CHAPTER III.—A ROMANTIC ADVENTURE.
The Rosebud of Ashburn possessed a female friend. Caroline Selby was the daughter of Sir Thomas Crawley’s agent. Sir Thomas Crawley was the rich man of the neighbourhood, lord of the manor, patron of the living, and owner of a splendid place about a mile from the village; but although Ashburn Priory was an old family seat, the present owner of the property had by no means always been the great man he was at present; indeed, it may be doubted whether, in justice, he had any right to be so at all; though, unfortunately, in law he possessed a very sufficient one. The former possessor of Ashburn Priory, an irritable, perverse old man, had, in a moment of passion, disinherited an only son (who had committed the unpardonable crime of consulting his heart, rather than his pocket, in the choice of a wife), making a will in favour of a relative whom he had never seen, and of whom the little he had heard was unfavourable. It is true, he never intended this will to take effect; meaning, when he had sufficiently consulted his dignity, and marked his disapproval of the sin against Mammon which his son had committed, graciously to receive him into favour again; but Death, who has no more respect for ill-temper than for many more amiable qualities, did not allow him time to repair the injustice he had committed, cutting him off with an attack of bronchitis, and his son with a shilling, at one fell stroke. The son, an amiable man, with a large family (a conjunction so often to be observed, that, to a speculative mind, it almost assumes the relation of cause and effect), soon spent his shilling, and, overtasking his strength to replace it, ere long followed his unjust father, though we can scarcely imagine that he travelled by the same road. Before this latter event took place, however, Mr. Thomas Crawley made his first appearance as lord of the manor of Ashburn, and master of the Priory; and everybody was so well aware what he was, that they carefully abstained from inquiring what he had been. To those capable of judging, however, one thing was unmistakably apparent; namely, that neither in the past nor in the present could his manners and appearance entitle him to the designation of a gentleman. That he himself entertained an uncomfortable suspicion of this fact, might be gathered from the indefatigable perseverance with which he pursued the object of attaining to the rank of knighthood. Up the rounds of a ladder of gold he climbed into Parliament; once there, if he voted according to his conscience, that inward monitor must have been of a decidedly versatile temperament; for the way in which he wheeled about, and turned about, on every occasion, conceivable and inconceivable, was without precedent, save in the cases of Jim Crow of giddy memory, and of Weathercock versus Boreas and Co. At last a crisis arrived; votes were worth more than the men who gave them: a minister stayed in who should have gone out; and Mr. Crawley became Sir Thomas. And this was the man who, with a rent-roll of £15,000 a-year, was about to avail himself of a legal quibble, in order to extort from a widow and orphans a share of the little pittance that remained to them. His agent Mr. Selby, was a better man than his master; and might have been better still, if “his poverty, and not his will,” had not led him to consent to be the instrument wherewith Sir Thomas Crawley, M.P., transacted much dirty work in Ashburn and its vicinity. At the time we treat of the will had so often yielded that it had quite lost the habit of asserting itself; and the poverty, profiting by this inertness, had gradually disappeared, till Mr. Selby was generally looked upon as a man well to do in the world, and respected accordingly.
And this brings us back to the point from whence we originally started; namely, that the Rosebud of Ashburn possessed a female friend. Now, the office of female friend to a Rosebud, romantic and poetical as it sounds, was by no means a sinecure; indeed, from the confidant of Tilburnia downwards, these sympathisers of all work have hard places of it. Still, there appears to be no lack of amiable creatures ready to devote themselves to the cause of friendship; the supply seems always to equal the demand. Possibly occasional perquisites, in the shape of a heart caught in the rebound, as in the case of a discarded lover, or the reversion of some bon parti, rejected for a more eligible offer, may have something to do with it—of this we cannot pretend to judge.
