Fenn George Manville
The Story of Antony Grace

Chapter Forty Two.
A Question of Law

Stephen Hallett’s model was still at rest; for, poor fellow, he had now a fresh trouble upon his hands.

The excitement had been too much for Linny, and he got her home to find her delirious; a severe attack of brain fever came on, and her life was, for many days, hanging by a thread.

I was there every evening, to find that Mary had installed herself head nurse, and whenever Hallett spoke to her, she was always ready with the one reply:

“Didn’t she come and tend my pore Bill?” This went on for a time, but Hallett insisted, and Mary proving obdurate, he talked to Revitts about remuneration.

“Oh, never mind about that,” said the bluff fellow. “She says she’s got plenty of time on her hands, and we’ve both saved a bit, and as long as she gets what I want, and is at home when I come, it don’t interfere with me; and bless your heart, Mr Hallett, what would life be if one on us wouldn’t do a good turn to another?”

“Yes, but I cannot feel satisfied to let your good wife work for me for nothing.”

“Ah,” said Bill sagely. “That’s the worst of eddication, it makes a man so uppish. No offence, Mr Hallett, sir, but you being a highly eddicated man – ”

“Tut – tut! nonsense!” said Hallett, smiling. “Oh, but you are, you know,” said Revitts. “Ant’ny says you are, and it’s wonderful what a power o’ stuff that there young chap’s got in his head. I come the top-sawyer over him when he first come up to London; but, Lor’ bless you! I give in to everything out o’ the ornerary in no time. It’s on’y nat’ral that eddication should make a man uppish. I’ve felt a deal more so since Ant’ny’s given me a lift in spellin’. I always was a good writer, but my spellin’, Mr Hallett, sir! Ha – ha – ha!” he cried, bursting out in a guffaw; “I know now when I looks back at some of my old books, it was a rum ’un. Them big words was just like so many forty-barred gates to my getting promoted.”

“I suppose so,” said Hallett; “but about payment for your wife’s services?”

“Why, you do pay me,” said Revitts sturdily. “She gets braxfuses, and dinners, and teas – no end.”

“Yes, but that counts for nothing.”

“Oh, don’t it,” said Revitts, laughing. “You ask Ant’ny about that, and how him and me used to dodge to make the money run to good meals. Look here, Mr Hallett, sir, I’m only a humble sort of a chap, but you’ve always been kindly to me, and I hope it ain’t no disrespect to you to call you a friend.”

“I’m only too glad to call you ‘friend,’ Revitts,” said Hallett, holding out his hand, which the other gripped like a vice, “and I thank Antony Grace for making me known to two such good hearted people as you and your worthy wife.”

“Thanky, sir, for Mary – thanky,” exclaimed Revitts, nodding his head. “She’s a good one, and no mistake; and as for her bit of temper, Antony,” he said, speaking as if he were very much moved, as he turned to me, “that bit of rough is like ballast to her, and keeps her down; for, if it wasn’t for her tantrums, I believe she’d have been an angel long ago, and then – what should I have done? Lor’ bless you both, they call us pleecemen lobsters, raw lobsters, to distinguish us from the soldiers, and because we’re dark blue and so hard; but I’m soft enough inside, and that woman knows it, too. Well, sir, about this remooneration – as you call it. Look here, she won’t take no money, so I’ll tell you what you do by-and-by when she’s nursed Miss Linny back to health – as she will, you mark my words if she don’t – better than any doctor. It’s a treat, to be ill under her. Lord’s truth!” cried the great fellow, smiling and looking as silly as a fat boy, “the way she’d wash my face and neck, and go in an’ out o’ my ears with the sponge and towel without hurting, was ’eavenly.”

Hallett could not forbear a smile, and I roared.

“Ah, you may grin, Ant’ny my lad, but you’ll see, some day when you’re on your back, she’s the best nuss that ever lived. There!”

“She is, indeed, Revitts,” cried Hallett, “and – Heaven bless her! my poor mother has not been so well for months as she has been since your wife has tended her.”

“There, Ant’ny, hear that!” cried Revitts. “She’s a woman to be proud on – that she is.”

“That she is, Bill,” I echoed, clapping the dear old fellow on the shoulder.

