The Story of Antony Grace

For answer she caught his hand in hers, and drew his befouled arm through her own.

“Come,” she said, as her eyes flashed with anger; “lean on me. They will not dare to treat a woman ill.”

“Antony,” cried Hallett hoarsely. “Miss Carr – take her away!”

“Lean on me,” she cried proudly. “Antony, beat a way for us through these curs.”

I took Hallett’s other arm, and as we stepped forward, Jem Smith uttered a loud “Yah!” but it seemed as if it was broken before it left his lips, and he went staggering back from a tremendous blow right in the teeth, delivered by Tom Girtley.

Then there was an interlude, for some one else forced his way to the front.

“Miss Carr! great heavens! what is all this?” he cried. “Give me your hand. This is no place for you. What does this outrage mean? Quick! let me help you. This is horrible.”

“Stand back, sir!”

“You are excited,” he cried. “You don’t know me. I see now; there is your carriage. Stand away, you ruffians. How thankful I am that I was near! Take this man away. Is he drunk?”

As he spoke, John Lister, with a look of supreme disgust, pushed poor fainting Hallett back, and tried to draw Miss Carr out of the crowd.

“Coward! Villain! This is your work!” she cried in a low, strange voice; and as he tried to draw her away, she sharply thrust him from her.

The crowd uttered a cry of excitement as they witnessed the act; and, stung almost to madness with rage and mortification, Lister turned upon me.

But I again found a good man at my back, for, boiling with rage, Tom Girtley struck at him fiercely and kept him off, while in the midst of the noise, pushing, and hustling of the crowd, a confusion that seemed to me now as unreal as some dream, we got Hallett along towards the carriage, he, poor fellow, seeming ready to sink at every step, while the true-hearted woman at his side clung to him and passed one arm round him to help him.

The coachman now saw that his mistress seemed to be in need of help, and he shortened the distance by forcing his horses onward through the gathering crowd.

But the danger was past, for those who now thronged out from the buildings on either side were workpeople attracted by the noise, and they rapidly outnumbered John Lister’s gang of scoundrels, got together by his lieutenant, Jem Smith, for the mortification of the man he hated, while his triumph had been that the woman they loved had come to his rival’s help, glorified him, as it were, by her presence, and rained down scorn and contempt upon his own wretched head.

As I said before, it seems now like some terrible dream, in which I found myself in Miss Carr’s carriage, with her sister looking ghastly with fear beside me, and Hallett in the back seat, nearly unconscious, beside Miss Carr.

“Tell the coachman to stop at the nearest doctor’s, Antony,” she said; and I lowered the glass and told Tom Girtley, who had mounted to the driver’s side.

“No, no,” said Hallett, faintly, for her words seemed to bring him to. “For pity’s sake. To my own home. Why have you done this?”

She did not speak, but I saw her take his hand, and her eyes fix themselves, as it were, upon his, while a great sob laboured from her breast.

“Mr Grace,” faltered Miss Carr’s sister, “this is very dreadful;” and I saw her frightened eyes wander from the mud-besmeared object opposite her to her sister’s injured attire, and the sullied linings of the carriage.

“Antony,” said Miss Carr then, “do what is for the best.”

For answer, I lowered the window again and uttered to Tom Girtley the one word, “Home.”

Fortunately, Revitts was on night duty, and ready to come as the carriage stopped at the door, where we had to lift the poor fellow out, and carry him to his bed, perfectly insensible now from the effects of the blow.

I was rather surprised to find the carriage gone when I descended, but my suspense was of short duration, for it soon came back with a neighbouring doctor, whom Miss Carr had fetched.

Mary was at hand to show him up, while I ran down to the carriage-door, where Miss Carr grasped my hand for a moment, her face now looking flushed and strange.

“Come to me to-night, Antony,” she said in a low voice – “come and tell me all.”

She sank back in the carriage then, as if to hide herself from view, while in obedience to her mute signal, I bade the coachman drive her and her sister home.

Chapter Fifty Seven.

I Find I Have a Temper

I went to Miss Carr’s nearly every evening now, to report progress; for her instructions to me, after a consultation between Mr Jabez, Mr Ruddle, Mr Girtley, and myself, were that neither expense nor time was to be spared in perfecting the machine.