That any such sordid notions influenced Caroline Selby in her devotion to Emily Colville, we do not believe: on the contrary, the friendship arose from, and was cemented by, the Jack-Sprat-and-his-wife-like suitableness of their respective natures; Caroline having a decided call to look up to and worship somebody, while Emily experienced an equally strenuous necessity for being worshipped and looked up to. But the Rosebud was subject also to other necessities, which effectually preserved her friend from falling into the snares of idleness. First, she had a chronic necessity for “talking confidence,”—though how, in the quiet village of Ashburn, she contrived to obtain a supply of mysteries to furnish forth subjects for these strictly private colloquies, was the greatest mystery of all. Then privy councils were held upon dress, in all its branches, from staylaces up to blonde Berthes; and committees of ways and means had to combat and arrange financial difficulties. Again, the affairs of their poorer neighbours required much talking about, and speculating upon; and their little charities Nor, despite sundry small weaknesses and frivolities natural to their age, or rather youth, and sex, the friends were thoroughly kind-hearted, amiable girls, could not be planned, or executed, without a necessary amount of conversation. Then there was a town, three miles off by the road, and two and a half by the fields, where everything came from; for, though Ashburn boasted a “general” shop, yet those who were rash enough to particularise any article they might require, beyond the inevitable bacon, cheese, soap, bad tea, worse sugar, starch, and; hobnailed shoes, upon which agricultural life is supported, only prepared for themselves a disappointment.
This obliging town the Rosebud had a call to visit, on an average, three times a week at the very least; and of course, when the pony-chaise could not be had, which—as Hugh, by the agency of that much-enduring pony, existed rather as a centaur than a biped—was almost always the case, Caroline Selby was required as a walking companion.
Having thus enlightened the reader as to the nature of the friendship existing between these young ladies, together with other particulars, which, at the risk of being considered prosy, we felt bound to communicate to him, we resume the thread of our narrative.
Three weeks had elapsed since Mrs. Colville had accepted her brother’s offer, and the day approached when Percy and Hugh were to quit the home of their happy childhood, never again to return to it. Mrs. Colville seldom alluded to the subject; busying herself in preparing their clothes, and in other necessary duties appertaining to the mistress of a family.
Now it happened that Master Hugh wore turn-over collars, famous for two peculiarities, viz., the moment they were put on, clean and smooth, they became rumpled and dirty—and the strings by which they were fastened, were the victims to a suicidal propensity for tearing themselves violently off, so that the amount of starch, labour, and tape, required to preserve these collars in an efficient condition, formed a serious item in the household expenditure.
Although the excellent factotum, Sarah, declared upon oath (not a very naughty one) that she had reviewed the delinquents cautiously that day fortnight, and been able to report them fitted for service, yet, at the eleventh hour, when she was actually packing Hugh’s box, there were only three strings and a quarter remaining among the twelve collars, and there was no reliance to be placed even upon them. Moreover, on examination, there was discovered to have been such a run upon tape, of late, that not an inch of that useful article was forthcoming throughout the entire establishment. Under these appalling circumstances, Emily nobly volunteered to go to Flatville, and invest capital in the purchase of a “whole piece of tape.” But the boys were absent on a skating expedition; and the roads were slippery, and the pony had not been roughed, and Emily, not liking to walk by herself, set off, no way loth, to enlist Caroline Selby as her companion.
Here, however, a difficulty arose. Mr. Selby was just starting in his phaeton, to drive over to the railroad station, two miles beyond Flatville, and his daughter was going with him, for the sake of a drive.
Caroline was perplexed: had it been only to give up her own plans, she would gladly have done so; but between her father and her friend, a double sacrifice was required of her, and being only a single woman, she was unable to meet the demand. Mr. Selby, happily, hit upon an expedient. He proposed a compromise: Miss Colville should do him the honour to take a seat in his phaeton (he called it phee-aton), he would drive her as far as Flatville; his daughter should alight with her: they should make their little purchases (the words in italics he uttered in a tone of the tenderest affection); and the phee-aton, in returning from the station, should call and pick them up.
Mr. Selby was a very polite man; and perpetually rubbed his hands together, as though he were playing at washing them, a habit possibly induced by a consciousness of all the dirty work he had performed. Emily patronised him, steadily disbelieving everything that was hinted against him, because he was Caroline’s father,—a piece of scepticism, amiable, illogical, and womanly, which we rather admire in the young lady than otherwise.
Accordingly, favouring him with a bewitching smile, that a better man than he might have been proud to win, she scarcely touched the hand he held out to assist her (which he carefully dry-washed afterwards, as though the contact even of her fairy fingers had dissolved the spell of its prudish purity), and sprang lightly into the “phee-aton.”