“Well, as I was saying,” he exclaimed, “just you give her a noo gownd, something bright and with some colour in it, and if so be as she isn’t at home when I get back, p’r’aps you wouldn’t mind my coming in for a snack here, for if I don’t get my corn reglar I’m nowhere.”

“My dear fellow, I shall never be able to thank you enough,” cried Hallett.

“Oh, that’s all right among friends, ain’t it, Ant’ny? He knows me better, and Mary, too, than you do, so let’s drop all that, sir; and now I want to talk serious to you about this here affair. I feel, sir, as a sergeant of police, that I oughtn’t to rest till I’ve brought that chap to justice.”

I saw Hallett start and change colour. Then, getting up, he began to walk up and down the room, ending by coming and laying his hand upon Revitts’ shoulder.

“Revitts,” he said, “that man has done you a very serious injury.”

“Never mind about that, Mr Hallett, sir; I dare say I shall put that square. I was thinking about you.”

“Yes, and he has done me a deadly injury,” said Hallett, in a low, dreamy voice; “but I cannot retaliate. You will think me strange and weak perhaps; but I cannot take any steps toward punishing this man.”

Revitts looked disappointed.

“I’d been hoping, sir,” he said, “that you’d got to know who I was, and could give me a hint or two, so that I could put my ban upon him. You know who it is, sir?”

Hallett looked at him searchingly, and a deep frown came upon his forehead.

“Yes,” he said, “I know who it is; but for many reasons I cannot stir in the matter. Besides, what could I do? He has committed no punishable offence against me.”

“No, that’s true,” said Revitts quickly; “but he has against me. Assaulting the police is ’most as bad as high-treason, and if you’ll give me his name, sir, or put me in the way of getting a hand on him, I’ll give him a twelvemonths’ imprisonment.”

Hallett shook his head.

“No, Revitts,” he said, “I look upon him as my most deadly enemy, and some day I may take the scoundrel by the throat, but I cannot help you here.”

“Now, that’s where you’re wrong, sir, if you’ll ’scuse me. A man mustn’t take the law into his own hands. You think better of it, sir. You can’t punish, though he richly deserves it, but I can; and if ever I get a chance, I will.”

Revitts soon after rose to go, Mary having announced her intention of sitting up all night with Linny, and Hallett and I were left alone.

“No, Antony,” he said, looking me in the face, just as if I had spoken to him on the subject. “My hands are tied: John Lister must go free. I can do nothing.”

“He deserves flogging!” I exclaimed, “and I feel that I ought to tell Miss Carr.”

He started, and half turned away.

“Have you told Miss Carr, Antony?”

“No,” I said, “I can’t be so mean; but she ought to know, for she believes him to be very true and honourable. I wish some one would tell her. Can’t you?”

“I? Tell Miss Carr? Antony, are you mad?” he cried, with a show of excitement that I could not understand. “No, I could not tell her. What would she think of me?”

“Yes, she is so high-minded and good,” I replied, “that she would think anybody a miserable talebearer who told her what a scoundrel Mr Lister is. I don’t think she would believe it, either.”

“No,” he said softly, “she could not believe such a thing of the man she loves.”

“Do you know,” I said, innocently enough, “I don’t think she does love Mr Lister very much.”

His eyes flashed as he looked at me; but he made no reply, and only sat gazing before him in a wistful, saddened way that I did not comprehend then as I went on chatting to him.

“No, I shall not tell her – I couldn’t,” I said. “It would be too mean, and yet it would be horrible for her to marry such a man as that. Have you seen him, since, Hallett?”

“Seen him? – Since? No, Antony, I have not been to the office since that night. I could never go there again.”

I looked at him anxiously, for his ways and looks were very strange; but I attributed everything to anxiety on Linny’s behalf, and we very soon changed the topic; and after hearing the last account about Linny, I rose to go, Hallett coming downstairs, and out into the starlit street, walking a few hundred yards with me towards my lodgings, before finally taking his leave, and going thoughtfully away.

Chapter Forty Three.
A Scene

I have often thought since upon the magnanimity of Hallett’s character. Loving Miss Carr, as he did, with a passionate, hopeless love, he knew her to be engaged to John Lister, and feeling bound in honour to be just to the man he served, he crushed down his passion, and hid it in his breast. Hopeless he knew it was, from his position; but, however hopeless, it must have been agony to him to hear of his rival’s success. How much greater, then, must his sufferings have been when he found that the man to whom the woman he adored had promised to give her hand was a scoundrel of the basest kind!

