, under whom the boy’s bent body had strengthened and straightened considerably, and then removed him for education to the house of a married clergyman, where there were no rough boys to torment him. Jabez knew well what were the amenities of public schools.

CHAPTER THE FORTY-SEVENTH.

THE LAST ACT.

The catastrophe which deprived Laurence Aspinall of a father, and had almost robbed him of a loving, patient wife, would have steadied any man less reckless and selfish than he. But that he should rescue strangers, and Jabez save his wife, and that through transfusion the blood of Jabez should course through Augusta’s veins, formed a combination of mischances beyond parallel, and the honey was changed to gall. Nay, he was graceless enough to exclaim, in the first burst of his jealous rage, “I would rather she had died outright than have that fellow triumph in her restoration through his means. D—— him!”

And yet there were times when in his uxorious fondness he wholly persuaded himself, and half persuaded her, that his very extravagances arose from excess of love!

His fancied wrongs culminated when first the will of his father, and after a brief period that of Augusta’s father, were read and proved.

The former set forth that, disgusted with the ungentleman-like excesses of his son, and convinced that his course of lavish extravagance would end in penury, he had determined to settle on his son’s wife, Augusta Aspinall, for her sole use and benefit, the house and premises on Ardwick Green, with all therein contained, together with a sufficient sum in the funds to maintain a befitting state; in the event of her decease, the reversion to pass to any child or children she had or might hereafter bear to his son Laurence. To him he left the residue of his means, and the old business in Cannon Street, with a charge to apply himself to merchandise.

The latter will, though equally stringent, was a much more prolix affair. After a number of legacies, of which Jabez came in for one, Mr. Ashton bequeathed to his wife all other properties whatsoever he died possessed of, together with half his share in the firm of Ashton, Chadwick, Clegg, and Co.; the other half to his beloved daughter, limiting the annual sum she was to draw from the firm, and which was in nowise to pass into the hands of her depraved husband; and Jabez Clegg and Benjamin Travis were appointed executors for the due performance of its provisions.

Imagine the excitement and jealous fury of Laurence Aspinall on thus being set aside even by his own father and superseded by his wife; and as if that were not sufficient degradation, to have Jabez Clegg, whose charity-school face yet bore the impress of his foot, set as his wife’s executor, to dole out what he called a “pittance” where he had anticipated a fortune!

It so happened that the early duties of his executorship called Jabez once or twice unexpectedly to Fallowfield, and that on each occasion the master of the mansion was from home.

It might be that the river had washed the roses from Augusta’s cheeks so effectually that her complexion had never regained its tone; or it might be that her skin looked white in contrast with the blackness of her bombazine and crape; certain it was that Jabez was struck with the pallor of her countenance, and his inquiry, “Are you not well, Mrs. Aspinall?” was tinctured with alarm.

As a light flush tinged her cheek, then faded away again, and she received him with a timid indecision very unlike her former girlish freedom, a sense of her almost supernal loveliness brought something of the old ache into his heart, and out of respect for himself and her, he hurried over his business, and having obtained the signatures for which he came, mounted his gig and drove back to town, haunted by look, and voice, and manner.

Yet in the integrity of his own heart he had no conception that her embarrassment was the result of fear—fear of the interpretation her jealous madman of a husband should put on so unwonted a visit.

He thought he saw a smile of malice in the corners of the mouth of the bold woman who met him in the hall, and nodded to him so freely as he passed her on his way out; but no prescient spirit whispered in his ear that his twenty minutes’ visit on absolute business would furnish envy and jealousy with a pretext for foul-mouthed slander, for coarse vituperation, for the use of a whip, and for calumnious accusations which cut deeper than its lash.

Cicily, who intervened to save her mistress, might have conveyed some inkling of this to Mrs. Ashton, but Augusta absolutely forbade her sympathetic servant’s interference.

“You would do no good, Cicily,” she said; “the evil is beyond earthly remedy; you would only distress my dear mother to no purpose, and she has suffered too much on my account already. It cannot last for ever!”

