“O, I don’t want to know, Hannah,” said Honor wearily, as she threw herself on a sofa, a degree harder (if possible) and more comfortless than the one appertaining to the first-floor front in deeply-regretted Stanwick-street. “Please not to tell me what Mrs. Beacham said. And make me a cup of tea, will you? I am very tired, and I shiver so!”
She shuddered as she spoke, but that she did so was more from inward cold than from the effects of the outer atmosphere. There was certainly something terribly chilling to this young and impressionable creature in the dingy, half-lighted room, with its dusky curtains, its faded carpet, and, above all, the work-a-day table covered, as was its wont, with evidences of the old lady’s unflagging industry—with piles of house-linen, placed there in readiness for the morrow’s inspection, for darning, marking, or the like; and with batches of John’s strong gray socks—articles of toilet far more useful than ornamental. On these uninteresting evidences of an active as well as a frugal mind a solitary tallow-candle shed its feeble light; and Honor, from whose vivid imagination the picture of the brilliant theatre with its dazzling footlights and bright array of meretricious beauty had not altogether faded away, gazed around with feelings nearly akin to loathing and disgust.
A momentary gaze almost it was, for before she had time quite to realise the melancholy truth that she was at home, John had settled accounts with the Leigh charioteer, and was once more by her side, and speaking in subdued tones to Hannah, who, after the manner of her kind, was bustling about, and making as much noise in the doing so as possible.
“Don’t make more row than you can help, there’s a good woman,” John whispered anxiously; “there’s no use in waking up the missus. Bring a cup of tea, hot and strong, as quick as you can, and then take yourself off to bed.”
Hannah made no reply to this exhortation, save by throwing a knowing glance at Honor, which that bewildered young person did not even attempt to comprehend. The mystery, however, did not take long to solve, for ere another minute had elapsed there was the sound of a creaking step upon the stairs, and Mrs. Beacham’s chronic cough (a cough which the doctors said she would never lose but in her grave) heralded the approach of Honor’s enemy.
Instinctively the young wife, as the gaunt figure of the old woman, clad in the sternest of nightcaps and the most uncompromising of flannel gowns, made its appearance in the doorway, turned an appealing face to her husband, thus mutely claiming his protection and support. Unfortunately, however, for this weak vessel, whose conscience was assisting to render her a coward, the language of looks was an unknown one to single-eyed John Beacham. In addition also to this ignorance, it would have been hard to make him understand that it was against his own mother that Honor, in that piteous glance of hers, entreated that he would array himself. He was experiencing at that moment one of the effects of a long habit of filial obedience and respect, and that effect was a real regret that his aged parent should have her rest disturbed, and her mind harassed by his wife’s—to say the least of it—thoughtless conduct. John’s affection for his mother was too deeply rooted to be easily shaken; and though he had, for a passing moment, been softened, quelled, subdued by his tenderness for his wife—though he had for a short while forgotten that Honor had, in more ways than one, braved, disobeyed, and utterly deceived him—yet, with the presence of the respectable and unimpeachably virtuous woman who had first opened his unwilling eyes to the culprit’s errors, the remembrance of those errors crowded once more thick and fast upon him; so thick and fast that his very face grew darker and more serious, whilst Mrs. Beacham, happily unconscious that her appearance was not precisely a dignified one, advanced slowly, candle in hand, into the room.
CHAPTER XII.
MRS. BEACHAM REFUSES TO FORGET.
“Well, mother,” John said airily, and with the laudable desire of making things pass off with ease and comfort to all parties—“well, mother, we’ve got Honor back again, you see; but I’m sorry you got up. I tried to keep Hannah quiet, but she’s got a foot like a cart-horse, and a voice like a peacock, hang her!”
“I wasn’t asleep, my dear,” sighed the old lady, seating herself with a dignified air—the effect of which was slightly neutralised by the above-named dressing-gown and cap—“I wasn’t asleep; it ain’t easy to be with all that is going on;” and she folded her aged hands before her with an air of patient resignation, which was not without its effect upon poor John. For that excellent man, at this crisis of his hitherto unexciting life, was really very greatly to be pitied. Longing, above all things, for peace and quietness—loving his young wife with a deep and passionate fondness, and sincerely wishing that his respected parent might find a dutiful daughter in his precious Honor—it was to him a terrible thought that a “scene” of some kind must inevitably take place before matters could run smoothly again between his womankind.
“Mother,” he said desperately, “let bygones be bygones. Honor has been foolish enough, I know, and she had better not have made things out different from what they were; but there’s no manner of use hammering on about what’s past and over. So, Honor—there’s a good girl—just tell mother you’re sorry for what’s happened, and let us all be friends again. It’s the best way, to my thinking, times and over.”