He loved her so well that her future happiness must have been his constant thought, and now he learned that she was bound to the man who cared so little for the treasure of her love that he was ready to engage in any intrigue; while the very fact that the object chosen for this cruel intrigue was Hallett’s own sister must have been maddening.

He must have felt fettered by his position, for he could not accuse John Lister to the woman he loved. He felt that he was too full of self-interest, and besides, how could he speak words that would inflict such a sorrow upon the peaceful life of Miriam Carr?

No: he felt bound in honour to be silent, and, crushing down his love and his honest indignation against John Lister, he sought employment elsewhere, and spent his leisure in keeping watch over his home.

He took one step, though, that I did not know of till long afterwards; he wrote to John Lister, telling him that his perfidy was known, and uttering so fierce a warning against him if he pursued Linny, or even wrote to her again, that the careful watch and ward kept over the house in Great Ormond Street proved to be unnecessary, for the sensual tiger, foiled in his spring, had slunk away.

On the day after my talk with Hallett, and Revitts’ visit to the house, I made my way after office-hours to Miss Carr’s, to find my welcome warmer than ever; for she flushed with pleasure, and sat for some time talking to me of her sister, who had written to her from abroad.

“Now, Antony,” she exclaimed, “you and I will dine together, and after that you shall be my escort to a concert at Saint James’s Hall.”

“A concert!” I exclaimed eagerly.

“Yes; I was about to send the tickets away, but you have come in most opportunely.”

I was delighted; for I had never heard any of our best singers, and we chatted through dinner of the music we were to hear, after which I was left in the drawing-room, to amuse myself, while Miss Carr went up to dress.

I took up a book, and began to read; but the thoughts of Linny Hallett and Mr Lister kept coming into my head, and I asked myself whether I ought not to tell Miss Carr.

No; I felt that I could not, and then I began wondering whether the engagement that had been extended might not after all come to nothing, as I hoped it would. It was horrible to me now, that John Lister should be allowed to keep up ties with my patroness, knowing what I did of his character; and yet I felt could not, I dared not, tell. At last, in the midst of my contending thoughts, some of which were for telling, some against, I forced myself into reading the book I had taken up, striving so hard to obtain the mastery over self that I succeeded – so well that I did not hear a cab stop, nor the quick step of him who had occupied so large a share of my thoughts.

“Ah, Grace,” said John Lister cavalierly, as he entered the room unannounced, completely taking me by surprise as I started up from the book. “You here again! Well, how’s engineering? Like it as well as printing, eh? Why, you are growing quite the gentleman, you lucky dog! I suppose we must shake hands now.”

I felt as if all the blood in my body had rushed to my face, and a strange sensation of rage half choked me as I drew back.

“Why, what’s the matter with you, boy?” he exclaimed. “Hold out your hand.”

“I’ll not,” I exclaimed indignantly; “how dare you ask me!”

“Dare I ask you – puppy!” he exclaimed, with an insolent laugh. “Why, what do you mean?”

“How dare you come here?” I cried, my indignation getting the mastery of me.

“Dare I come here!” he exclaimed, frowning. “Why, you insolent young upstart, what do you mean?”

“I mean that you ought to be ashamed to show your face here again after your behaviour to Mr Hallett’s sister.”

“Hush!”

As he uttered that word he caught me by the throat, thrust his face close to mine, and I saw that he was deadly pale.

“You dog!” he whispered; “if you dare to utter another word, I’ll – ”

He did not finish, but gave me a vindictive look that was full of threatenings of ill.

But unfortunately for him, he had hurt me severely as he caught me by the throat, and the pain, instead of cowing me, filled me full of rage. With one quick wrest I was free, and turning upon him fiercely, I exclaimed:

“I will speak in spite of what you say. You are a coward, and treacherous, and no gentleman!”

“Silence, dog!” he cried, in a hoarse whisper. “Have you dared to tell Miss Carr lies about me?”

“I’m not a tell-tale,” I cried scornfully, “and I’m not afraid of you, Mr Lister. I would not tell Miss Carr, but I dare tell you that you are a coward and a scoundrel!”

