Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles

by Mrs. Henry Wood

"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 passed 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 passing 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.