On the next occasion Jabez was accompanied by his joint-executor, but even that fact did not save Augusta from her husband’s wrath, and his vile aspersions went far to drive out the last lingering sentiment of affection or regard she had for him. But she clung to her child, and that bound her to her home and him whom in an evil hour she had chosen; though tears fell bitterly on Willie’s curly head, when he, like his father, gave her back blows for kisses. And if at times her conscience smote her for her haughty repulse of Jabez by the stair-foot window at Carr Cottage, what wonder? Had not Laurence himself scored his rejected rival’s name on her heart with his braces and whip-lash?

She shut the obtrusive memory out with a shudder, and, dropping on her knees, prayed earnestly for strength to bear and to forbear.

Yet much of the cruelty of Laurence at this time arose from another source than causeless jealousy. He had been living far beyond his private means, and was greatly involved. He had calculated on laying his hand on a good round sum, and was disappointed. In order, however, to raise the needful, he sold his father’s old-established concern to their head clerk, far below its value. On the Fallowfield estate his friend Barret held a mortgage; and had it been possible, he would similarly have disposed of Augusta’s possessions. Here, however, he was doubly baffled, and he turned on her as the primary cause.

The old law which preserved the woman’s absolute right over properties legally settled upon herself, by strange anomaly did not secure to her one guinea of the coin those properties produced.

Well did Jabez watch over Augusta’s interest, but his heart ached as he saw her sad countenance, and the greedy triumphant eyes of ever-present Laurence when her dividends were paid in. For, before his very face, Laurence laid his hand upon the money, to squander it as he had squandered his own on Sarah Mostyn and other dissolute companions, leaving his wife without so much as would purchase a pocket-handkerchief.

Then, lest she should make her wrongs known, he kept her a close prisoner at Fallowfield, and for all the pleasure she had of her Ardwick mansion, she might as well have been without it.

No wonder if each fresh act of personal violence snapped some bond between them, until the only one link to bind her to life and her husband was her boy Willie; whilst the only human trait of Laurence was his fondness for his son, whom he was rapidly ruining with false indulgence, as he himself had been ruined.

It was customary, when the hay-making season came round, for Laurence to gather such friends as his wife or he retained—the married with their children—for a frolic in the hay-fields, and the bringing home the last waggon-load in triumph to crown or inaugurate a feast.

On these occasions he had the grace or the diplomacy to keep Sarah Mostyn in the background, though she flaunted boldly enough about the house in the presence of his wife, and her child mingled with the children.

The harvest-home of 1831 was attended with the customary festivities, Willie, a rough playmate, was half smothering Nelly Clegg in the hay, or chasing the Walmsleys amongst the haycocks, until the last load was ready, and then the boy insisted that he and his companions should be mounted atop. Shouts and cheers announced their coming to the party in the drawing-room; they came crowding to the windows, and the glass-door being open, one or two sauntered out on to the flagged walk. Merrily they came along the gravelled drive, under the hot sun, dreaming of no danger, Willie clapping his hands and calling, “Look at us, papa,” when, right in front of the drawing-room window, the pin which held the body of the cart down, by some means became displaced, the cart tilted up, and hay and children were sent flying.

Beyond a few bruises, none of the children were injured but one; they had fallen amongst hay, or on the spongy lawn; but Willie, the one jewel in the Aspinall casket pitched with his head on the flagged pavement, and was killed on the spot.

Draw we the curtain over consternation and bereavement, and pass on to results. If a change came over Laurence, it was not for the better. He drank incessantly, became alternately moody and defiant, and added a coping-stone to his offences by placing Sarah Mostyn at his table by the side of his wife, and boldly avowing that her child was his child also.

Then all the woman rose within Augusta, so long cowed and dispirited. She left the table, and, the insult being repeated, again retired in indignation.

Of the servants none had pitied her so much as Cicily, but for whom communication with her friends had been cut off. Often had the former waxed savage over indignities she could neither check nor prevent; but in many little ways the faithful domestic was enabled to ameliorate the condition of her mistress. Now that Mrs. Aspinall—more lovely in her sad womanhood than in her brilliant girlhood—was virtually supplanted, a prisoner under torture in her husband’s house, with no tie of motherhood to bind her there, her old nurse, as the mouthpiece of Mrs. Ashton and her aunt Chadwick, urged upon her once more the necessity for legal separation, and she no longer turned a deaf ear.