Half an hour’s drive brought them to Flatville, where Mr. Selby, so to speak, washed his hands of them, and went on to the railroad station. Then began the shopping, that most mysterious and deeply-seated passion of the female heart—the one master vice which serves the ladies of England, instead of the turf, the wine-cup, and the gaming table, which mislead their lords. There can be little doubt who first invented shopping! The same hand which launched that arrow into the bosom of private life, gave to the child-woman, Eve, the apple that betrayed her—an apple which contained the seeds of shopping. It is such a seductive, hypocritical sin, too, this same shopping—one which is so easily dressed up to resemble a virtue—that it is almost impossible to distinguish its true character till the bill comes in: that, like the touch of Ithuriel’s spear, reveals the fiend in all its deformity. Every woman (that we have known) is more or less addicted to this ruinous practice, but some appear especially gifted with the fatal talent, and, if the truth must be told, our little heroine was one of these unfortunates. The amount of shopping she would contrive to get, even out of a piece of tape, was fearful to reflect upon. In the first place, it was to be of a particular (very particular) texture, neither too coarse nor too fine; then society would probably be uprooted, and the Thames be set on fire, if it were a shade too wide, or, worse still, too narrow. Again, tape was useless without needles and thread, wherewith to operate upon it; and for some time—indeed, till the obsequious parrot of a shopman had gone through his whole vocabulary of persuasion, and become cynical and monosyllabic—all the needles were too large; and, that difficulty being overcome, the thread (sewing cotton Emily called it) took a perverse turn, and would by no means sympathise with the eyes of the selected needles, till the harassed shopman muttered a private aspiration in regard to those useful orifices, which would have cost him five shillings in any court of justice. But he took his revenge, did that cunning shopman, for, no sooner had Emily bought all that she required, than he suddenly recovered his good humour and loquacity, and placed before her exactly the very articles she most desired, and had not funds to purchase withal, till Tantalus himself might have appeared a gentleman who lived at home at ease, in comparison with that sorely-tempted “Rose-bud.”
Still, what woman could do, she did, for she firmly resisted everything, till an unlucky remnant of magpie-coloured ribbon, the “very thing she should want when she changed her mourning, and which she knew she could never meet with again,” a ribbon so cheap that the shopman declared he was “giving it away,” at the very moment when he was adding two shillings to the bill on the strength of it; though this reductive ribbon beguiled her, the little concession only proved that she was not above humanity. With which fact we are well contented, because, enjoying but a very distant and limited acquaintance with such higher circles as she would otherwise have mixed in, we might never have heard of her existence, That she possessed some power of self-denial she proved, by paying her bill and quitting the shop the moment that ribbon had conquered her; the next best thing to resisting temptation being to fly from it.
“Why, Caroline dear, we must have been an age in that shop, it is nearly five o’clock! What can have become of your father’s carriage?” exclaimed Emily, glancing in dismay at the hands of the old church clock, which pointed to a quarter to five.
“Really I can’t conceive,” was the reply: “something must have occurred to delay it, I suppose; it will be growing dusk before we can get home if we have to walk by the road, and we can scarcely attempt the fields so late by ourselves.”
“Mamma will be so frightened,” suggested Emily, “if it gets at all dark before we return—had we not better start at once, and walk on till the carriage overtakes us?”
Caroline agreed to this plan, merely proposing the emendation that they should leave word they had done so, and that the groom, if he ever appeared, was to follow and endeavour to overtake them. For this purpose they re-entered the linen-draper’s shop, where, while they paused for a moment to deliver the message, that vindictive shopman actually was scoundrel enough to display at arm’s length a flimsy black scarf (barege we believe the villain called it), which, down to the very pattern itself (opaque spots of the same material, representing apparently a turnip with a cocked hat on, though we can scarcely bring ourselves to believe the draughtsman could seriously have thus planned the design), Emily had dreamed of only the night before: such is the heartlessness of men—at least of shopmen.
The two girls, having nobly withstood the scarf, started energetically on their homeward walk, nor were their tongues less active than their feet, but then they had so much to talk about. The linen-draper’s stock was first done ample justice to; that “dear” silver grey mousseline de soie, which wasn’t dear at all, but as cheap as—(the ribbon, perhaps, on which the shop-keeper only realised some fifty per cent., but then it was a remnant, and given away)—and then those gloves, French kid, oh! they must have been smuggled; how wrong it was to smuggle, at least papa (Selby) always said so, but really the price was quite ridiculous; didn’t Emily think so?
Emily did not know about its being ridiculous, but it was dreadfully tempting; and if she had not made up her mind irrevocably against changing any one of the three sovereigns she had in her purse, and which must last her for pocket-money for the next two months, she should decidedly have bought a pair, really, for the sake of economy.
