Works of Ellen Wood, page 164
“I mean nothing in particular. Anna is here.”
“You shall not evade me,” gasped Henry. “I must have it out, now or later. What is it that you mean?”
William stood, almost confounded. Henry was evidently in painful excitement; every vestige of colour had forsaken his sensitive countenance, and his white hands shook as they held William.
“What do you mean?” William whispered. “I said nothing to agitate you thus, that I am aware of. Are we at cross-purposes?”
A spot, bright as carmine, began to flush into the invalid’s pale cheeks, and he moved his face so that the light did not fall upon it.
“I’ll have it out, I say. What is Anna Lynn to you?”
“Nothing,” answered William, a smile parting his lips.
“What is she to you?” reiterated Henry, his tone painfully earnest.
William edged himself on to the sofa, so as to cover Henry from the gaze of any eyes that might be directed to him from the other parts of the room. “I like Anna very much,” he said in a clear, low tone; “almost as I might like a sister; but I have no love for her, in the sense you would imply — if I am not mistaking your meaning. And I never shall have.”
Henry looked at him wistfully. “On your honour?”
“Henry! was there need to ask it? On my honour, if you will.”
“No, no; there was no need: you are always truthful. Bear with me, William! bear with my infirmities.”
“My sister Anna Lynn might be, and welcome. My wife never.”
Henry did not answer. His face was growing damp with physical pain.
“You have one of your fits of suffering coming on!” breathed William. “Shall I get you anything?”
“Hush! only sit there, to hide me from them: and be still.”
William did as he was requested, sitting so as to screen him from Mrs. Ashley and the rest. He held his hands, and the paroxysm, sharp while it lasted, passed away. Henry’s very lips had grown white with pain.
“You see what a poor wretch I am!”
“I see that you suffer,” was William’s compassionate answer.
“From henceforth there is a fresh bond of union between us, for you possess my secret. It is what no one else in the world does. William, that’s my object in life.”
William did not reply. Perplexity was crowding on his mind, shading his countenance.
“Well!” cried Henry, beginning to recover his equanimity, and with it his sharp retorts. “Why are you looking so blue?”
“Will it be smooth sailing for you, Henry, with Mr. Ashley?”
“Yes, I think it will,” was the hasty rejoinder: its very haste, its fractious tone, proving that Henry was by no means so sure of it as he would imply. “I am not as others are: therefore he will let minor considerations yield to my happiness.”
William looked uncommonly grave. “Mr. Ashley is not all,” he said, arousing from a reverie. “There may be difficulties elsewhere. She must not marry out of their own society. Samuel Lynn is one of its strictest members.”
“Rubbish! Samuel Lynn is my father’s servant, and I am my father’s son. If Samuel should take a strait-laced fit, and hold out, why, I’ll turn broadbrim.”
“Samuel Lynn is my father’s servant!” In that very fact, William saw cause to fear that it might not be such plain sailing with Mr. Ashley as Henry wished to anticipate. He could not help looking the doubts he felt. Henry observed it.
“What’s the matter now?” he peevishly asked. “I do think you were born to be the plague of my life! My belief is, you want her for yourself.”
“I am only anxious for you, Henry. I wish you could have assured yourself that it would go well, before — before allowing your feelings to be irrevocably bound up in it. A blow, for you, might be hard to bear.”
“How could I help my feelings?” retorted Henry. “I did not fix them purposely on Anna Lynn. Before I knew anything about it, they had fixed themselves. Almost before I knew that I cared for her, she was more to me than the sun in the heavens. There has been no help for it at all, I tell you. So don’t preach.”
“Have you spoken to her?”
Henry shook his head. “The time has not come for it. I must make it right with the master before I can stir a step: and I fear it is not quite ripe for that. Mind you don’t talk.”
William smiled. “I will mind.”
“You’d better. If that Quaker society got a hint of it, there’s no knowing what a hullabaloo they might make. They might be for reading Anna a public lecture at Meeting: or get Samuel Lynn to vow he’d not give his consent.”
