Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles Part 78

Ashley and the rest. He held his hands, and the paroxysm, sharp while it lasted, pa.s.sed 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 compa.s.sionate 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 antic.i.p.ate. 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 a.s.sured 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. Pa.s.sing 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, pa.s.ses 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.