He raised his fist, and I believe that he would have struck me, but just then his hand fell to his side, and his lips seemed to turn blue as he stared straight over my shoulder, and turning hastily, I saw Miriam Carr standing white and stern in the doorway, dressed ready for the concert.

“Ah, Miriam,” he exclaimed, recovering himself; and he forced a smile to his lips; “Grace and I were engaged in a dispute.”

She did not answer him, but turned to me. “Antony,” she said sternly, “repeat those words you just said.”

“No, no; mere nonsense,” exclaimed John Lister playfully. “It was nothing – nothing at all.”

“Repeat those words, Antony Grace,” cried Miss Carr, without seeming to heed him: and she came towards where I stood, while I felt as if I would gladly have sunk through the floor.

For a few moments I hesitated, then a feeling of strength seemed to come to me, and I looked up at her firmly as I said:

“Don’t ask me, Miss Carr! I cannot tell.”

“Antony!” she exclaimed.

“My dear Miriam – ” began John Lister; but she turned from him.

“Antony,” she cried imperiously, and her handsome eyes flashed as she stamped her foot; “I insist upon knowing the meaning of those words.”

I was silent.

“It was nothing, my dear Miriam,” exclaimed John Lister. Then in a low voice to me, “Go: I’ll cover your retreat.”

Go, and run off like a coward? No; that I felt I could not do, and I looked indignantly at him.

“If you value my friendship, Antony,” cried Miss Carr, “tell me, I insist, what you meant by that accusation of Mr Lister.”

“I do – I do value your friendship, Miss Carr,” I cried passionately, “but don’t, pray don’t ask me. I cannot – I will not tell.”

“I command you to tell me,” she cried: and to my young eyes she looked queen-like in her beauty, as she seemed to compel me to obey.

Mature thought tells me that she must indeed have seemed even majestic in her bearing, for John Lister looked pale and haggard, and I saw him again and again moisten his dry lips and essay to speak.

“I cannot tell you,” I said; “Miss Carr, pray do not ask me!” I cried piteously.

“Tell me this instant, or leave my house, ungrateful boy!” she exclaimed passionately; and, casting an imploring look at her, I saw that she was pointing towards the door.

I would have given the world to have obeyed her; but there seemed to be something so cowardly, so mean and despicable, in standing there and accusing John Lister before the face of his affianced wife, that, with a piteous look, I slowly turned towards the door.

It was terrible to me to be driven away like that, and I felt my heart swell with bitterness; but I could not speak, and as I once more looked in her pitiless eyes, she was still pointing at the door.

The handle was already in my hand, and, giddy and despairing, I should have gone, had not Miriam Carr’s clear voice rang out loudly:

“Stop!”

Then, as I turned:

“Come here, Antony!” and the pointing finger was there no longer, but two extended hands, which I ran across the room and seized, struggling hard to keep back the emotion that was striving for exit, for I was but a boy.

“My dear Miriam – ” began John Lister once more.

“Mr Lister,” she said, and her voice was very low and stern, as she placed one arm round my waist and laid her right hand upon my shoulder, “will you have the goodness to leave my house?”

“My dear Miriam, pray be reasonable!” he exclaimed. “That foolish boy has got some crotchet into his head. It is all a silly blunder, which I can explain in a few words. I assure you it is all a mistake.”

“If it is a mistake, Mr Lister, you have nothing to mind; I now wish to be alone.”

“But, Miriam, dearest Miriam, grant me a few minutes’ conversation. I assure you I can set myself right in your eyes.”

“If it is all a mistake, Mr Lister, why did you threaten Antony Grace, if he dared to tell me the words I heard?”

“Because I was angry with him for making such a blunder, and I feared that it would upset you. Let me speak to you alone. Miriam, dear Miriam, you force me to speak to you like this before Antony Grace. I tell you,” he cried, desperately trying to catch her hand, “I swear to you – what he said is a tissue of lies.”

“And I tell you,” she cried scornfully, “that Antony Grace never told an untruth in his life. Mr Lister, I am a woman, and unprotected. I ask you now to leave my house.”

“I cannot leave you with that boy, and no opportunity for defending myself. I must have a counsellor.”

“You shall have one, John Lister,” she said in a low, dull voice. “I will be your counsellor when he accuses you.”

“Heaven bless you?” he exclaimed excitedly. “Your loving heart will take my part.”

“My womanly duty, John Lister, and my plighted faith will join to defend you from this grave charge.”