This fruitful and edifying topic lasted them a good mile and a half, and was not yet exhausted, when Emily interrupted herself by exclaiming—“Upon my word it’s growing quite dusk; I wonder whether that carriage is ever coming?”
“I’m sure I hope so, for I’m getting dreadfully frightened; ah! what’s that?” replied her companion with a sudden start; “Oh! it’s only a post, how silly I am! I declare I thought it was a man with a pistol hooked—no—what is it they call it when they’re dangerous and mean to go off, dear?”
“Cocked,” returned Emily; “but surely that is a man, and a very uncomfortable looking one too; walk on quickly, and seem as if you did not perceive him; perhaps he may not take any notice of us.”
The advice was sound, but, unfortunately, the plan did not prove as successful as it deserved to be; the individual in question, who, when they first came in sight, was lying apparently asleep upon some fallen timber by the road-side, rose as they came near, and approaching them, began in a tone half-impertinent, half-imploring, to beg of them. He was a stout, ruffianly-looking fellow, dressed in a style which accorded with his profession. The poor girls were considerably frightened: they were quite a mile from Ashburn, in a lonely part of the road; the evening was closing in rapidly, and there was no human being in sight, except their persecutor, who, walking beside them, grew every minute more pertinacious and imperative. With a most transparent attempt at dignified composure, Emily drew out her purse, and, taking a shilling from it, handed it to him, saying—
“There, that is as much as we shall give you, so you need not follow us any further—good evening.”
Taking the shilling, with a look of sulky dissatisfaction, the fellow paused for a moment in irresolution; but, unfortunately, when Emily produced her purse, his eye had caught the sparkle of gold, and his cupidity was too deeply excited to be so easily satisfied: looking up and down the road, to assure himself that no one was at hand to interfere with his designs, he again followed the trembling girls; and, coming up with them, exclaimed—
“What! will you only give a poor fellow that’s starving, a shilling? and you with a purse full of money in your pocket—and you calls yourselves ladies too? It would only serve you right to show you that ladies was no better than other people.” As he spoke, he pressed rudely against Caroline Selby, who, shrinking from him, whispered in an agony of terror—
“Emily, what will become of us? Pray give him some more money, and entreat him to go away.”
Thus urged, Emily again drew forth her purse, and, trembling at her own temerity, said in an authoritative tone of voice—
“There’s half-a-crown for you, and now go away, and don’t annoy us any more.”
“Not without something better worth taking with me,” was the insolent reply, as, catching her wrist, he attempted to force the purse from her grasp; but Emily, although greatly alarmed, had a brave little heart of her own, and held on stoutly, till the unmanly ruffian, provoked at her pertinacity, used so much force that she relinquished the purse; while at the same moment, partly through pain, partly through fright, she uttered piercing scream.
Now, albeit insolent lords of the creation exulting in strong nerves, and not possessing soprano voices, are accustomed to regard screaming as a feeble-minded practice, equally useless and ridiculous, yet in the instance before us it proved of the highest benefit, and by far the best thing, which, under the circumstances, Emily could have done; for, as if he were some good genius evoked by the Rosebud’s appeal, suddenly and unexpectedly a tall, agile figure sprang through a gap in the hedge, cleared the intervening space at a bound, and, almost before the footpad was aware of his approach, struck the scoundrel, with a stick which he carried, so severe a blow over the knuckles, that he dropped the purse; while, at the same moment, seizing him by the throat, he forced him backwards, and, putting out his leg, tripped him up, and flung him heavily to the ground. Placing his foot upon the breast of his fallen foe, to prevent his rising, he turned towards the frightened girls, find, lifting his hat courteously, thereby revealing his dark chestnut curls, he said—
“Do not be alarmed, ladies, I am quite able to protect you.” Then, pointing to the fallen man with his stick, which he slightly shook at him with a menacing gesture, he continued—“Has the scoundrel robbed you of anything but the purse?” As she turned to answer, Emily raised her eyes to the speaker’s face. He was young, apparently not more than five or six and twenty; the exertion he had undergone had caused a bright flush to overspread his usually pale features; even at that moment his look was calm and spiritual; the prevailing expression of his face was power, which revealed itself in his flashing eyes and stern, compressed mouth; his voice, when he spoke, sounded peculiarly rich and sweet. When Emily had informed him that, with the exception of the purse, they had sustained no loss, he continued—
“But he was struggling with you when I came up; he must, surely, have hurt you; are you quite uninjured?”
