Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  “Of a surety I will. She — —”

  At that moment the children burst into the kitchen, one after the other. “Mamma, who is that shabby-looking man come into the study? He has seated himself right in front of the fire, and is knocking it about. And the other is looking at the tables and chairs.”

  It was Frank who spoke; impetuous

  Frank. Mrs. Halliburton cast a despairing look around her, and Patience drew their attention.

  “That man is here on business,” she said to them. “You must not be rude to him, or he will be ten times more rude to you. The other will soon be gone. Your mother is going abroad for an hour; perhaps when she returns she will rid the house of him. Jane, child, thee can come with me and take thy dinner with Anna.”

  Mrs. Halliburton waited until the better-looking of the two men was gone, and then started. It was a raw, cold day — what some people call a black frost. Black and gloomy it all looked to her, outwardly and inwardly, as she traversed the streets to the office of Mr. Dare. Patience had directed her, and the plate on the door, “Mr. Dare, Solicitor,” showed her the right house. She stepped inside that door, which stood open, and knocked at one to the right of the passage. “Clerks’ Room” was inscribed upon it.

  “Come in.”

  Three or four clerks were in it. In one of them she recognized him who had just left her house. The other clerks appeared to defer to him, and called him “Mr. Stubbs.” Jane, giving her name, said she wished to see Mr. Dare, and the request was conveyed to an inner room. It brought forth young Anthony.

  “My father is busy and cannot see you,” was his salutation. “I can hear anything you may have to say. It will be the same thing.”

  “Thank you,” replied Jane, in courteous tones, very different from his. “But I would prefer to see Mr. Dare.”

  “He is engaged, I say,” sharply repeated Anthony.

  “I will wait, then. I must see him.”

  Anthony Dare stalked back again. Jane, seeing a bench against the wall, sat down. It was about half-past twelve when she arrived there, and when the clock struck two, there she was still. Several clients, during that time, had come and gone; they were admitted to Mr. Dare, but she sat on, neglected. At two o’clock Anthony came through the room with his hat on. He appeared to be going out.

  “What! are you here still?” he exclaimed, in genuine or affected surprise; never, in his ill-manners, removing his hat — he of whom it was his delight to hear it said that he was the most complete gentleman in Helstonleigh. “I assure you it is not of the least use your waiting. Mr. Dare will not be able to see you.”

  “Mr. Dare can surely spare me a minute when he has done with others.”

  “He cannot to-day. Can you not say to me what you want to say?”

  “Indeed I must see Mr. Dare himself. I will wait on, if you will allow me, hoping to do so.”

  Anthony Dare vouchsafed no reply, and went out. One or two of the clerks looked round. They appeared not to understand why she sat on so persistently, or why Mr. Dare refused to see her.

  In about an hour’s time the inner door opened. A tall man, with a bold, free countenance, looked into the room. Supposing it to be Mr. Dare, Jane rose and approached him. “Will you allow me a few minutes’ conversation?” she asked. “I presume you are Mr. Dare?”

  He put up his hands as if to fence her off. “I have no time, I have no time,” he reiterated, and shut the door in her face. Jane sat down again on the bench. “Stubbs, I want you,” came forth from Mr. Dare’s voice, as he opened the door an inch to speak it.

  Stubbs went in, remained a few minutes, and then returned, put on his hat, and walked out. His departure was the signal for considerable relaxation in the office duties. “When the cat’s away—” you know the rest. Yawning, stretching, whispering, and laughing supervened. One of the clerks took from his pocket a paper of the biscuits called “Union” in Helstonleigh, and began eating them. Another pulled out a bottle, and solaced himself with some of its contents — whatever they might be. Suddenly the man with the biscuits got off his stool, and offered them to Mrs. Halliburton. Her pale, sad face may have prompted his good nature to the act.

  “You have waited a good while, ma’am, and perhaps have lost your dinner through it,” he said.

  Jane took one of them. “You are very kind. Thank you,” she faintly said.