“Let me stay and plead my own cause, dearest Miriam,” he cried, stretching out his hands and fixing his eyes upon hers; but her look was cold, stern, and pitiless, and for answer she pointed to the door.

He made another appeal, but she seemed to be absolute, to master him, and at last, trembling, white with passion and disappointment, he turned and left the room, shrinking from that stern, pointing finger, and half-staggering down the stairs. I heard him hurry across the hall, and the door closed so loudly that the house seemed to be filled with echoes, while his steps were perfectly audible as he strode along the street.

Chapter Forty Four.
I am Forgiven

“Oh, Miss Carr,” I cried at last, as I broke the painful silence, “what have I done?”

She did not answer for some moments. Then, leading me to the couch, she threw off her opera-cloak, and sat looking at me for a few moments before passing her hand across my forehead to brush aside the hair, and kissing me on the brow.

“What have you done, Antony? Shown me that I was not mistaken in you when I thought you all that was honest and true.”

I could not speak; only sat gazing at her face as she fought hard to conquer her agitation.

“Ring the bell, Antony,” she said at last. “You must bear with me to-night, and not be disappointed. Do not let James enter the room, but meet him on the landing, and say that I shall not want the carriage.”

I hastened to obey her, and then I returned, to stand before her, anxious and sick at heart; but she pointed to the seat at her side.

“Antony,” she said, after some time had elapsed, “why did you not tell me this – this piteous story at once? Was I not worthy of your confidence?”

“Yes, yes,” I said; “but how could I tell you? I dared not.”

“Dared not?”

“I felt that it would be so cowardly and mean to tell tales of Mr Lister, and I hoped that you might find out yourself that he was not so good a man as you thought.”

She drew a long, deep breath.

“But you might have caused me the deepest misery, Antony,” she said.

“But what could I do?” I cried passionately. “I wanted to tell you, and then I felt that I could not; and I talked to Mr Hallett about it, and he said, too, that I could not speak.”

“You must tell me now, Antony,” she said, as she turned away her face. “Tell me all.”

I drew a breath full of relief, and proceeded to tell her all, referring to Linny’s first adventure and Revitts’ injuries, and going on to all I knew of Linny’s elopement, to the end.

“But, Antony,” she exclaimed, as I finished, and she now turned her face towards mine, “can this be true? Is it certain that it was Mr Lister?”

“Yes,” I said; “certain. His letters to poor Linny show all that; and she talks about him in her delirium, poor girl!”

“I cannot believe it of him,” she said; “and yet – How long is it since your friend was hurt?”

I told her the very night, from my pocket-book.

“His hands were injured from a struggle, he told me, with some drunken man,” she said half to herself. Then aloud, “Antony, did you see either of these letters?”

“Yes; Mr Hallett asked me to look at them, to see if I knew the handwriting as well as he; and, besides, in one of her intervals of reason, poor Linny clung to her brother, and begged him never to let Mr Lister see her again.”

“Did she say why?” asked Miss Carr hoarsely.

“Yes; she said he had such power over her that she was afraid of him.”

A half-hysterical sob seemed to rise to Miss Carr’s lips, but her face was very stern and unchanged.

Then, rising quickly, as if a sudden thought occurred to her, she crossed the room to a little Japanese cabinet, and took out a short, thick cord, as it seemed to me; but, as she placed it in my hands, I saw that it was a short hair watch-guard, finished with gilded swivel and cross.

She placed it in my hands without a word, looking at me intently the while, as if questioning me with her eyes.

“That is Linny Hallett’s chain,” I said. “She made that guard herself, of her own hair. How did it come here?”

“Mr Lister dropped it, I suppose,” she said, with a look of scorn flashing from her eyes. “It was found by one of my servants in the hall after he was gone, and brought to me. I had forgotten it, Antony, until now.”

There was again a deep silence in the room, but at last she broke it with an eager question.

“Tell me about this Linny Hallett,” she said. “You have often told me that she is pretty. Is she good?”

“Oh yes, I am sure she is,” I said; “but she is weak and wilful, and she must have loved Mr Lister very much to turn as she has from so true a brother as Mr Hallett.”

“And – Mr Hallett – is he a good brother to her?”

