Chapter THE TENTH: First Antagonism (13)

Meanwhile Captain Richard Chadwick had come home on half-pay to brighten up the somewhat dull house in George Street, and comfort the old folk—to say nothing of astonishing Sim and Nelly, with his long yarns and adventures. Sim always spent part of his vacations with Mr. Clegg, who well paid back to Bess all her early care of him. He indulged the boy’s craving for books and pencils, first implanted by himself and in which he saw the dawn of his future career. That which in his own case had been repressed and subordinated to trade and money-making, should not be so checked in that boy; and old Simon, to whom the lad appeared a marvel, never ceased to pride himself on his forecast in pronouncing Jabez a “Godsend.”

It was during the second summer of her widowhood, when Augusta accompanied her mother (not a whit the less stately than of yore) to Carr Cottage for the first time since her attempted elopement, that the feeling of all she had cast from her, and all that she had brought upon herself, all that might have been, and now never would be, pressed heaviest upon her. She had gone thoughtfully over the old ground, had trod the nettle-grown Lovers’ Walk, and sat down on the open window-ledge at the stair-foot as once before, and wept tears of penitent bitterness. How long she sat there she could not tell; she was weeping for a life lost and a love rejected. As once before, the voice of Jabez (whom she imagined eighteen miles away) broke upon her solitude, but now it thrilled through her.

There was a light touch upon her shoulder.

“Mrs. Aspinall?”

She shuddered.

“Oh! don’t call me by that name—_here!_” broke from her, imploringly.

“What name shall I call you by?” half wonderingly; then in a lower semi-smothered tone of entreaty—“Augusta?”

Lower sank her head in her hands; but there was no answer save her sobs. It was thus he had addressed her there once before.

“Augusta!”—and this time the hand on her shoulder shook—“Augusta—dear Augusta, once on this very spot I found you weeping thus, and I begged to be allowed to share your grief. I told you I would give my life to serve you—what I said then I repeat now—I _would_ give my life to serve you, and you _know_ it!” He gently drew one hand from her agitated face. “Tell me your trouble, as you would tell it to a brother!”

A brother—ah, that was it! She drew her hand back, but she did not rise, and her sobs seemed to choke her.

Again he took her hand, and his other arm went round her soothingly, protectingly. “Oh, Augusta, this is inexpressibly painful to me. I love you, as never man loved woman. Can you not tell me what troubles you?” and the earnest tenderness of his voice made strange music in her ears.

He had seated himself on the narrow window-ledge beside her, and now he thought she was about to punish his presumption and quit him haughtily as before.

But no! She only slid from his arm to his very feet, and cried, with still covered face—

“Oh, Jabez—_dear_ Jabez, forgive me all I made you suffer here; for oh! I have repented bitterly.”

He was stunned, bewildered. His passionate declaration of love was made as a claim to her confidence, not to her affection; and now—“_dear_ Jabez!” Did he hear aright? For an instant he was silent from very incapacity to speak. Her bent head touched his knees.

Slowly, reverently, as if she had been a saint, with every nerve of his strong frame trembling with emotion, he raised her from the ground; but no arm went round her now. He held both her hands in his, and looked steadfastly down upon her; but no answer made he to her plea for pardon. Constraint in voice and words was apparent and painful, but emotion grew too strong for control.

“Augusta, what is the meaning of this? For God’s sake do not mislead me! I seem on the threshold of heaven or madness. Is it possible that I, plain Jabez Clegg, can be ‘dear’ to you?”

“Dearer than life!”

Clear, full, and earnest came the words from her soul,
clear and truthful were the eyes that now sought his.

“Thank God!”

He held her in his arms with a straining clasp, which told how long they had quivered to embrace her so. His eyes lit up with an intensity of love she knew not he could feel, and never had his lips met woman’s in such fond kisses as he pressed on hers.

The concentrated love of years seemed gathered to a focus then. “Life of my life!” he called her, and she knew and felt it was so.

If the shade of the departed Ellen could have looked upon them there, remembering how she had rushed to his embrace in that very spot, and how different had been the kiss imprinted on her wifely brow, would she have reproached him? I wis not.

Is it needful to add that, before the summer waned, the Manchester Man, rapidly rising into public note and favour, entered into another partnership; or that Jabez Clegg, in right of Augusta his wife, took possession of the mansion at Ardwick, to the satisfaction of Mrs. Ashton, who said, “Better late than never!” Or to tell how the trade of Ashton, Chadwick, Clegg, and Co. continued to extend? Or that Travis remained Co. to the end of the chapter—the children’s Co. never taking a wife unto himself?

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See Appendix.

[2] Prior to the close of the Fourteenth Century, Manchester was written Mamecester.

[3] Cradle.

[4] A sort of close pinafore.

[5] A short loose jacket.

[6] Ugliest.

[7] Inquired.

[8] See Appendix B.

[9] See Appendix B.

[10] Bleacher.

[11] Properly.

[12] 3 Chron. iv. 9, 10.

[13] Leaping-pole.

[14] Brooks.

[15] Heaps—impediments.

[16] See Appendix C.

[17] See Appendix.

[18] See Appendix.

[19] See Appendix.

[20] See Appendix.

[21] See Appendix.

THE END.