  But not a crumb of it could she swallow. She had taken a slice of dry toast for her breakfast that morning, with half a cup of milk; and it was long since she had had a sufficiency of food at any meal. She felt weak, sick, faint; but anxiety and suspense were at work within, parching her throat, destroying her appetite. She held the biscuit in her fingers, resting on her lap, and, in spite of her efforts, the rebellious tears forced themselves to her eyes. Raising her hand, she quietly let fall her widow’s veil.

  A poor-looking man came in, and counted out eight shillings, laying them upon the desk. “I couldn’t make up the other two this week; I couldn’t, indeed,” he said, with trembling eagerness. “I’ll bring twelve next week, please to say.”

  “Mind you do,” responded one of the clerks; “or you know what will be in store for you.”

  The man shook his head. He probably did know; and, in going out, was nearly knocked over by a handsome lad of seventeen, who was running in. Very handsome were his features; but they were marred by the free expression which characterized Mr. Dare’s.

  “I say, is the governor in?” cried he, out of breath.

  “Yes, sir. Lord Hawkesley’s with him.”

  “The deuce take Lord Hawkesley, then!” returned the young gentleman. “Where’s Stubbs? I want my week’s money, and I can’t wait. Walker, I say, where’s Stubbs?”

  “Stubbs is gone out, sir.”

  “What a bother! Halloa! Here’s some money! What is this?” continued the speaker, catching up the eight shillings.

  “It is some that has just been paid in, Master Herbert.”

  “That’s all right then,” said he, slipping five of them into his jacket pocket. “Tell Stubbs to put it down as my week’s money.”

  He tore off. Jane sat on, wondering what she was to do. There appeared to be little probability that she would be admitted to Mr. Dare; and yet, how could she go home as she came — hopeless — to the presence of that man? No; she must wait still; wait until the last. She might catch a word with Mr. Dare as he was leaving. Jane could not help thinking his behaviour very bad in refusing to see her.

  The office was being lighted when Mr. Stubbs returned. One of the clerks pointed to the three shillings with his pen. “Kinnersley has brought eight shillings. He will make it twelve next week. Couldn’t manage the ten this, he says.”

  “Where are the eight shillings?” asked Stubbs. “I see only three.”

  “Oh, Master Herbert came in, and took off five. He said you were to put it down as his week’s money.”

  “He’ll take a little too much some day, if he’s not checked,” was the cynical reply of the senior clerk. “However, it’s no business of mine.”

  He put the three shillings into his own desk, and made an entry in a book. After that he went in to Mr. Dare, who was now alone. A large room, handsomely fitted up. Mr. Dare’s table was near one of the windows: a desk, at which Anthony sometimes sat, was at the other. Mr. Dare looked up.

  “I could not do anything, sir,” said Stubbs. “The other party will listen to no proposal at all. They say they’ll throw it into Chancery first. An awful rage they are in.”

  “Tush!” said Mr. Dare. “Chancery, indeed! They’ll tell another tale in a day or two. Has Kinnersley been in?”

  “Kinnersley has brought eight shillings, and promises to bring twelve next Monday. Master Herbert carried off five of them, and left word it was for his week’s money.”

  “A smart blade!” cried Mr. Dare, apostrophizing his son with personal pride. “‘Take it when I can,’ is his motto. He’ll make a good lawyer, Stubbs.”

  “Very
good,” acquiesced Stubbs.

  “Is that woman gone yet?”

  “No, sir. My opinion is, she means to wait until she sees you.”

  “Then send her in at once, and let’s get it over,” thundered Mr. Dare.

  In what lay his objection to seeing her? A dread lest she should put forth their relationship as a plea for his clemency? If so, he was destined to be agreeably disappointed. Jane did not allude to it; would not allude to it. After that interview held with Mrs. Dare, some three or four months before, she had dropped all remembrance of the connection: even the children did not know of it. She only solicited Mr. Dare’s leniency now, as any other stranger might have solicited it. Little chance was there of Mr. Dare’s acceding to her prayer: he and his wife both wanted Helstonleigh to be free of the Halliburtons.

  “It will be utter ruin,” she urged. “It will turn us, beggars, into the streets. Mr. Dare, I promise you the rent by the middle of February. Unless it were certain, my brother would not have promised it to me. Surely you may accord me this short time.”