“I should argue in this way, were I you, Henry. With my love so firmly fixed on Anna Lynn —— I beg your pardon, Miss Ashley.”
William started up. Mary Ashley was standing close to the sofa. Had she caught the sense of the last words?
“Mamma spoke twice, but you were too busily engaged to hear,” said Mary. “Henry, James is waiting to wheel your sofa to the tea-table.”
Henry rose. Passing his arm through William’s, he approached the group. The servant pushed the sofa after them. Standing together were Mary Ashley and Anna Lynn. They presented a great contrast to each other. Mary wore an evening dress of shimmering silk, its low body trimmed with rich white lace; white lace hung from its drooping sleeves: and she had on ornaments of gold. Anna was in grey merino, high in the neck, close at the wrists; not a bit of lace about her, not an ornament; nothing but a plain white linen collar. “Catch me letting her wear those Methodistical things when she shall be mine!” thought Henry. “I’ll make a bonfire of the lot.”
But the Quaker cap? Ah! it was not there. Anna had continued her habit at home of throwing it off, as formerly. Patience reprimanded in vain. She was not seconded by Samuel Lynn. “We are by ourselves, Patience; it does not much matter,” he would say; “the child says she is cooler without it.” But had Samuel Lynn known that Anna was in the habit of discarding it on every possible occasion when she was from home, he had been as severe as Patience. At Mr. Ashley’s, especially, she would sit, as now, without it, her lovely face made more lovely by its falling curls. Anna did wrong, and she knew it; but she was a wilful girl, and a vain one. That pretty, timid, retiring manner concealed much self-will, much vanity; though in some things she was as easily swayed as a child.
She disobeyed Patience in another matter. Patience would say to her, “Should Mary Ashley be opening her instrument of music, thee will mind not to listen to her songs: thee can go into another room.”
“Oh, yes, Patience,” she would answer; “I will mind.”
But, instead of not listening, Miss Anna would place herself near the piano, and drink in the songs as if her whole heart were in the music. Music had a great effect upon her; and there she would sit entranced, as though she were in some earthly Elysium. She said nothing of this at home; but the deceit was wrong.
They were sitting down to tea, when Herbert Dare came in. The hours for meals were early at Mr. Ashley’s: the medical men considered it best for Henry. Herbert could be a gentleman when he chose; good-looking also; quite an addition to a drawing-room. He took his seat between Mary and Anna.
“I say, how is it you are not dining at home this evening?” asked Henry, who somehow did not regard the Dares with any great favour.
“I dined in the middle of the day,” was Herbert’s reply.
“The condescension! I thought only plebeians did that. James, is there a piece of chalk in the house? I must chalk that up.”
“Henry! Henry!” reproved Mrs. Ashley.
“Oh, let him talk, Mrs. Ashley,” said Herbert, with supreme good humour. “There’s nothing he likes so well as a wordy war.”
“Nothing in the world,” acquiesced Henry. “Especially with Herbert Dare.”
CHAPTER XXIII.
ATTERLY’S FIELD.
Laughing, talking, playing at proverbs, earning and paying forfeits, it was a merry group in Mrs. Ashley’s drawing-room. That lady herself was not joining in the merriment. She sat apart at a small table, some work in her hand, speaking a word now and then, and smiling to herself in echo to some unusual burst of laughter. It was so surprising that only five voices could make so much noise. They were sitting in a circle; Mary Ashley between William Halliburton and Herbert Dare, Anna Lynn between Herbert Dare and Henry Ashley, Henry and William side by side.
Time, in these happy moments, passes rapidly. In due course, the hands of the French clock on the mantel-piece pointed to half-past eight, and its silver tones rang out the chimes. They were at the end of the game, and just settling themselves to commence another. The half-hour aroused William, and he glanced towards the clock.
“Half-past eight! who would have thought it? I had no idea it was so late. I must leave you just for half an hour,” he added, rising.
“Leave for what?” cried Henry Ashley.
