The Story of Antony Grace

“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.”

Chapter Forty Five.

Hallett’s New Landlord

A year slipped rapidly away, full of changes for some people, no doubt; but to me it was very uneventful. I worked away at my profession steadily, liking it better every day, and for nothing more strongly than that it gave me knowledge that I felt would be of advantage to Stephen Hallett, with whom I grew more intimate than ever.

The home at Great Ormond Street seemed now less sombre and desolate; for since her serious illness, from which poor Linny had been literally nursed back into life by Mary and Hallett, the girl was completely changed.

As she began to mend, I used to find a great deal of time to go and sit with her; for her return to strength was very slow, and the poor worn face would light up and the great staring eyes brighten whenever I went into the room with some little offering or another that I thought would please her. Sometimes it would be flowers, or fruit, or any little delicacy that I thought she would fancy; but the greatest pleasure I could give her was to take some fresh book, and sit and read.

She used to lie upon a couch near the window, where she could look out upon the sky, and when I was not there I suppose she would lie like that, thinking, for hours, without speaking a word.

Mary had grown to be quite an institution at the place, and the two invalids at last took up so much of her time, that a scheme was one day proposed by me, consequent upon an announcement made to me by Hallett.

“We shall be obliged to leave,” he said. “The tenants of this house are going away.”

“But it will be terrible work, Hallett,” I said. “How will Linny and Mrs Hallett bear the change?”

“I hope patiently and well,” he said quietly, and the subject dropped; but an idea had occurred to me which I hastened to put in force.

My first step was to write to Miss Carr, whom I had not seen for many, many months, as, directly after the meeting with Mr Lister she had gone on the Continent with her newly-married sister, whose husband had an official appointment at Marseilles, and had resided with her ever since.

I was grievously disappointed at having to part with so good a friend; but she promised to write to me every week, and gave me the strictest injunctions to send to her for advice or help whenever I should find myself in need.

I had no hesitation whatever, then, in asking her in my weekly letter for help to carry out my plan, and that was to find Revitts and Mary the money to buy the lease of the house in Great Ormond Street, so that Mary would be better able to attend to her friends, and, while acting as their landlady, supply me with better rooms as well.

I broached the subject to Revitts and his wife that very evening, and the former nodded.

“How much would it take, Ant’ny?” he said.

“The lease would be a hundred pounds,” I said. “Then the rent is eighty.”

“That’s a deal of money, my dear,” said Mary; “and then there’s the rates.”

“Yes,” I said; “but then look here, Mary; I should like a sitting-room as well as a bedroom now, and I could pay you twenty-five or thirty pounds a year for that. I know Mr Hallett pays twenty-six for what he has, and you could, as you often said you would like to, let another floor; for it is a large house. I think you would live rent-free.”

“There,” cried Revitts, giving the table a slap. “What do you think of that, Polly?”

“Think of what?” she said tartly; for the seriousness of the subject unsettled her.

“What he says. D’ye hear his business-like way of reckoning it up: so much for this here, and so much for that there? He couldn’t have talked like that when he come up to London first, as green as a bit o’ grass. That’s my teaching, that is. I knew I could sharpen him up.”

“Don’t be so conceited, Bill,” she exclaimed. “But a large house means lots of furniture, Master Antony. No, I don’t think it would do. We haven’t enough.”

“But I’ve written to Miss Carr, to ask her to let me have the money for you.”

Revitts got up out of his chair, where he was partaking of tea and bread and butter in a rather wholesale style, pulled himself together, buttoned up his coat, took a couple of official strides to where I sat, and, taking my hand, began shaking it up and down for some moments.

Then he gave Mary three or four wags of the head and nods, and went back to his tea, unbuttoning the while.

“That’s very nice and kind of you, Master Antony,” she said; “but that money would be only borrowed, and it would have to be paid back again, and sit upon us like lumps of lead till it was – ”

“Oh, nonsense, Mary, I don’t believe Miss Carr would ever want it back – I think she’ll give me the money. And besides, I mean to furnish my own rooms, so that will be two less.”