Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles Part 83

"Thee wilt drink a dish of tea with us this evening, William?"

It was Patience who spoke. William hesitated, but he saw they would be pleased at his doing so, and he sat down. The conversation turned upon France--upon Samuel Lynn's experiences, and William's antic.i.p.ations.

Anna lapsed into silence and abstraction.

In the bustle of moving, when Samuel Lynn was departing for the manufactory, William, before going home to his books, contrived to obtain a word alone with Anna.

"Have you thought of our compact?"

"Yes," she said, freely meeting his eyes in honest truth. "I saw him this afternoon in the street; I went on purpose to try and meet him. He will not come again."

"That is well. Mind and take care of yourself, Anna," he added, with a smile. "I shall be away, and not able to give an eye to you, as I freely confess it had been my resolve to do."

Anna shook her head. "He does not come again," she repeated. "Thee may go away believing me, William."

And William did go away believing her--went away to France putting faith in her; thinking that the undesirable intimacy was at an end for ever.

CHAPTER XXV.

PATIENCE COME TO GRIEF.

In the early part of March, Samuel Lynn and William departed on their journey to France. And the first thought that occurred to Patience afterwards was one that is apt to occur to many thrifty housekeepers on the absence of the master--that of inst.i.tuting a thorough cleansing of the house, from garret to cellar; or, as Anna mischievously expressed it, "turning the house inside out." She knew Patience did not like her wild phrases, and therefore she used them.

Patience was parting with Grace--the servant who had been with them so many years. Grace had resolved to get married. In vain Patience a.s.sured her that marriage, generally speaking, was found to be nothing better than a bed of thorns. Grace would not listen. Others had risked the thorns before her, and she thought she must try her chance with the rest. Patience had no resource but to fall in with the decision, and to look out for another servant. It appeared that she could not readily find one; at least, one whom she would venture to engage. She was unusually particular; and while she waited and looked out, she engaged Hester Dell, a humble member of her own persuasion, to come in temporarily. Hester lived with her aged mother, not far off, chiefly supporting herself by doing fine needlework at her own, or at the Friends' houses. She readily consented to take up her abode with Patience for a month or so, to help with the housework, and looked upon it as a sort of holiday.

"It's of no use to begin the house until Grace shall be gone," observed Patience to Anna. "She'd likely be scrubbing the paper on the walls, instead of the paint, for her head is turned just now."

"What fun, if she should!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Anna.

"Fun for thee, perhaps, who art ignorant of cost and labour," rebuked Patience. "I shall wait until Grace has departed. The day that she goes, Hester comes in; and I shall have the house begun the day following."

"Couldn't thee have it begun the same day?" saucily asked Anna.

"Will thee attend to thy st.i.tching?" returned Patience sharply. "Thy father's wristbands will not be done the better for thy nonsense."

"Shall I be turned out of my bedroom?" resumed Anna.

"For a night, perchance. Thee canst go into thy father's. But the top of the house will be done first."

"Is the roof to be scrubbed?" went on Anna. "I don't know how Hester will hold on while she does it."

"Thee art in one of thy wilful humours this morning," responded Patience. "Art thee going to set me at defiance now thy father's back is turned?"

"Who said anything about setting thee at defiance?" asked Anna. "I _should_ like to see Hester scrubbing the roof!"

"Thee hadst better behave thyself, Anna," was the retort of Patience.

And Anna, in her lighthearted wilfulness, burst into a merry laugh.

Grace departed, and Hester came in: a quiet little body, of forty years, with dark hair and defective teeth. Patience, as good as her word, was up betimes the following morning, and had the house up betimes, to inst.i.tute the ceremony. Their house contained the same accommodation as Mrs. Halliburton's, with this addition--that the garret in the Quaker's had been part.i.tioned off into two chambers. Patience slept in one; Grace had occupied the other. The three bedrooms on the floor beneath were used, one by Mr. Lynn, one by Anna; the other was kept as a spare room, for any chance visitor; the "best room" it was usually called. The house belonged to Mr. Lynn. Formerly, both houses had belonged to him; but at the time of his loss he had sold the other to Mr. Ashley.