“To go as far as East’s. I will not remain there.”
Henry broke into a “wordy war,” as Herbert Dare had called it earlier in the evening. William smiled, and overruled him in his quiet way.
“They have my promise to go round this evening,” he said. “I gave it them unconditionally, and must just go round to tell them I cannot come — if that’s not a contradiction. Don’t look so cross, Henry.”
“Of course, you don’t mean to come back,” resentfully spoke Henry. “When you get there, you’ll stop there.”
“No; I have told you I will not. But if I let them expect me all the evening, they will be looking and waiting, and do no good.”
He went out as he spoke, and left the house. As he reached the gate Mr. Ashley was coming in. Mr. Ashley had been in the manufactory; he did not often go there after tea. “Going already, William?” Mr. Ashley exclaimed in accents of surprise.
“Not for long, sir. I must just look in at East’s.”
“Is that scheme likely to prosper? Can you keep the men?”
“Yes, indeed, I think so. My hopes are strong.”
“Well, there’s nothing like hope,” answered Mr. Ashley, with a laugh. “But I shall wonder if you do keep them. William,” he added, after a slight pause, his tone changing to a business one, “I have a few words to say to you. I was about to speak to you in the counting-house this afternoon, but something put it aside. I have changed my plans with respect to this Lyons journey. Instead of despatching you, as I had thought of doing, I believe I shall send Samuel Lynn.”
Mr. Ashley paused. William did not immediately reply.
“Samuel Lynn’s experience is greater than yours. It is a new thing, and he will see, better than you could do, what can and what cannot be done.”
“Very well, sir,” at length answered William.
“You speak as though you were disappointed,” remarked Mr. Ashley.
William was disappointed. But his motive for the feeling lay far deeper than Mr. Ashley supposed. “I should like to have gone, sir, very much. But — of course, my liking, or not liking, has nothing to do with it. Perhaps it is as well that I should not go,” he resumed, more in soliloquy, as if he were trying to reconcile himself to the disappointment by argument, than in observation to Mr. Ashley. “I do not see how the men would have done without me at East’s.”
“Ay, that’s a grave consideration,” replied Mr. Ashley jokingly, as he turned to walk to his own door.
William stood still, nailed as it were to the spot, looking after his master. A most unwelcome thought had flashed over him; and in the impulse of the moment he followed Mr. Ashley, to speak it out. Even in the night’s obscurity, his emotion was perceptible.
“Mr. Ashley, the suspicion cast on me, at the time that cheque was lost, has not been the reason — the reason for your declining to intrust me with this commission?”
Mr. Ashley looked at him in surprise. But that William’s agitation was all too real, he would have laughed at him.
“William, I think you are turning silly. No suspicion was cast on you.”
“You have never stirred in the matter, sir; you have never spoken to me to tell me you were satisfied that I was not in any way guilty,” was William’s impulsive answer.
“Spoken to you! where was the need? Why, William, my whole life, my daily intercourse with you, is only so much proof that you have my full confidence. Should I admit you to my home, to the companionship of my children, if I had no more faith in you than that?”
“True,” said William, beginning to recover himself. “It was a thought that flashed over me, sir, when you said I was not to be sent on this journey. I should not like you to doubt me; I could not live under it.”
“William, you reproached me with not having stirred in — —”
“I beg your pardon, sir. I never thought of such a thing as reproach. I would not presume to do it.”
“I have not stirred in the matter,” resumed Mr. Ashley. “A very disagreeable suspicion arises in my mind at times, as to how the cheque went; and I do not choose to stir in it. Have you no suspicion on the point?”
The question took William by surprise. He stammered in his answer; an unusual thing for him to do. “N — o.”
“I ask if you have a suspicion?” quietly repeated Mr. Ashley, meaningly, as if he took William’s answer for nothing, or had not heard it.
Then William spoke out readily. “A suspicion has crossed my mind, sir. But it is one I should not like to breathe to you.”
