large lump of coal, that Hilary had hoped-really business-that may turn out good oh, cruel, sordid economy!-would have for us all, I assure you." lasted half the evening. She broke the uneasy silence which followed, by asking Johanna to give her opinion.. Johanna roused herself, and spoke, "Ascott says right; he is the head of the family, and by and by I trust will take care of us all. But he is not able to do it now, and, meantime, we must live." "To be sure we must, auntie." "I mean, my boy, we must live honestly; we must not run into debt:" and her voice sharpened, as with the reflected horror of her young days, if, alas! there ever had been any youth for Henry Leaf's eldest daughter. "No, Ascott, out of debt, out of danger. For myself," she laid her thin old fingers on his arm, and looked up at him with a pitiful mixture of reliance and hopelessness," I would rather see you breaking stones in the road, than living like a gentleman-as you call it—and a swindleras I call it upon other people's money." He went away whistling, with that air of untroubled, good-natured liveliness peculiar to Ascott Leaf, which made them say continually that he was "only a boy," living a boy's life, as thoughtless and as free. When his handsome face disappeared, the three women sat down again round the fire. They made no comments on him whatever; they were women, and he was their own. But-passing him over as if he had never existed-Hilary began to explain to her sisters all particulars of her new scheme for maintaining the family. She told these details in a matter-of-fact way, as already arranged; and finally hoped Selina would make no more objections. "It is a thing quite impossible," said Selina with dignity. "Why impossible? I can certainly do the work; and it cannot make me less of a lady. Besides, we had better not be ladies, if we cannot be honest ones. And, Selina, where is the money to come from? We Ascott sprang up, coloring violently. have none in the house; we cannot get any "You use strong language, Aunt Johanna. till Christmas." Never mind. I dare say you are right. However, it's no business of mine. Good-friends." night, for I have an engagement." Hilary said gravely, she wished he would stay and join in the family consultation. "Oh, no; I hate talking over things. Settle it among yourselves. As I said, it isn't my business." "Opportunities might occur. We have "Not one in London: except, perhaps, Mr. Ascott, and I would not ask him for a farthing. You don't see, Selina, how horrible it would be to be helped-unless by some one dearly loved. I couldn't bear it! I'd rather beg, starve, almost steal!" "Don't be violent, child.” "You don't care, then, what becomes of us all? I sometimes begin to think so." "Oh, but it's hard!" and the cry of longStruck by the tone, Ascott stopped in the smothered pain burst out. "Hard enough act of putting on his lilac kid gloves. to have to earn one's bread in a way one "What have I done? I may be a very bad doesn't like; harder still to have to be fellow, but I'm not quite so bad as that, parted from Johanna from Monday morning Aunt Hilary." till Saturday night. But it must be. I'll "She didn't mean it, my boy," said Aunt go. It's a case between hunger, debt, and Johanna, tenderly. He was moved, more by the tenderness than the reproach. He came and kissed his eldest aunt in that warm-hearted, impulsive way which had won him forgiveness for many a boyish fault. It did so now. "I know I'm not half good enough to you, auntie, but I mean to be. I mean to work hard, and be a rich man some day; and then you may be sure I shall not let my Aunt Hilary keep a shop. Now, goodnight, for I must meet a fellow on business work; the first is unpleasant; the second impossible; the third is my only alternative. You must consent, Selina, for I will do it." "Don't!" Selina spoke more gently, and not without some natural emotion-" don't disgrace me, child; for I may as well tell you, I meant to do so to-night,-Mr. Ascott has made me an offer of marriage, and I-I have accepted it." Had a thunderbolt fallen in the middle of the parlor at No. 15, its inmates-that is, two of them-could not have been more astounded. No doubt this surprise was a great instance of simplicity on their part. Many women would have prognosticated, planned the thing from the first; thought it a most excellent match; seen glorious visions of the house in Russell Square; of the wealth and luxury that would be the portion of "dear Selina," and the general benefit that the marriage would be to the whole Leaf family. But these two were different from others. They only saw their sister Selina, a woman no longer young, and not without her peculiarities, going to be married to a man she knew little or nothing about; a man whom they themselves had endured rather than liked, and for the sake of gratitude. He was trying enough merely as a chance visitor. But to look upon Mr. Ascott as a brother-in-law as a husband 66 O Selina, you cannot be in earnest ? " "Why not? Why should I not be married as well as my neighbors ?" said she, sharply. Nobody arguing that point, both being indeed too bewildered to argue at all, she continued majestically, "I assure you, sisters, there could not be a more unexceptionable offer. It is