The ablutions were in full play. Hester, with a pail, mop, scrubbing-brush, and other essentials, was ensconced in the top chambers; Anna, ostensibly at her wristband st.i.tching (but the work did not get on very fast), was singing to herself in an undertone in one of the parlours, the door safely shut; while Patience was exercising a general superintendence, giving an eye everywhere. Suddenly there echoed a loud noise, as of a fall, and a scream resounded throughout the house.

It appeared to come from what they usually called the bedroom floor.

Anna flew up the stairs, and Hester Dell flew down the upper ones. At the foot of the garret stairs, her head against the door of Anna's chamber, lay Patience and a heavy bed-pole. In attempting to carry the pole down from her room, she had somehow overbalanced herself, and fallen heavily.

"Is the house coming down?" Anna was beginning to say. But she stopped in consternation when she saw Patience. Hester attempted to pick her up.

"Thee cannot raise me, Hester. Anna, child, thee must not attempt to touch me. I fear my leg is br----"

Her voice died away, her eyes closed, and a hue, as of death, overspread her countenance. Anna, more terrified than she had ever been in her life, flew round to Mrs. Halliburton's.

Dobbs, from her kitchen, saw her coming--saw the young face streaming with tears, heard the short cries of alarm--and Dobbs stepped out.

"Why, what on earth's the matter now?" asked she.

Anna seized Dobbs, and clung to her; partly that to do so seemed some protection in her great terror. "Oh, Dobbs, come in to Patience!" she cried. "I think she's dying."

The voice reached the ears of Jane. She came forth from the parlour.

Dobbs was then running in to Samuel Lynn's, and Jane ran also, understanding nothing.

Patience was reviving when they entered. All her cry was, that they must not move her. One of her legs was in some manner doubled under her, and doubled over the pole. Jane felt a conviction that it was broken.

"Who can run fastest?" she asked. "We must have Mr. Parry here."

Hester waited for no further instruction. She caught up her fawn-coloured Quaker shawl and grey bonnet, and was off, putting them on as she ran. Anna, sobbing wildly, turned and hid her face on Jane, as one who wants to be comforted. Then, her mood changing, she threw herself down beside Patience, the tears from her own eyes falling on Patience's face.

"Patience, dear Patience, canst thee forgive me? I have been wilful and naughty, but I never meant to cross thee really. I did it only to tease thee; but I loved thee all the while."

Patience, suffering as she was, drew down the repentant face to kiss it fervently. "I know it, dear child; I know thee. Don't thee distress thyself for me."

Mr. Parry came, and Patience was carried into the spare room. Her leg was broken, and badly broken; the surgeon called it a compound fracture.

So there was an end to the grand cleansing scheme for a long time to come! Patience lay in sickness and pain, and Hester had to make her her first care. Anna's spirits revived in a day or two. Mr. Parry said a cure would be effected in time; that the worst of the business was the long confinement for Patience; and Anna forgot her dutiful fit of repentance. Patience _would_ be well again, would be about as before; and, as to the present confinement, Anna rather grew to look upon it as the interposition of some good fairy, who must have taken her own liberty under its special protection.