“That’s enough. I see. White voluntarily took the loss of the money on himself. He came to me to say so; therefore, I infer that it has in some private way been refunded to him. Mr. Dare veered round, and advised me not to investigate the affair, as I was no loser by it; Delves hinted the same thing. Altogether, I can see through the thing pretty clearly, and I am content to let it rest. Are you satisfied? If not — —”
Mr. Ashley broke off abruptly. William waited.
“So, don’t turn foolish again. You and I now understand each other. William!” he emphatically added, “I am growing to like you almost as I like my own children. I am proud of you; and I shall be prouder yet. God bless you, my boy!”
It was so very rare that the calm, dignified Thomas Ashley was betrayed into anything like demonstrativeness, that William could only stand and look. And while he looked, the door closed on his master.
He went way with all speed, calling at his home. Were the truth to be told, perhaps William was quite as anxious to be back again at Mr. Ashley’s as Henry was that he should be there. Scarcely stopping for a word of greeting, he opened a drawer, took from it a small case of fossils, and then searched for something else; something which apparently he could not find.
“Have any of you seen my microscope?” he asked, turning to the group at the table bending over their books.
Jane looked round. “My dear, I lent it to Patience to-day. I suppose she forgot to return it. Gar, will you go and ask her for it?”
“Don’t disturb yourself, Gar,” said William. “I am going out, and will ask Patience myself.”
Patience was alone in her parlour. She returned him the microscope, saying that the reason she had not sent it in was, that she had not had time to use it. “Thee art in evening dress!” she remarked to William.
“I am at Mrs. Ashley’s. I have only come out for a few minutes. Thank you. Good night, Patience.”
“Wait thee a moment, William. Is Anna ready to come home?”
“No, that she is not. Why?”
“I want to send for her. Samuel Lynn is spending the evening in the town, so I must send Grace. And I don’t care to send her late. She will only get talking to John Pembridge, if she goes out after he is home from work.”
William smiled. “It is natural that she should, I suppose. When are they going to be married?”
“Shortly,” answered Patience, in a tone not quite so equable as usual. Patience saw no good in people getting married in general; and she was vexed at the prospect of losing Grace in particular. “She leaves us in a fortnight from this,” she continued, alluding to Grace, “and all her thoughts seem to be bent now upon meeting John Pembridge. Could thee bring Anna home for me?”
“With pleasure,” replied William.
“That is well, then. Grace does not deserve to go out to-night, for she wilfully crossed me to-day. Good evening, William.”
Fossil-case in hand, and the microscope in his pocket, William made the best of his way to Honey Fair. Robert East, Stephen Crouch, Brumm, Thornycroft, Carter, Cross, and some half-dozen others, were crowded round Robert’s table. William handed them the fossils and the microscope; told the men to amuse themselves with them for that night, and he would explain more about them on the morrow. He was ever anxious that the men should have some object of amusement as a rallying point on these evenings; anything to keep their interest awakened.
Before the half-hour had expired, he was back at Mr. Ashley’s. Proverbs had been given up, and Mary was at the piano. Mr. Ashley had been accompanying her on the flute, on which instrument he was a brilliant player, and when William entered she was singing a duet with Herbert Dare. Anna — disobedient Anna — was seated, listening with all her ears and heart to the music, her up-turned countenance quite wonderful to look upon in its rapt delight.
“I think you could sing,” spoke Henry Ashley to her, in an undertone, after watching her while the song lasted.
Anna shook her head. “I may not try,” she said, raising her blue eyes to him for one moment, and then dropping them.
“The time may come when you may,” returned Henry, in a deeper whisper.
She did not answer, she did not lift her eyes; but the faintest possible smile parted her rosy lips — a smile which seemed to express a consciousness that perhaps that time might come. And Henry, shy and sensitive, stood apart and gazed upon her, his heart beating.
“Young lady,” said William, advancing, “do you know that a special honour has been assigned me to-night? One that concerns you.”
Anna raised her eyes now. She felt as much at ease with William as she did with her father or Patience. “What dost thee say, William? An honour?”