“Good brother!” I exclaimed, my admiration for my friend carrying me away; “he is all that is noble and patient and good. Poor Hallett! he is more like a father to Linny than a brother, and then his patience with his poor mother! Oh, Miss Carr, I wish you knew him, too!”

She darted an inquiring look at me and then turned away her head, speaking no more, but listening intently as I told her of poor Hallett’s patience under misfortune, relating the story again of his noble sacrifice of self to keep those who were dear to him; of the anxiety Linny caused him, and of his tenderness of the unreasonable invalid he made his care.

Then, being thus set a-going, I talked, too, of the model, and our labours, and again of my ambition to get to be an engineer in order to help him, little thinking how I had turned myself into a special pleader to the advancement of my poor friend’s cause.

At last, half-ashamed of my earnestness, I looked inquiringly in my companion’s face, to find that she was listening intently, and she looked up at me as I ceased.

“And this Mr – Mr Hallett,” she said softly, “is still a workman in Messrs Ruddle and Lister’s employ?”

“Oh no! Miss Carr,” I exclaimed; “he told me he could never enter the place again, and that he dared not trust himself to meet Mr Lister face to face. He has not been there since, and he never will go there now.”

Miss Carr seemed to breathe more freely as I said these words, and then there was another interval of silence.

“Is Mr Hallett poor?” she asked then.

“Oh yes, very poor,” I said. “He has been obliged to stop his work over his invention sometimes, because the money has to go to buy wine and little choice things for poor Mrs Hallett. She is always repining and talking of the days when she had her conservatory and carriage, and, worst of all, she blames poor Hallett so for his want of ambition. Yes, Miss Carr,” I said, repeating myself to willing ears, “and he is one of the truest and best of men. He was not always a workman, you know.”

“Indeed!” she said; and I saw that she bent her head lower as she listened.

“No,” I said enthusiastically, as I, in my heart, set up Stephen Hallett as the model I meant to imitate. “His father was a surgeon in Warwickshire, and Mr Hallett was at college – at Oxford, where he was working to take honours.”

Miss Carr’s lips parted as she still sat with her head bent.

“He told me all about it one evening. He was sent for home one day to find his father dying; and, a week later, poor Mr Hallett found himself with all his father’s affairs upon his hands, and that he had died heavily in debt.”

Miss Carr’s head was slowly raised, and I felt proud then to see how I had interested her.

“Then,” I continued, “he had to try what he could do. He could not go back to college; for it took everything, even the furniture, to pay off his father’s debts, and then, one day, Miss Carr, he had to sit down and think how he was to keep his widowed mother, and his sister, and himself.”

Miss Carr was now sitting with her head resting upon her hand, her elbow upon her knee, listening intently to all I said.

“Mr Hallett and his father had some type and a little press in one of the rooms, with which they used to print poems and little pamphlets, and Mr Hallett had learnt enough about printing to make him, when he had taken his mother and sister up to London, try and get employment in an office. And he did; and he says he used to be horribly afraid of being found out and treated as an impostor; but by working with all his might he used to manage to keep up with the slow, lazy ones, and then, by degrees, he passed them; and now – oh, you should see him! – he can set up type much faster than the quickest man who ever came into the office.”

“And does he keep his mother and sister now?” she said dreamily.

“Oh yes,” I said; “Mrs Hallett has been an invalid ever since Mr Stephen Hallett’s father died.”

Miss Carr had sunk back in the corner of the couch, closing her eyelids, and I thought I saw a couple of tears stealing down her cheeks; but directly after she covered her face with her hands, remaining silent like that for quite half-an-hour – a silence that I respected to the end.

At last she rose quietly, and held out her hand.

“Antony,” she said softly, “I am not well to-night. Forgive me if I have disappointed you. Another time we must make up for this.”

“Oh, Miss Carr,” I said, “you have been so grieved.”

“Yes, greatly grieved, Antony, in many ways – not least that I spoke to you so harshly as I did.”

“But you are not angry with me?” I said. “You forgive me for not speaking out.”

“Forgive you?” she said softly – “forgive you, my boy? – yes. But go now; I do not feel myself. Good-night, Antony, my dear boy; go.”

To my surprise, she took me tenderly in her arms and kissed me, leading me afterwards to the door, and laying her cheek against my forehead before she let me out.

“Come to me to-morrow, Antony; come again to dinner; perhaps the next day I may be leaving town.”