The Trial; Or, More Links of the Daisy Chain Part 31

Averil had, in reply to the constant exhortations to economize, resolved to decline all invitations, and this kept her constantly at home, or with her harmonium, whereas Henry made such constant engagements, that their dining together was the exception, not the rule. After conscientiously teaching her sisters in the morning, she devoted the rest of her day to their walk, and to usefulness in the parish. She liked her tasks, and would have been very happy in them, but for the constant anxiety that hung over her lest her home should soon cease to be her home.

Henry's devotion to Mrs. Pugh could no longer be mistaken. The conviction of his intentions grew upon his sister, first from a mere absurd notion, banished from her mind with derision, then from a misgiving angrily silenced, to a fixed expectation, confirmed by the evident opinion of all around her, and calling for decision and self-command on her own part.

Perhaps her feelings were unnecessarily strong, and in some degree unjust to Mrs. Pugh; but she had the misfortune to be naturally proud and sensitive, as well as by breeding too refined in tone for most of those who surrounded her. She had taken a personal dislike to Mrs.

Pugh from the first; she regarded pretension as insincerity, and officiousness as deliberate insult, and she took the recoil of her taste for the judgment of principle. To see such a woman ruling in her mother's, her own, home would be bad enough; but to be ruled by her, and resign to her the management of the children, would be intolerable beyond measure. Too unhappy to speak of her antic.i.p.ations even to Leonard or to Mary May, she merely endeavoured to throw them off from day to day, till one evening, when the days had grown so long that she could linger in the twilight in the garden before her singing practice, she was joined by Henry, with the long apprehended 'I want to speak to you, Ave.'

Was it coming? Her heart beat so fast, that she could hardly hear his kind commencement about her excellent endeavours, and the house's unhappy want of a mistress, the children's advantage, and so on. She knew it could only tend to one point, and longed to have it reached and pa.s.sed. Of course she would be prepared to hear who was the object of his choice, and she could not but murmur 'Yes,' and 'Well.'

'And, Ave, you will, I hope, be gratified to hear that I am not entirely rejected. The fact is, that I spoke too soon.' Averil could have jumped for joy, and was glad it was too dusk for her face to be seen. 'I do not believe that her late husband could have had any strong hold on her affections; but she has not recovered the shock of his loss, and entreated, as a favour granted to her sentiments of respect for his memory, not to hear the subject mentioned for at least another year. I am permitted to visit at the house as usual, and no difference is to be made in the terms on which we stand. Now, Ave, will you--may I ask of you, to do what you can to remove any impression that she might not be welcome in the family?'

'I never meant--' faltered Averil, checked by sincerity.

'You have always been--so--so cold and backward in cultivating her acquaintance, that I cannot wonder if she should think it disagreeable to you; but, Ave, when you consider my happiness, and the immense advantage to all of you, I am sure you will do what is in your power in my behalf.' He spoke more affectionately and earnestly than he had done for months; and Averil was touched, and felt that to hang back would be unkind.

'I will try,' she said. 'I do hope it may turn out for your happiness, Henry.'

'For all our happiness,' said Henry, walking down to the gate and along the road with her, proving all the way that he was acting solely for the good of the others, and that Averil and the children would find their home infinitely happier.

A whole year--a year's reprieve--was the one thought in Averil's head, that made her listen so graciously, and answer so amiably, that Henry parted with her full of kind, warm feeling.

As the sage said, who was to be beheaded if he could not in a year teach the king's a.s.s to speak--what might not happen in a year; the king might die, the a.s.s might die, or he might die--any way there was so much gained: and Averil, for the time, felt as light-hearted as if Mrs. Pugh had vanished into empty air. To be sure, her own life had, of late, been far from happy; but this extension of it was bailed with suppressed ecstasy--almost as an answer to her prayers. Ah, Ave, little did you know what you wished in hoping for anything to prevent the marriage!

She did obey her brother so far as to call upon Mrs. Pugh, whom she found in ordinary mourning, and capless--a sign that dismayed her; but, on the other hand, the lady, though very good-natured and patronizing, entertained her with the praises of King John, and showed her a copy of Magna Charta in process of illumination. Also, during her call, Tom May walked in with a little book on drops of water; and Averil found the lady had become inspired with a microscopic furore, and was thinking of setting up a lens, and preparing objects for herself, under good tuition.

Though Averil was very desirous that Mrs. Pugh should refuse her brother, yet this was the last service she wished the May family to render her. She was sure Tom May must dislike and despise the widow as much as she did; and since the whole town was unluckily aware of Henry's intentions, any interference with them was base and malicious, if in the way of mere amus.e.m.e.nt and flirtation. She was resolved to see what the game was, but only did see that her presence greatly disconcerted 'Mr. Thomas May.'

Henry was wretched and irritable in the velvet paws of the widow, who encouraged him enough to give him hope, and then held him aloof, or was equally amiable to some one else. Perhaps the real interpretation was, that she loved attention. She was in all sincerity resolved to observe a proper period of widowhood, and not determined whether, when, or how, it should terminate: courtship amused her, and though attracted by Henry and his good house, the evidences of temper and harshness had made her unwilling to commit herself; besides that, she was afraid of Averil, and she was more flattered by the civilities of a lioncel like Harvey Anderson; or if she could be sure of what Mr. Thomas May's intentions were, she would have preferred an embryo physician to a full-grown surgeon--at any rate, it was right by her poor dear Mr. Pugh to wait.

She need not have feared having Averil as an inmate. Averil talked it over with Leonard, and determined that no power on earth should make her live with Mrs. Pugh. If that were necessary to forward his suit, she would make it plain that she was ready to depart.

