THE "BLOW-OUT."
The reader is not to suppose, from the parsimony which marked the habitual life of Jacob Ogden and his mother, that when they had made up their minds to what they called a "blow-out," there would be any meanness or littleness in their proceedings. Under all circumstances they acted with clear minds, knowing what they were doing; and when they resolved to be extravagant, they were extravagant. The fine principle of that grand and really moral motto, "Pecca fortiter," was thoroughly understood and consistently acted upon by the man who had won Wenderholme by his industry and thrift. When he sinned, there was no weak compromise with conscience—he did it manfully and boldly, and no mistake. He never "muddled away" a sovereign, but his triumph cost him many a hundred sovereigns, and he knew beforehand precisely what he was going to spend. When it was all over he would pay the piper, and lock up his cash-box again, and return to his old careful ways.
The Ogdens did not receive many visitors at Milend, and yet they had rather an extensive acquaintance amongst people of their own class—rich people belonging to trade, and living in the great manufacturing towns. And to this festivity they had invited everybody they knew. The house of Wenderholme, large as it was, was filled with Jacob Ogden's guests, and his mother did the honors with a homely but genuine hospitality, which made everybody feel kindly disposed to her; and though they could not help laughing a little at her now and then, they did it without malice. The reader will remember that, from a sort of pride which distinguished her, she had refrained from visiting Wenderholme until the completion of the new road; and as the chariot of the Olympic victor entered his city by a breach in the wall, so Mrs. Ogden's carriage came to Wenderholme by a route which no carriage had ever before traversed. It would have been better, however, in some respects, if the good lady had familiarized herself a little with the splendors of Wenderholme before she undertook to receive so many guests therein, for it was quite foreign to the frankness of her nature to act the nil admirari. Thus, on entering the magnificent drawing-room, where many guests were already assembled, she behaved exactly as she had done when, during a visit to Buxton, some friends had taken her to see Chatsworth.
"Well!" she exclaimed, lifting up both her hands, "this is a grand room!" Nor was she contented with this simple exclamation, but she went on examining and exclaiming, and walked all round, and lifted up the curtains, and the heavy tassels of their cords, and touched the tapestry on the chairs, and, in a word, quite forgot her dignity of hostess in the novelty of the things about her.
"Those curtains must have cost thirty shillings a-yard!" she said, appealing to the judgment of the elder ladies present, "and the stuff's narrow beside."
Impressions of splendor depend very much upon contrast, so that Wenderholme seemed very astonishing to a person coming directly from Milend. But such impressions are soon obliterated by habit, and in a week Mrs. Ogden will have lost the "fresh eye," to which she owes her present sense of enchantment. How long would it take to get accustomed to Blenheim, or Castle Howard, or Compiègne? Would it take a fortnight? However, Mrs. Ogden had the advantage of a far fresher eye than nous autres, who are so accustomed to gilding and glitter in public cafés and picture-galleries, that we are all, as it were, princes, insensible to impressions of splendor.
All that Mrs. Ogden said upon that memorable day it would be tedious to relate. She thought aloud, and the burden of her thoughts, their ever-recurring refrain, was her sense of the grandeur that surrounded her. Jacob Ogden had bought a good deal of Colonel Stanburne's fine old silver plate, and this formed the main subject of Mrs. Ogden's conversation during dinner. "I think our Jacob's gone fair mad with pride," she said to all the company, and in the hearing of the attentive servants, "for we'd plenty of silver at Milend—quite plenty for any one; we've all my uncle Adam's silver spoons, and my aunt Alice's, and plenty of silver candlesticks, and a tea-service—and I cannot tell what our Jacob would be at." Then she added, with serene complacency, "However, it's all paid for."
She had not the art of avoiding a topic likely to be disagreeable either to herself or anybody else, but would make other folks uncomfortable, and torture her own mind by dwelling upon their sores and her own. I don't think that in this she was altogether wrong, or that the most delicate people are altogether right in doing exactly the contrary, for it is as well to grasp nettles with a certain hardihood; but she carried a respectable sort of courage to a very unnecessary excess. Thus, when she had done about the silver and the general extravagance of "our Jacob," the next topic she found to talk about was the absence of Mr. and Mrs. Prigley. She launched forth into a catalogue of all the benefits wherewith she had overwhelmed Mrs. Prigley in the days of her poverty at Shayton, and represented that lady as a monster of ingratitude. "Why, they were so poor," Mrs. Ogden said, "that they couldn't even afford carpets to their floors; but now that they're better off in the world, they turn their backs on those that helped them. We were always helping them, and making them presents." Every one saw that the Ogdens were dreadfully sore about the absence of the vicar and his wife, and it was not very good policy on Mrs. Ogden's part to draw attention to it in that way; for a parson, though ornamental, is not absolutely indispensable to a good dinner, and they might have got on very well without one.