Both the gils having assured him that they were merely frightened, and that until the moment before he appeared, the man had simply been begging of them, the stranger turned to his prostrate foe, saying—
“It would only serve you right for your unmanly attack on two defenceless women, if I were to avail myself of the advantage I have gained over you to take you into custody and have you punished for the offence you have committed; but as I wish to spare these ladies the alarm of witnessing any further struggle between us, I shall, with their permission, let you go; but mind this, I shall give a description of your appearance at the nearest police-station; and if you do not immediately quit this part of the country, you will have rather more attention paid you than you will find by any means agreeable. So now take yourself off while you may.”
As he spoke, he removed his foot from the scoundrels breast, and with difficulty restraining an impulse to bestow upon him a parting kick, allowed him to rise and slink doggedly away. And now the Rosebud, who, between alarm, and gratitude, and shyness, and an embarrassing consciousness that their champion was young and handsome, was altogether in a great state of agitation and excitement, felt it incumbent upon her, as spokeswoman, to express her sentiments as best she might. Accordingly, with some hesitation and many blushes, which unfortunately the increasing darkness rendered invisible, she informed the stranger how very much obliged to him they were: and impressed upon his mind the state of abject terror from which he had relieved them, glancing slightly at the anxiety they felt for the favourable termination of the combat, and their admiration of, and gratitude for, his heroic conduct.
The stranger received her acknowledgments with a quiet smile, partly pleased, partly amused by the young girl’s eagerness; then, in a few simple, courteous, well-chosen words, he expressed the pleasure he had felt in having been able to render them such a slight service; adding, he should always consider it a most fortunate occurrence that, owing to a fancy which had seized him, to find his way from the railroad-station across the fields, he had been enabled to arrive just at the most critical moment.
The Rosebud listened to him attentively. One thing was quite evident, be he whom he might, both his language and manner proved him a gentleman. Mysterious and deeply interesting! Could it be Prince Albert, wandering about the country in disguise, for some inexplicable purpose connected with political economy, or the Admirable Crichton, suddenly “come alive,” to seek for a wife in the nineteenth century?
The arrival of the “Phee-aton,” which had been taken poorly, and obliged to have its wheel oiled,—a process which, owing to the inefficiency of the blacksmith who (faute de mieux) had been called in to attend the patient, had occupied a longer portion of time than was by any means necessary,—interrupted Emily’s conjectures.
The mysterious stranger, as soon as he understood the connection between the vehicle and the damsels he had rescued, politely handed them in; and, refusing Caroline’s timid offer of a seat, again raised his hat, and the carriage driving on, was soon lost to sight.
“Oh, Emily, what a brave, handsome, courteous, interesting creature!” exclaimed Caroline, enthusiastically; “who can he be?”
“I can’t conceive; but we shall be sure to find out, for he is walking in the direction of Ashburn,” was the reply. “He certainly knocked that dreadful man down very cleverly, and was extremely kind and good-natured to us; but do you think him so very handsome?”
“Oh, there can’t be a doubt about it! Those pale, interesting features—that lofty brow—those splendid flashing eyes—the dark clusters of his waving hair!”
“Carry, you’ve fallen in love with the man at first sight, and are a susceptible little goose; he is by no means the Adonis you make out; and, remember, we know nothing about him; he may be a bagman for anything we can tell to the contrary,” rejoined Emily.
“No, I’m quite certain he is a gentleman, and most likely something better still. He spoke just like Lord Adolphus Fitztoplofty, when I danced with him at the race-ball, and he asked me whether I’d seen the ‘Prophète,’ and if I didn’t doat upon that dear Mario (so lucky that he should fix upon the only opera I’d ever heard, wasn’t it?), and yet you pretend to believe he’s a bagman; but I know you only say so to plague me, you naughty thing;” and thus speaking, Caroline relieved her overwrought feelings by giving her friend a playful blow, which the most fragile fly might have endured unshrinkingly.
“My dear child, I never hinted anything of the kind,” returned Emily; “au contraire, I believe Lord Adolphus to be a thoroughly well-authenticated young nobleman, and consider him the most gentlemanly puppy I have ever met.”
“Tiresome girl; you know I don’t mean Lord Fitz. But I’ll stake my penetration on the stranger’s gentility; you only abuse him because you admire him so much that you are ashamed to own it, you mean, deceitful girl!”
“Silly child, how can you be so absurd!” said the Rosebud; but although it was so dark that, if she had blushed, her friend could never have discovered it, she turned away her head as she spoke.