'Oh, Leonard, if my uncle were but a nice sort of person, how pleasant it would be for me and the children to live there, and keep his house; and I could make him so comfortable, and nurse him!'

'Never, Ave!' cried Leonard; 'don't let the thing be talked of.'

'Oh no, I know it would not do with Samuel there; but should we be too young for your old scheme of having a cottage together near?'

'I did not know what the Axworthys were like,' returned Leonard.

'But need we see them much?'

'I'll tell you what, Ave, I've heard them both--yes, the old man the worst of the two--say things about women that made my blood boil.'

Leonard was quite red as he spoke. 'My father never let my mother see any of the concern, and now I know why. I'll never let you do so.'

'Then there is only one other thing to be done,' said Averil; 'and that is for me to go back to school as a parlour boarder, and take the children with me. It would be very good for them, and dear Mrs. Wood would be very glad to have me.'

'Yes,' said Leonard, 'that is the only right thing, Ave; and the Mays will say so, too. Have you talked it over with them!'

'No. I hate talking of this thing.'

'Well, you had better get their advice. It is the best thing going!'

said Leonard, with a sigh that sounded as if he wished he had taken it.

But it was not to Averil that he said so. To her he spoke brightly of serving the time for which he was bound to his uncle; then of making a fresh engagement, that would open a home to her; or, better still, suppose Sam did not wish to go on with the business, he might take it, and make the mill the lovely place it might be. It was to Aubrey May that the boy's real feelings came out, as, on the Sunday evening, they slowly wandered along the bank of the river. Aubrey had seen a specimen of his life at the mill, and had been kept up to the knowledge of its events, and he well knew that Leonard was heartily sick of it.

That the occupation was uncongenial and tedious in the extreme to a boy of good ability and superior education--nay, that the drudgery was made unnecessarily oppressive, was not the point he complained of, though it was more trying than he had expected, that was the bed that he had made, and that he must lie upon. It was the suspicion of frauds and tricks of the trade, and, still worse, the company that he lived in.

Sam Axworthy hated and tyrannized over him too much to make dissipation alluring; and he was only disgusted by the foul language, coa.r.s.e manners, and the remains of intemperance worked on in violent temper.

The old man, though helpless and past active vice, was even more coa.r.s.e in mind and conversation than his nephew; and yet his feebleness, and Sam's almost savage treatment of him, enlisted Leonard's pity on his side. In general, the old man was kind to Leonard, but would abuse him roundly when the evidences of his better principles and training, or his allegiance to Dr. May, came forward, and Leonard, though greatly compa.s.sionating him, could not always bear his reproaches with patience, and was held back from more attention to him than common humanity required, by an unlucky suggestion that he was currying favour in the hope of supplanting Sam.

'Old Hardy is the only honest man in the place, I do believe,' said Leonard. 'I'll tell you what, Aubrey, I have made up my mind, there is one thing I will not do. If ever they want to make me a party to any of their cheatings, I'll be off. That window and the cedar-tree stand very handy. I've been out there to bathe in the early summer mornings, plenty of times already, so never you be surprised if some fine day you hear--non est inventus.'

'And where would you go?'

'Get up to London, and see if my quarter's salary would take me out in the steerage to some diggings or other. What would your brother say to me if I turned up at the Grange--New Zealand?'

'Say! Mention Ethel, and see what he would not say.'

And the two boys proceeded to arrange the details of the evasion in such vivid colouring, that they had nearly forgotten all present troubles, above all when Leonard proceeded to declare that New Zealand was too tame and too settled for him, he should certainly find something to do in the Feejee Isles, where the high spirit of the natives, their painted visages, and marvellous head-dresses, as depicted in Captain Erskine's voyage, had greatly fired his fancy, and they even settled how the gold fields should rebuild the Market Cross.

'And when I'm gone, Aubrey, mind you see to Mab,' he said, laughing.

'Oh! I thought Mab was to act Whittington's cat.'

'I'm afraid they would eat her up; besides, there's the voyage. No, you must keep her till I come home, even if she is to end like Argus.

Would you die of joy at seeing me, eh, little black neb?'

CHAPTER XII

Let us meet, And question this most b.l.o.o.d.y piece of work, To know it farther. Macbeth

'If you please, sir, Master Hardy from the Vintry Mill wants to see you, said a voice at Dr. May's door early in the morning; and the Doctor completed his dressing in haste, muttering to himself exclamations of concern that the old man's malady should have returned.

On entering the study, Hardy's appearance, whiter than even the proverbial hue of his trade, his agitation of feature, confused eye, and trembling lip, inspired fears that the case was more alarming than had been apprehended; but to cheer him, the Doctor began, 'Frightened about yourself, Master Hardy, eh! You've come out without breakfast, and that's enough to put any man out of heart.'

'No, sir,' said the old man, 'it is nothing about myself; I wish it were no worse; but I've not got the heart to go to tell the poor young gentleman, and I thought--'

'What--what has happened to the boy?' exclaimed Dr. May, sharply, standing as if ready to receive the rifle shot which he already believed had destroyed Leonard.

'That's what we can't say, sir,' returned Hardy; 'but he is gone, no one knows where. And, sir, my poor master was found at five o'clock this morning, in his chair in his sitting-room, stone dead from a blow on the head.'

'Mind what you are saying!' shouted the Doctor pa.s.sionately. 'You old scoundrel, you don't mean to tell me that you are accusing the lad!'

'I accuse n.o.body, sir,' said the old man, standing his ground, and speaking steadily, but respectfully, 'I wouldn't say nothing to bring any one into trouble if I could help it, and I came to ask you what was to be done.'

'Yes, yes; I beg your pardon, Hardy, but it sounded enough to overset one. Your poor master murdered, you say!'