The dinner was served in the great hall at five o'clock, and few of the guests, as they sat at the feast, could help lifting their eyes to the wainscot, and the frescoes, and the great armorial ceiling—few could help thinking of the Colonel. No one present, however, was in such a conflicting and contradictory state of mind as young Jacob, nor was any one so thoroughly miserable. The whole triumph had disgusted him from beginning to end, and he was not in a humor to be either charitable or indulgent, or to see things on their amusing side. Ever since that last interview with Edith, he had been moody and misanthropical, accepting the position his uncle had made for him, but accepting it without one ray of pleasure. Such a condition of mind, if prolonged for several years, would end by making a man horribly cynical and sour, and probably drive him to take refuge in the lowest pleasures and the lowest aims. When the bark of love is wrecked, and the noble ambition of work and independence lies feeble and half dead, and we allow others to arrange all our life for us, what is the use of being young? what is the use of having health and riches, and all sorts of fine prospects and advantages?
When the banquet was over, the company returned to the drawing-room, and young Jacob began to think that Sally Smethurst was the nicest-looking young person there. His uncle was pleased to observe his polite attentions to the young lady, and, taking him aside, said, "That's reet, lad—that's reet; ax 'er to dance, and when you've been dancin' a good bit, ax her summat elz. You'll never have such another chance. She's quite fresh to this place, and she never saw out like Wendrum 'All; she's just been tellin' my mother what a rare fine place it is."
"Well," thought young Jacob to himself, "as I cannot have Edith, why not please my uncle and my grandmother? Sally Smethurst is a nice honest-looking young woman, and I daresay she'd make a very good sort of wife." The male nature is so constituted that, when not firmly anchored in some strong attachment, it easily drifts away on the fleuve du tendre, and this poor youth had been cut away from his moorings. What wonder, then, if he drifted?
Sally thought him very nice, and handsome, and kind, and she promised to dance with him most willingly. The dining-room had been prepared for dancing, and it answered the purpose all the better as there was a dais at one end of the room which afforded at once a safe retreat and a convenient position for spectators, whilst at the other was a gallery for musicians, now occupied by an excellent band of stringed instruments from Manchester. In short, the dining-room at Wenderholme had been arranged strictly on the principle of the old baronial hall. The gallery was supported by fantastic pillars of carved oak, and decorated with gigantic antlers which had been given to Colonel Stanburne by a friend of his, a mighty hunter in South Africa.
The ball went on with great spirit till after midnight, when supper was served in the long gallery. Even Mrs. Ogden, old as she was, had danced, and danced well too, to the astonishment of the spectators. The host himself had performed, though his proficiency might be questioned.
What with the dancing, and the negus, and the champagne, and the splendors of the noble house, and the flattery of so many guests, and the obsequious service of so many attendants, and the sense of their own greatness and success, not only Jacob Ogden, senior, but all the Ogdens, were a little elevated that night. Young Jacob did not escape this infection—at his age, how could he?—and having taken Miss Smethurst up the grand staircase to supper, rapidly approached that point which his uncle desired him to attain.
Amidst the noise of the talk around him, the lad went further and further. He talked about Wenderholme already almost as if it were his own, and forgot, for the time, his old friend the Colonel and his misfortunes in an exulting sense of his own highly promising position. "He intended to live at Wenderholme a good deal," he said, and then asked Miss Smethurst whether she would like to live at Wenderholme.
But he did not hear her answer. A figure like a ghost, with pale, sad, resolute face, approached silently, moving from the darker end of the long gallery into the blaze of light about the supper-table.
It was Mr. Prigley.
The master of the house saw him, too, and as he approached said aloud, and not very politely,—
"Better late than never, parson; come and sit down next to my mother and get your supper."
But Mr. Prigley still remained standing. However, he approached the table. Still he would not sit down.
Every one looked at him, and no one who had looked once took his eyes off Mr. Prigley again. There was that in his face which fixed attention irresistibly. The roar of the conversation was suddenly hushed, and a silence succeeded in which you might have heard the breaking of a piece of bread.