  “Ma’am, I cannot — that is, Mr. Ashley cannot. It was a reprehensible piece of carelessness on my part to suffer the rent to go on for half a year, considering that you were strangers. Mr. Ashley will look to me to see him well out of it.”

  “There is sufficient furniture in my house, new furniture, to pay what is owing three times over.”

  “May be, as it stands in it. Things worth forty pounds in a house, won’t fetch ten at a sale.”

  “That is an additional reason why I — —”

  “Now, my good lady,” interrupted Mr. Dare, with imperative civility, “one word is as good as a thousand; and that word I have said. I cannot withdraw the seizure, except on receipt of the rent and costs. Pay them, and I shall be most happy to do it. If you stop here all night I can give you no other answer; and my time is valuable.”

  He glanced at the door as he spoke. Jane took the hint, and passed out of it. As much by the tone, as by the words, she gathered that there was no hope whatever.

  The streets were bright with gas as she hurried along, her head bent, her veil over her face, her tears falling silently. But when she left the town behind her, and approached a lonely part of the road where no eye was on her, no ear near her, then the sobs burst forth uncontrolled.

  “No eye on her? no ear near her?” Ay, but there was! There was one Eye, one Ear, which never closes. And as Jane’s dreadful trouble resolved itself into a cry for help to Him who ever listens, there seemed to come a feeling of peace, of trust, into her soul.

  CHAPTER XVII.

  THOMAS ASHLEY.

  Frank met her as she went in. It was dark; but she kept her veil down.

  “Oh, mamma, that’s the most horrible man!” he began, in a whisper. “You know the cheese you brought in on Saturday, that we might not eat our bread quite dry; well, he has eaten it up, every morsel, and half a loaf of bread! And he has burnt the whole scuttleful of coal! And he swore because there was no meat; and he swore at us because we would not go to the public-house and buy him some beer. He said we were to buy it and pay for it.”

  “I said you would not allow us to go, mamma,” interrupted William, who now came up. “I told him that if he wanted beer he must go and get it for himself. I spoke civilly, you know, not rudely. He went into such a passion, and said such things! It is a good thing Jane was out.”

  “Where is Gar?” she asked.

  “Gar was frightened at the man, and the tobacco-smoke made him sick, and he cried; and then he lay down on the floor, and went to sleep.”

  She felt sick. She drew her two boys into the parlour — dark there, except for the lamp in the road, which shone in. Pressing them in her arms, completely subdued by the miseries of her situation, she leaned her forehead upon William’s shoulder, and burst once more into a most distressing flood of tears.

  They were alarmed. They cried with her. “Oh, mamma! what is it? Why don’t you order the man to go away?”

  “My boys, I must tell you; I cannot keep it from you,” she sobbed. “That man is put here to remain, until I can pay the rent. If I cannot pay it, our things will be taken and sold.”

  William’s pulses and heart alike beat, but he was silent, Frank spoke. “Whatever shall we do, mamma?”

  “I do not know,” she wailed. “Perhaps God will help us. There is no one else to do it.”

  Patience came in, for about the sixth time, to see whether Jane had returned, and how the mission had sped. They called her into the cold, dark room. Jane gave her the history of the whole day, and Patience listened in astonishment.

  “I cannot but believe that Thomas Ashley must have been mis-informed,” said she, presently. “But that you are strangers in the place, I should say you had an enemy who may have gone to him with a tale that thee can pay, but will not. Still, even in that case, it would be unlike Thomas Ashley. He is a kind and a good man; not a harsh one.”

  “Mr. Dare told me he was expressly acting for Mr. Ashley.”

  “Well, I say that I cannot understand it,” repeated Patience. “It is not like Thomas Ashley. I will give thee an instance of his disposition and general character. There was a baker rented under him, living in a house of Thomas Ashley’s. The baker got behind with his rent; other bakers were more favoured than he; but he kept on at his trade, hoping times would mend. Year by year he failed in his rent — Thomas Ashley, mark thee, still paying him regularly for the bread supplied to his family. ‘Why do you not stop his bread-money?’ asked one, who knew of this, of Thomas Ashley. ‘Because he is poor, and looks to my weekly money, with that of others, to buy his flour,’ was Thomas Ashley’s answer. Well, when he owed several years’ rent, the baker died, and the widow was going to move. Anthony Dare hastened to Thomas Ashley. ‘Which day shall I levy a distress upon the goods?’ asked he. ‘Not at all,’ replied Thomas Ashley. And he went to the widow, and told her the rent was forgiven, and the goods were her own, to take with her when she left. That is Thomas Ashley.”