true, Mr. Ascott's origin was rather humble; but I can overlook that. In his present wealth, and with his position and character, he will make the best of husbands." Not a word was answered; what could be answered? Selina was free to marry if she liked, and whom she liked. Perhaps, from her nature, it was idle to expect her to marry in any other way than this; one of the thousand and one unions where the man desires a handsome, lady-like wife for the head of his establishment, and the woman wishes an elegant establishment to be mistress of; so they strike a bargain-possibly as good as most other bargains. Still, with one faint lingering of hope, Hilary asked if she had quite decided? "Quite. He wrote to me last night, and I gave him his answer this morning." Selina certainly had not troubled anybody with her "love affairs." It was entirely a matter of business. The sisters saw at once that she had made up her mind. Henceforward there could be no criticism of Mr. Peter Ascott. : Selina sighed could it be at the thought of that twenty years ago? Perhaps, shallow as she seemed, this woman might once have had some fancy, some ideal man whom she expected to meet and marry; possibly a very different sort of man from Mr. Peter Ascott. However, the sigh was but momentary; she plunged back again into all the arrangements of her wedding, every one of which, down to the wedding-dress, she had evidently decided. "And, therefore, you see," she added, as if the unimportant, almost forgotten item of discussion had suddenly occurred to her, "it's quite impossible that my sister should keep a shop. I shall tell Mr. Ascott, and you will see what he says to it." But when Mr. Ascott appeared next day in solemn state as an accepted lover, he seemed to care very little about the matter. He thought it was a good thing for everybody to be independent; did not see why young women-he begged pardon, young ladies-should not earn their own bread if they liked. He only wished that the shop were a little farther off than Kensington, and hoped the name of Leaf would not be put over the door. But the bride-elect, indignant and annoyed, begged her lover to interfere, and prevent the scheme from being carried out. "Don't vex yourself, my dear Selina," said he drily-how Hilary started to hear this stranger use the household name" but I can't see that it's my business to interfere. I marry you; I don't marry your whole family." "Mr. Ascott is quite right; we will end the subject," said Johanna, with grave dignity: while Hilary sat with burning cheeks, thinking that, miserable as the family had been, it had never till now known real degradation. But her heart was very sore that day. In strativeness: she was one of those people the morning had come the letter from India. who never "come out " till they are strongly never omitted, never delayed; Robert Lyon needed, and then But it remained to was punctual as clockwork in everything he be proved what this girl could be. did. It came, but this month it was a short and somewhat sad letter,-hinting of failing health, uncertain prospects; full of a bitter longing to come home, and a dread that it would be years before that longing was realized. Years afterwards, Hilary remembered with what a curious reticence Elizabeth used to go about in those days: how she remained as old-fashioned as ever; acquired no London ways, no fripperies of dress, no flippancies of manner. Also, that she never com"My only consolation is," he wrote, for plained of anything; though the discomonce betraying himself a little, "that how-forts of her lodging-house life must have ever hard my life out here may be, I bear it been great, greater than her mistresses alone." had any idea of at the time. Slowly, out But that consolation was not so easy to of her rough, unpliant girlhood, was formHilary. That they two should be wasting ing that character of self-reliance and selftheir youth apart, when just a little heap of control, which, in all ranks, makes of some yellow coins-of which men like Mr. Ascott women the helpers rather than the helped, had such profusion-would bring them to- the laborers rather than the pleasure-seekgether; and, let trials be many, or poverty ers; women whose constant lot it seems to hard, give them the unutterable joy of being be to walk on the shadowed side of life, to once more face to face and heart to heart, endure rather than to enjoy. oh, it was sore, sore! - Yet when she went up from the parlor, where the newly affianced couple sat together, "making believe" a passion that did not exist, and acting out the sham courtship, proper for the gentleman to pay, and the lady to receive,-when she shut her bedroom door, and there, sitting in the cold, read again and again Robert Lyon's letter to Johanna, so good, so honest, so sad, yet so bravely enduring,-Hilary was comforted. She felt that true love, in its most unsatisfied longings, its most cruel delays, nay, even its sharpest agonies of hopeless separation, is sweeter ten thousand times than the most "respectable" of loveless marriages, such as this. So, at the week's end, Hilary went patiently to her work at Kensington, and Selina began the preparations for her wedding. CHAPTER XV. IN relating so much about her mistresses, I have