Whether Anna would have succeeded in eluding the vigilance of Patience _up_ cannot be told; she certainly did that of Patience _down_. Anna had told Herbert Dare that he was not to pay a visit to Atterly's field again, or expect her to pay one; but Herbert Dare was about the last person to obey such advice. Had William Halliburton remained to be--as Herbert termed it--a treacherous spy, there's no doubt that Herbert would have striven to set his vigilance at defiance: with William's absence, the field, both literally and figuratively, was open to him. In the absence of Samuel Lynn, it was doubly open. Herbert Dare knew perfectly well that if the Quaker once gained the slightest inkling of his secret acquaintance with Anna, it would effectually be put a stop to. To wear a cloak resembling William Halliburton's, on his visits to the field, had been the result of a bright idea. It had suddenly occurred to Mr. Herbert that if the Quaker's lynx eyes did by mischance catch sight of the cloak, promenading some fine night at the back of his residence, they would accord it no particular notice, concluding the wearer to be William Halliburton taking a moonlight stroll at the back of _his_ residence. Nevertheless, Herbert had timed his visits so as to make pretty sure that Samuel Lynn was out of view, safely ensconced in Mr. Ashley's manufactory; and he had generally succeeded. Not quite always, as the reader knows.

Anna was of a most persuadable nature. In defiance of her promise to William, she suffered Herbert Dare to persuade her again into the old system of meeting him. Guileless as a child, never giving thought to wrong or to harm--beyond the wrong and harm of thus clandestinely stealing out, and that wrong she conveniently ignored--she saw nothing very grave in doing it. Herbert could not come indoors; Patience would be sure not to welcome him; and therefore, she logically argued to her own mind, she must go out to him.

She had learnt to like Herbert Dare a great deal too well not to wish to meet him, to talk with him. Herbert, on his part, had learnt to like her. An hour pa.s.sed in whispering to Anna, in mischievously untying her sober cap, and letting the curls fall, in laying his own hand fondly on the young head, and telling her he cared for her beyond every earthly thing. It had grown to be one of his most favourite recreations; and Herbert was not one to deny himself any recreation that he took a fancy to. He intended no harm to the pretty child. It is possible that, had any one seriously pointed out to him the harm that might arise to Anna, in the estimation of Helstonleigh, should these stolen meetings be found out, Herbert might for once have done violence to his inclinations, and not have persisted in them. Unfortunately--very unfortunately, as it was to turn out--there was no one to give this word of caution. Patience was ill, William was away: and no one else knew anything about it. In point of fact, Patience could not be said to know anything, for William's warning had not made the impression upon her that it ought to have done.

Patience's confiding nature was in fault. For Anna deliberately to meet Herbert Dare or any other "Herbert" in secret, she would have deemed a simple impossibility. In the judgment of Patience, it had been nothing less than irredeemable sin.

What did Herbert Dare promise himself, in thus leading Anna into this imprudence? Herbert promised himself nothing--beyond the pa.s.sing gratification of the hour. Herbert had never been one to give any care to the future, for himself or for any one else; and he was not likely to begin to do it at present. As to seeking Anna for his wife, such a thought had never crossed his mind. In the first place, at the rate the Dares--Herbert and his brothers--were going on, a wife for any of them seemed amongst the impossibilities. Unless, indeed, she made the bargain beforehand to live upon air; there was no chance of their having anything else to live upon. But, had Herbert been in a position, pecuniarily considered, to marry ten wives, Anna Lynn would not have been one of them. Agreeable as it might be to him to linger with Anna, he considered her far beneath himself; and pride, with Herbert, was always in the ascendant. Herbert had been introduced to Anna Lynn at Mrs. Ashley's, and that threw a sort of prestige around her. She was also enshrined in the respectable Quaker body of the town. But for these facts, for being who she was, Herbert might have been less scrupulous in his behaviour towards her. He would not--it may be as well to say he dared not--be otherwise than considerate towards Anna Lynn; but, on the other hand, he would not have considered her worthy to become his wife.

On the part of Samuel Lynn, he would far rather have seen his child in her coffin, than the wife of Herbert Dare. The young Dares did not bear a good name in Helstonleigh.

In this most uncertain and unsatisfactory state of things, what on earth--as Dobbs had said to Anna--did Herbert want with her at all? Far, far better that he had allowed Anna to fall in with the sensible advice of William Halliburton--"Do not meet him again." It was a sad pity; and it is very probable that Herbert Dare regretted it afterwards, in the grievous misery it entailed. Misery to both; and without positive ill conduct on the part of either.