When Jabez came to hand over the next quarter’s dividends Travis accompanied him, and then Augusta, in the presence of both her executors, demanded and claimed her right to a legal separation from her husband.

Laurence taken by surprise, started to his feet, then, resuming his seat, said, with a scowl and a contemptuous sneer—

“You had better obtain a divorce, madam, whilst you are about it. Mr. Clegg will not object to the cost, if you can only be made Mrs. Clegg by Act of Parliament.”

It was a cruel and uncalled-for sneer, and Travis, firing up, resented it for his friend, who appeared dumbfounded by the suggestion.

“If she _had_ been Mrs. Clegg, sir, instead of Mrs. Aspinall, there would have been no necessity now for the interference of friends for her protection!”

“Of course not,” sneered Aspinall. “Mr. Clegg is the white hen that never lays away; and now, having favoured you with one of Mrs. Ashton’s pithy proverbs, perhaps, gentlemen, you will favour me by taking your departure; this house and this lady are alike my property.”

The value he set upon the latter article of property was testified by an immediate application of a horse-whip, so savagely applied that even Bob, and Luke the gardener, drawn thither by Augusta’s screams, wrenched the whip from him, and covered her escape, the latter declaring he would “no longer stay an’ witness sich wark.”

To this man, who was also gatekeeper, Cicily crept at nightfall, and offered him a goodly sum down, out of her own savings, promising a much larger one from Mrs. Aspinall, with the offer of a new situation at Ardwick, if he would only suffer her ill-used mistress to “get clear o’ that brute’s violence.”

The man, to his credit be it told, refused the money, but opened the gate; and, when Laurence wakened from his sodden sleep at noon the next day, wife, cook, and gardener were missing.

They three had walked to Ardwick, and once there, though Augusta found sad havoc had been made in the place, all was her own, carriage included, and the domestics in charge welcomed her with gladness.

Without waiting for even the show of a breakfast, Augusta hurried like a frightened bird to her mother’s nest in George Street, where alone she felt secure.

Jabez and Travis were summoned, and when Aspinall, recovering from his stupor, sought his human property at Ardwick, he found the trustee under his father’s will—a Mr. Lillie—holding the place for Augusta in right of his trust. And in George Street he was refused admission, Mrs. Ashton justifying her daughter’s flight with “self-preservation is the first law of nature. A good Jack makes a good Jill. It is the last straw breaks the camel’s back. If you sow the wind, you must reap the whirlwind. He who beats his friend makes an enemy.”

He threatened, and she answered—

“Threatened folk live long. You had best, Mr. Aspinall, keep your breath to cool your porridge. Augusta’s friends will defend her from her only enemy. Pending separation _you_ see her no more.”

He never saw her more. The deed of separation was _sealed_ but never signed.

With Augusta, all good angels seemed to have flown from Fallowfield. In his demoniac passion, he strove to blacken her character, to find himself met with laughter—his own life had been so chaste! Whilst, as if to refute him, when she took refuge with her mother, Jabez deemed it a point of honour to retreat. Accordingly he took up his temporary abode with Travis, in delicacy towards her, and as a check upon himself. No act, or thought, or word of his must give an evil tongue a chance to foul that spotless woman with its slime.

In the midst of all this, Aspinall’s embarrassments increased. Creditors pressed; writs showered in upon him; Barret foreclosed, and men were put in possession of the Grange. He flew to his old remedy, and it drove him mad. Lancaster Gaol for debtors loomed upon him. From his chamber window he beheld a sheriff’s officer approach with a warrant. His cavalry-pistols were in his dressing-room. A sharp report rang through the house. Laurence Aspinall, in the prime of life, delirious with drink, driven to desperation by his own profligate excess, set a blood-red seal on the deed of separation.