lately seemed to overlook Elizabeth Hand. She was a person easy enough to be overlooked. She never put herself forward, not even now, when Miss Hilary's absence caused the weight of housekeeping and domestic management to fall chiefly upon her. She went about her duties as soberly and silently as she had done in her girlhood; even Miss Leaf could not draw her into much demon Elizabeth had very little actual enjoyment. She made no acquaintances, and never asked for holidays. Indeed, she did not seem to care for any. Her great treat was when, on a Sunday afternoon, Miss Hilary sometimes took her to Westminster Abbey or St. Paul's; when her pleasure and gratitude always struck her mistress, nay, even soothed her, and won her from her own many anxieties. It is such a blessing to be able to make any other human being, even for an hour or two, entirely happy! Except these bright Sundays, Elizabeth's whole time was spent in waiting upon Miss Leaf, who had seemed to grow suddenly frail and old. It might be that living without her child six days out of the seven, was a greater trial than had at first appeared to the elder sister, who until now had never parted with her since she was born; or it was perhaps a more commonplace and yet natural cause, the living in London lodgings, without even a change of air from room to room; and the want of little comforts and luxuries, which, with all Hilary's care, were as impossible as ever to their limited means. For Selina's engagement, which, as a matter of decorum, she had insisted should last six months, did not lessen expenses. Old gowns were shabby, and omnibuses impossible to the future Mrs. Ascott of Russell Square; and though, to do her justice, she spent as little as her self-pleasing nature he briefly designated as a "jolly lark," to could do, still she spent something. the sharp economies which, even with the addition of Miss Hilary's salary, were still requisite. None of these latter did he ever "It's the last; I shall never cost you any more," she would say complacently; and revert to that question of absorbing inter- seem to notice, except when they pressed est, her trousseau, an extremely handsome upon himself, when he neither scolded nor one, provided liberally by Mr. Ascott. argued, but simply went out and avoided Sorely had this arrangement jarred upon them. the pride of the Leaf family: yet it was inevitable. But no personal favors would the other two sisters have accepted from Mr. Ascott, even had he offered them,-which he did not,-save a dress each for the marriage, and a card for the marriage-breakfast, which, he also arranged, was to take place at a hotel. So, in spite of the expected wedding, there was little change in the dull life that went on at No. 15. Its only brightness was when Miss Hilary came home from Saturday to Monday. And in those brief glimpses, when, as was natural, she on her side and they on theirs, put on their best face, so to speak, each trying to hide from the other any special care,-it so fell out that Miss Hilary never discovered a thing which, week by week, Elizabeth resolved to speak to her about, and yet never could. For it was not her own affair; it seemed like presumptuously meddling in the affairs of the family. Above all, it involved the necessity of something which looked like tale-bearing and backbiting of a person she disliked, and there was in Elizabeth-servant as she was an instinctive chivalrous honor which made her especially anxious to be just to her enemies. He was now absent from home more than ever, and apparently tried as much as possible to keep the household in the dark as to his movements-leaving at uncertain times, never saying what hour he would be back, or if he said so, never keeping to his word. This was the more annoying, as there were a number of people continually inquiring for him, hanging about the house, and waiting to see him "on business:" and some of these occasionally commented on the young gentleman in such unflattering terms, that Elizabeth was afraid they would reach the ear of Mrs. Jones, and henceforward tried always to attend to the door herself. But Mrs. Jones was a wide-awake woman. She had not let lodgings for thirty years for nothing. Ere long she discovered, and took good care to inform Elizabeth of her discovery, that Mr. Ascott Leaf was what is euphuistically termed "in difficulties." And here one word, lest in telling this poor lad's story, I may be supposed to tell it harshly or uncharitably, as if there were no crime greater than that which a large portion of society seems to count as none; as if, at the merest mention of that ugly word debt, this rabid author flew out, and made all the ultra-virtuous persons, whose history is here told, fly out, like turkeys after a bit of red cloth, which is a very harmless scrap of red cloth after all. Enemy, however, is a large word to use; and yet day by day her feelings grew more bitter towards the person concerned; namely, Mr. Ascott Leaf. It was not from any badness in him; he was the sort of young man always likely to be a favorite with what would be termed his "inferiors," easy, good-tempered, and gentlemanly, giving a good deal of trouble certainly, but giving it so agreeably, that few servants would have grumbled, and