Mr. Prigley went straight to Mrs. Ogden, not noticing anybody else. He spoke to her, not loudly, but audibly enough for every one to hear him.
"I have come to tell you, Mrs. Ogden, that Mrs. Stanburne, mother of Colonel Stanburne of Wenderholme, is now lying in a dying state at the vicarage."
Mrs. Ogden did not answer at once. When she had collected her ideas, she said, "I thought Mrs. Stanburne had been in her own house and well in health. If I'd known she was dyin', you may be sure, Mr. Prigley, as there should 'ave been no dancin' i' this house, though she's not a relation of ours. We're only plain people, but we know what's fittin' and seemly."
"Then you cannot be aware, Mrs. Ogden, of what has happened at Wenderholme Cottage. Mrs. Stanburne's illness has been brought on by the suddenness with which the present owner of Wenderholme ordered her to quit her cottage on this estate. She was an old lady, in feeble health, and the trouble of a sudden eviction has proved too much for her. If there is any surgeon here, let him follow me."
This said, Mr. Prigley quitted the table without bowing to anybody, and his gaunt figure and pale grave face passed along the gallery to the great staircase. Dr. Bardly left his place at the supper-table, and followed him.
Miss Smethurst's young partner made no more soft speeches to her that night. A great pang smote him in his breast. Had he forgotten those dear friends who had been so good to him in the time of their prosperity? And what was this horrible story of an eviction? Mrs. Stanburne turned out of Wenderholme Cottage! Could it be possible that his uncle had gone to such a length as that?
The boy was down the staircase in an instant, and overtook the Doctor and Mr. Prigley as they were crossing the great hall. They walked swiftly and silently to the vicarage.
"You'd better wait here, little Jacob," said Dr. Bardly; "I'll go upstairs." And he put Jacob into a small sitting-room, which was empty.
The lad had been there five minutes when the door opened, and Edith came in. She looked very ill and miserable.
All the old tenderness came back into Jacob's heart as he felt for her in this trial. "Miss Stanburne," he said, "dear Miss Stanburne, what does he say?" Weak and shattered as she was by the trials of these last days, that word of tenderness made any farther acting impossible. She went to him, took both his hands in hers, and the tears came.
"There's no hope; she's dying. Come upstairs—she wants to see you."
Mrs. Stanburne was lying in a state of extreme exhaustion, with occasional intervals of consciousness, in which the mind was clear. When Jacob entered the sick-room, she was in one of her better moments.
"Go quite near to her," said Mr. Prigley; "she can only speak in a whisper."
There had always existed a great friendship between the youth and the old lady now lying on the brink of the grave. He bent down over her, and tenderly kissed her forehead.
"God bless you!" she whispered, "it is very kind of you to come."
Then she said, in answer to his enquiries,—
"I shall not live long, but I shall live rather longer than they think. I shan't die to-night. I want my son—my son!"
After this supervened a syncope, which Jacob and Edith believed to be death. But the Doctor, with his larger experience, reassured them for the present. "She will live several hours," he said.
Jacob told them that she had asked for Colonel Stanburne, and added, "I have not the slightest idea where he is."
Then Edith made a sign to him to follow her, and led him downstairs again to the little sitting-room. "Papa is a long way off; he is in France. He must be telegraphed for." And she took a writing-case and wrote an address.
Now, although there was a telegraph from Wenderholme to Ogden's Mill at Shayton, there was none from Shayton to Sootythorn, which was the nearest town of importance. So the best way appeared to be for Jacob to ride off at once with the despatch to the station, which was ten miles off.
"And you must telegraph for mamma at the same time." And Edith wrote Lady Helena's address.
A little delay occurred now, because Jacob's horse had to be sent for to Wenderholme Hall. Edith went upstairs, and soon came down again with rather favorable news. The syncope had not lasted long, and the patient seemed to rally from it somewhat more easily than she had done from the preceding ones.
"Miss Stanburne!" said Jacob, "will you give me a word of explanation? You were hard and unkind the last time we spoke to each other."
"I did very wrong. I thought I was sacrificing myself for your good. I told you nothing but lies."
Half an hour since Miss Smethurst was within a hair's-breadth of being lady of Wenderholme; but her chances are over now, and she will not bring her fortune to this place—her coals to this Newcastle. As her late partner in the dance rides galloping, galloping through the wooded lanes to the telegraph station, his brain is full of other hopes, and of a far higher, though less brilliant, ambition. He will free himself from the Milend slavery, and work for independence—and for Edith!