* * * * *

Ten years had passed from the partnership of Ashton, Chadwick, and Clegg—years in which money well employed had multiplied itself. Jabez was a rich man—a man of influence in the town; no longer the amateur artist, but the patron of art, as well Henry Liverseege and others could have told. As he had been one of the first promoters and directors of the Manchester Mechanics’ Institution, so was he now the supporter of the Royal Institution for the Advancement of Art; and seeing farther than Mr. Ashton, who, as a member of the New Quay Navigation Company, had opposed the Act for a railway between Manchester and Liverpool, he threw his energy into the project, and helped to carry it out, his cousin Travis working with him.

His widowerhood had cast a gloom over him for a time, but he left himself small leisure for morbid reflection, and that was cheered by the prattle of his little Nelly. Then came the crash at Fallowfield, and when darkness set upon Aspinall and his deeds, light broke upon the path of Jabez Clegg—at first a mere ray, but he worked the more cheerfully in its light. It was not _hope_ for himself; it was merely a joyful consciousness that there was hope and calm in the sky over the head of their fluttering and wounded dove, and that Augusta could now rest in peace with her mother in the house at Ardwick, with no dread of a brutal husband bursting on them unawares.

He came and went as friend and executor, but it was long before it flashed across his comprehension that the fearful ordeal through which Augusta had passed but brought his old master’s daughter closer to him; or that the prayer old Simon had taught was being answered to the full. That which was “above rubies” had blessed his life and kept his human heart warm whilst his “coast had enlarged;” he had been kept from the evil of a wilful and capricious wife; and at last when he had resigned all prospect of setting the purified pearl as a star on his own breast, it dropped into his hand, unsought, unsolicited.

He had schooled his heart we know. He had married from a sense of duty and grateful compassion. He was a faithful husband to a true wife, and when he lost her he mourned her as a valued friend. But though all the early love of his being had been kept alive and in a ferment by the sufferings of Augusta, as an honourable man he suffered no word or look to betray more than a friend’s sympathy. And still he kept as strong a guard over himself, though the tragic end of Laurence had set her free once more.

That last fatal act struck a sensitive chord in Augusta’s nature. There was no exultation at release. For a time she lost sight of his profligacy and cruelty, and accused herself of having hastened the catastrophe by leaving him to his own unbridled will and the temptress by his side. She wept for the handsome lover who had captivated her young fancy; she mourned for the besotted soul gone to its account with all its imperfections rampant.

“Let her alone,” said Mrs. Ashton to her sister; “the sharpest shower wears itself out soonest; she will come to her senses long before her crape is worn out.”

Mrs. Ashton was a true prophetess. For a long time the Fallowfield tragedy cast a shadow over the house at Ardwick, and they led very retired lives. Then harp and piano were heard once more, visitors were admitted, and the mansion that Kezia and Cicily united in declaring “worse than a nunnery,” grew bright and cheerful, though the widow’s weeds were not cast aside. (Kitty had been laid under the mould whilst Augusta was yet a bride).

Almost two years had elapsed. Suitors in plenty had been attracted by the wealthy young widow’s many charms, her old admirer, Mr. Marsland, among the rest, yet Mrs. Aspinall showed no disposition to change her state; and the one man who had loved her longest and best was not of the number at her feet. He scorned to importune now in his widowerhood for the love withheld when they were both young. He counted age by events, not years.

It was for Augusta _now_, she who had been taught by her very husband’s taunts and sneers to think upon the true man she had set aside, to think of him daily and hourly with rapidly strengthening attachment, and think of him as one who had dropped her from the book of his life for ever. Her whole thought was how could she become worthy the love of such a man; yet every day and hour the fear pressed heavily upon her that the quiet virtues of Ellen had driven her out of his heart altogether. Of all her guests he was the one most welcome, most desired, but he was the one she received with most reserve, the one whose stay was briefest, whose visits fewest. “Business” appeared to have more imperative claims on him than when he had his way to make; and Augusta, whose sables had long since been cast aside, seemed to wear them on her heart. The vivacity which had never wholly forsaken her in all her trials, forsook her now—she grew listless and melancholy.