paying for itas he apparently thought everything could be paid for-with a pleasant word and a hand-dren in practice, that they have to learn the ful of silver. But Elizabeth's distaste for him had deeper roots. The principal one was his exceeding indifference to his aunts' affairs, great and small, from the marriage, which Most true: some kind of debt deserves only compassion. The merchant suddenly failing; the tenderly reared family who by some strange blunder or unkind kindness have been kept in ignorance of their real circumstances, and been spending pounds for which there was only pence to pay; the individuals, men or women, who, without any laxity of principle, are such utter chil value and use of money by hard experience, much as a child does, and are little better than children in all that concerns L. s. D. to the end of their days. But these are debtors by accident, not error. enough for itself. The deliberate debtor, who orders pebbles of preaching under the wheels of what he knows he has no means of paying my story; as it moves on, it will preach for; the pleasure-loving debtor who cannot renounce one single luxury for conscience' sake; the well-meaning, lazy debtor, who might make "ends met," but does not, simply because he will not take the trouble; upon such as these it is right to have no mercy, they deserve none. To which of these classes young Ascott Leaf belonged, his story will show. I tell it, or rather let it tell itself, and point its own moral; it is the story of hundreds and thousands. That a young fellow should not enjoy his youth would be hard; that it should be pleasant to him to dress well, live well, and spend with open hand upon himself, as well as others, no one will question. No one would ever wish it otherwise. Many a kindly spendthrift of twenty-one makes a prudent paterfamilias at forty, while a man who in his twenties showed a purposeless niggardliness, would at sixty grow into the most contemptible miser alive. There is something even in the thoughtless liberality of youth to which one's heart warms, even while one's wisdom reproves. But what struck Elizabeth was that Ascott's liberalities were always towards himself, and himself only. Sometimes when she took in a parcel of new clothes, while others, yet unpaid for, were tossing in wasteful disorder about his room, or when she cleaned indefinite pairs of handsome boots, and washed dozens of the finest cambric pocket-handkerchiefs, her spirit grew hot within her to remember Miss Hilary's countless wants and contrivances in the matter of dress, and all the little domestic comforts which Miss Leaf's frail health required-things which never once seemed course not, it will be said, how could a young to cross the nephew's imagination. Of man be expected to trouble himself about these things? Elizabeth's annoyances, suspicions, and conscience-pricks as to whether she ought or ought not to communicate both, came to an end at last. Gradually she made up her mind that, even if it did look like tale-bearing, on the following Saturday night Miss Hilary must know all. It was an anxious week, for Miss Leaf had fallen ill. Not seriously: and she never complained until her sister had left, when she returned to her bed and did not again rise. She would not have Miss Hilary sent for, nor Miss Selina, who was away paying a ceremonious pre-nuptial visit to Mr. Ascott's partner's wife at Dulwich. "I don't want anything that you cannot do for me. You are becoming a firstrate nurse, Elizabeth," she said, with that passive, peaceful smile, which almost frightened the girl; it seemed as if she were slipping away from this world and all its cares, into another existence. Elizabeth felt that to tell her anything about her nephew's affairs was perfectly impossible. How thankful she was that in the quiet of the sick-room her mistress was kept in ignorance of the knocks and inquiries at the door, and especially of a certain ominous paper which had fallen into Mrs. Jones' hands, and informed her, as she took good care to inform Elizabeth, that any day "the bailiffs" might be after her young master. "And the sooner the whole set of you clear out of my house the better; I'm a decent, respectable woman," said Mrs. Jones, that very morning; and Elizabeth had had to beg her as a favor, not to disturb her sick mistress, but to wait one day, till Miss Hilary came home. Also, when Ascott, ending with a cheerful and careless countenance his ten minutes' after-breakfast chat in his aunt's room, had met Elizabeth on the staircase, he had stopped to bid her say, if anybody wanted him, he was gone to Birmingham, and would not be home till Monday. And on Elizabeth's hesitating, she having determined to tell no more of these involuntary lies, he had been very angry, and then stooped to entreaties, begging her to do as he asked, or it would be the ruin of him. Which she unHowever, let me cease throwing these derstood well enough, when all the day, she But they do though. Answer, many a widow's son; many a needful brother of orphan sisters; many a solitary clerk living and paying his way upon the merest pittance: is it not better to think of others than one's self? Can a man, even a young man, find his highest happiness in mere personal enjoyment? |