We had gone carefully into the reasons for the breakdown, and were compelled reluctantly to own that sooner or later the mechanism would have failed; for besides the part I named, we found several weak points in the construction – faults that only a superhuman intelligence could have guarded against. The malignant act had only hastened the catastrophe.

It was a cruel trick, and though we could not bring it home, we had not a doubt that the dastardly act was committed by Jem Smith, who was the instrument of John Lister. A little examination showed how easily the back premises could be entered by anyone coming along behind from Lister’s, and there was some talk of prosecution, but Hallett was ill, and it was abandoned.

For the blow he had received from a piece of the machinery had produced serious injury to the head, and day after day I had very bad news to convey to Miss Carr. The poor fellow seemed to have broken down utterly, and kept his bed. He used to try to appear cheerful; but it was evident that he took the matter bitterly to heart, and at times gave up all hope of ever perfecting the machine.

It was pitiful to see his remorseful looks when Mr Jabez came to see him of an evening; Mr Peter, who always accompanied his brother, stopping in my room to smoke a long pipe I kept on purpose for him, whether I was at home or no, and from time to time he had consultations with Tom Girtley, who kept putting off a communication that he said he had to make till he had his task done.

I used to notice that he and Mr Peter had a great deal to say to each other, but I was too much taken up with my troubles about Hallett and the machine to pay much heed; for sometimes the idea forced itself upon me that my poor friend would never live to realise his hopes.

Time glided on, and I used to sit with him in an evening, and tell him how we had progressed during the day; but it made no impression whatever; he used only to lie and dream, never referring once to Miss Carr’s behaviour on that wretched day; in fact, I used to fancy sometimes that he was in such a state from his injury that he had not thoroughly realised what did occur.

It was indeed a dreary time; for poor Mrs Hallett, when, led by a sense of duty, I used to go and sit with her, always had a reproachful look for me, and, no matter what I said, she always seemed to make the worst of matters.

But for Linny and Tom Girtley, the place would have been gloomy indeed, but the latter was always bright and cheerful, and Linny entirely changed. There was no open love-making, but a quiet feeling of respect seemed to have sprung up between them, and I hardly knew what was going on, only when it was brought to my attention by Mr Jabez, or Revitts, or Mary.

“I should have thought as you wouldn’t have liked that there friend of yourn cutting you out in the way he do, Ant’ny,” said Revitts, one day; “I don’t want to make mischief, but this here is my – our – house,” he added by way of correction, “and I don’t think as a young man as is a friend of yourn ought to come down my stairs with his arm round a certain young lady’s waist.”

“Go along, do, with your stuff and nonsense, William,” exclaimed Mary sharply. “What do you know about such things?”

“Lots,” said Bill, grinning with delight, and then becoming preternaturally serious; “I felt it to be my dooty to tell Ant’ny, and I have.”

“You don’t know nothing about it,” said Mary, tittering; “he don’t know what we know, do he, Master Antony?”

“I don’t know what you mean, Mary,” I replied.

“Oh do, of course not, Master Antony; but I shouldn’t like a certain young lady down at Rowford to hear you say so.”

“Phew!” whistled Revitts, and feeling very boyish and conscious, I made my retreat, for I was bound for Westmouth Street, and had stopped to have ten minutes’ chat downstairs with my old friends on the way.

I found Miss Carr looking very thin and anxious, and she listened eagerly to my account of howl was progressing at the works.

“Mr Girtley tells me that you are doing wonders, Antony,” she said, in a curious, hesitating way, for we both seemed to be fencing, and as if we disliked to talk of the subject nearest to our hearts.

She was the first to cast off the foolish reserve though, and to ask after Hallett’s health.

“The doctors don’t seem to help him a bit,” I said sadly. “Poor fellow! he thinks so much about the failure of his hopes, and it is heart-breaking to see him. He toiled for it so long. Oh, Miss Carr, if I only knew for certain that it was John Lister who caused the breakdown, I should almost feel as if I could kill him.”

“Kill him with your contempt, Antony,” she said sternly; and then, as we went on talking about Hallett’s illness, she became very much agitated, and I saw that she was in tears, which she hastily repressed as her sister entered the room.