Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles. Ellen Wood
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was nearly knocked over by a handsome lad of seventeen, who was running in. Very handsome were his features; but they were marred by the free expression which characterized Mr. Dare's.
"I say, is the governor in?" cried he, out of breath.
"Yes, sir. Lord Hawkesley's with him."
"The deuce take Lord Hawkesley, then!" returned the young gentleman. "Where's Stubbs? I want my week's money, and I can't wait. Walker, I say, where's Stubbs?"
"Stubbs is gone out, sir."
"What a bother! Halloa! Here's some money! What is this?" continued the speaker, catching up the eight shillings.
"It is some that has just been paid in, Master Herbert."
"That's all right then," said he, slipping five of them into his jacket pocket. "Tell Stubbs to put it down as my week's money."
He tore off. Jane sat on, wondering what she was to do. There appeared to be little probability that she would be admitted to Mr. Dare; and yet, how could she go home as she came—hopeless—to the presence of that man? No; she must wait still; wait until the last. She might catch a word with Mr. Dare as he was leaving. Jane could not help thinking his behaviour very bad in refusing to see her.
The office was being lighted when Mr. Stubbs returned. One of the clerks pointed to the three shillings with his pen. "Kinnersley has brought eight shillings. He will make it twelve next week. Couldn't manage the ten this, he says."
"Where are the eight shillings?" asked Stubbs. "I see only three."
"Oh, Master Herbert came in, and took off five. He said you were to put it down as his week's money."
"He'll take a little too much some day, if he's not checked," was the cynical reply of the senior clerk. "However, it's no business of mine."
He put the three shillings into his own desk, and made an entry in a book. After that he went in to Mr. Dare, who was now alone. A large room, handsomely fitted up. Mr. Dare's table was near one of the windows: a desk, at which Anthony sometimes sat, was at the other. Mr. Dare looked up.
"I could not do anything, sir," said Stubbs. "The other party will listen to no proposal at all. They say they'll throw it into Chancery first. An awful rage they are in."
"Tush!" said Mr. Dare. "Chancery, indeed! They'll tell another tale in a day or two. Has Kinnersley been in?"
"Kinnersley has brought eight shillings, and promises to bring twelve next Monday. Master Herbert carried off five of them, and left word it was for his week's money."
"A smart blade!" cried Mr. Dare, apostrophizing his son with personal pride. "'Take it when I can,' is his motto. He'll make a good lawyer, Stubbs."
"Very good," acquiesced Stubbs.
"Is that woman gone yet?"
"No, sir. My opinion is, she means to wait until she sees you."
"Then send her in at once, and let's get it over," thundered Mr. Dare.
In what lay his objection to seeing her? A dread lest she should put forth their relationship as a plea for his clemency? If so, he was destined to be agreeably disappointed. Jane did not allude to it; would not allude to it. After that interview held with Mrs. Dare, some three or four months before, she had dropped all remembrance of the connection: even the children did not know of it. She only solicited Mr. Dare's leniency now, as any other stranger might have solicited it. Little chance was there of Mr. Dare's acceding to her prayer: he and his wife both wanted Helstonleigh to be free of the Halliburtons.
"It will be utter ruin," she urged. "It will turn us, beggars, into the streets. Mr. Dare, I promise you the rent by the middle of February. Unless it were certain, my brother would not have promised it to me. Surely you may accord me this short time."
"Ma'am, I cannot—that is, Mr. Ashley cannot. It was a reprehensible piece of carelessness on my part to suffer the rent to go on for half a year, considering that you were strangers. Mr. Ashley will look to me to see him well out of it."
"There is sufficient furniture in my house, new furniture, to pay what is owing three times over."
"May be, as it stands in it. Things worth forty pounds in a house, won't fetch ten at a sale."
"That is an additional reason why I——"
"Now, my good lady," interrupted Mr. Dare, with imperative civility, "one word is as good as a thousand; and that word I have said. I cannot withdraw the seizure, except on receipt of the rent and costs. Pay them, and I shall be most happy to do it. If you stop here all night I can give you no other answer; and my time is valuable."
He glanced at the door as he spoke. Jane took the hint, and passed out of it. As much by the tone, as by the words, she gathered that there was no hope whatever.
The streets were bright with gas as she hurried along, her head bent, her veil over her face, her tears falling silently. But when she left the town behind her, and approached a lonely part of the road where no eye was on her, no ear near her, then the sobs burst forth uncontrolled.
"No eye on her? no ear near her?" Ay, but there was! There was one Eye, one Ear, which never closes. And as Jane's dreadful trouble resolved itself into a cry for help to Him who ever listens, there seemed to come a feeling of peace, of trust, into her soul.
CHAPTER XVII.
THOMAS ASHLEY.
Frank met her as she went in. It was dark; but she kept her veil down.
"Oh, mamma, that's the most horrible man!" he began, in a whisper. "You know the cheese you brought in on Saturday, that we might not eat our bread quite dry; well, he has eaten it up, every morsel, and half a loaf of bread! And he has burnt the whole scuttleful of coal! And he swore because there was no meat; and he swore at us because we would not go to the public-house and buy him some beer. He said we were to buy it and pay for it."
"I said you would not allow us to go, mamma," interrupted William, who now came up. "I told him that if he wanted beer he must go and get it for himself. I spoke civilly, you know, not rudely. He went into such a passion, and said such things! It is a good thing Jane was out."
"Where is Gar?" she asked.
"Gar was frightened at the man, and the tobacco-smoke made him sick, and he cried; and then he lay down on the floor, and went to sleep."
She felt sick. She drew her two boys into the parlour—dark there, except for the lamp in the road, which shone in. Pressing them in her arms, completely subdued by the miseries of her situation, she leaned her forehead upon William's shoulder, and burst once more into a most distressing flood of tears.
They were alarmed. They cried with her. "Oh, mamma! what is it? Why don't you order the man to go away?"
"My boys, I must tell you; I cannot keep it from you," she sobbed. "That man is put here to remain, until I can pay the rent. If I cannot pay it, our things will be taken and sold."
William's pulses and heart alike beat, but he was silent, Frank spoke. "Whatever shall we do, mamma?"
"I do not know," she wailed. "Perhaps God will help us. There is no one else to do it."
Patience came in, for about the sixth time, to see whether Jane had returned, and how the mission had sped. They called her into the cold, dark room. Jane gave her the history of the whole day, and Patience listened in astonishment.
"I cannot but believe that Thomas Ashley must have been mis-informed," said she, presently. "But that you are strangers in the place, I should say you had an enemy who may have gone to him with a tale that thee can pay, but will not. Still, even in that case, it would be unlike Thomas Ashley. He is a kind and a good man; not a harsh one."
"Mr. Dare told me he