  Jane bent her head in thought. “Is Mr. Lynn at home?” she asked. “I should like to speak to him.”

  “He has had his tea and gone back to the manufactory, but he will be home soon after eight. I will keep Jane till bedtime. She and Anna are happy over their puzzles.”

  “Patience, am I obliged to find that man in food?”

  “That thee art. It is the law.”

  The noise made by Patience in going away, brought the man forth from the study, a candle in his hand. “When is that mother of yours coming back?” he roared out to the boys. Jane advanced. “Oh, you are here!” he uttered, wrathfully. “What are you going to give me to eat and drink? A pretty thing this is, to have an officer in, and starve him!”

  “You shall have tea directly. You shall have what we have,” she answered, in a low tone.

  The kettle was boiling on the study fire. Jane lighted a fire in the parlour, and sent Frank out for butter. The man smoked over the study fire, as he had done all the afternoon, and Gar slept beside him on the floor, but William went now and brought the child away. Jane sent the man his tea in, and the loaf and butter.

  The fare did not please him. He came to the parlour and said he must have meat; he had had none for his dinner.

  “I cannot give it you,” replied Jane. “We are eating dry toast and bread, as you may see. I sent butter to you.”

  He stood there for some minutes, giving vent to his feelings in rather strong language; and then he went back to revenge himself upon the butter for the want of meat. Jane laid her hand upon her beating throat: beating with its tribulation.

  Between eight and nine Jane went to the next door. Samuel Lynn had come home for the evening, and was sitting at the table in his parlour, helping the two little girls with a geographical puzzle, which had baffled their skill. He was a little man, quiet in movement, pale and sedate in feature, dry and unsympathising in manner.

  “Thee art in trouble, friend, I hear,” he said, placing
a chair for Jane, whilst Patience came and called the children away. “It is sad for thee.”

  “In great trouble,” answered Jane. “I came in to ask if you would serve me in my trouble. I fancy perhaps you can do so if you will.”

  “In what way, friend?”

  “Would you interest yourself for me with Mr. Ashley? He might listen to you. Were he assured that the money would be forthcoming in February, I think he might agree to give me time.”

  “Friend, I cannot do this,” was the reply of the Quaker. “My relations with Thomas Ashley are confined to business matters, and I cannot overstep them. To interfere with his private affairs would not be seemly; neither might he deem it so. I am but his servant, remember.”

  The words fell upon her heart as ice. She believed it her only chance — some one interceding for her with Mr. Ashley. She said so.

  “Why not go to him thyself, friend?”

  “Would he hear me?” hastily asked Jane. “I am a stranger to him.”

  “Thee art his tenant. As to hearing thee, that he certainly would. Thomas Ashley is of a courteous nature. The poorest workman in our manufactory, going to the master with a grievance, is sure of a patient hearing. But if thee ask me would he grant thy petition, there I cannot inform thee. Patience opines that thee, or thy intentions, may have been falsely represented to him. I never knew him resort to harsh measures before.”

  “When would be the best time to see him? Is it too late to-night?”

  “To-night would not be a likely time, friend, to trouble him. He has not long returned from a day’s journey, and is, no doubt, cold and tired. I met James Meeking driving down as I came home; he had left the master at his house. They have been out on business connected with the manufactory. Thee might see him in the morning, at his breakfast hour.”

  Jane rose and thanked the Quaker. “I will certainly go,” she said.

  “There is no need to say to him that I suggested it to thee, friend. Go as of thy own accord.”

  Jane went home with her little girl. Their undesirable visitor looked out at the study door, and began a battle about supper. It ought to comprise, in his opinion, meat and beer. He insisted that one of the boys should go out for beer. Jane steadily refused. She was tempted to tell him that the children of a gentleman were not despatched to public-houses on such errands. She offered him the money to go and get some for himself.