The Story of Antony Grace

Mary soon knew of my good fortune, but did not seem at all surprised.

“No, my dear, it’s nothing more than natural,” she said, as I partook of tea with her; and in her affection for me she tried very hard to make me bilious with the amount of butter in which she soaked my toast. “You being a gentleman’s son, and having had a par and a mar, it was no more than one might expect, for gentlefolks to take notice of you. That Miss Carr’s a real lady, and I shouldn’t wonder if she was to leave you no end of money when she died.”

“Oh, Mary!” I cried, “just as if I wanted Miss Carr to die and leave me her money. I mean to earn some for myself, and when I get rich, you and Revitts shall come and live with me.”

“That we will,” said Mary. “I’ll be your cook, Master Antony, and Bill shall be – shall be – ”

“Bailiff and steward.”

“Or else gardener,” she said. “So you’re going to buy some new clothes, are you?”

“Yes, Mary; I must go well dressed to the engineer’s.”

“Then I should buy two more suits,” said Mary eagerly. “Have a good dark blue for Sundays, with gilt buttons, and for every day have invisible green.”

I shook my head.

“No, I must have black still, Mary, and grey,” I said.

“I wouldn’t dear; I’d have blue, and as for invisible green, you wouldn’t know as it wasn’t black.”

However, Mary came to my way of thinking, and my choice of new things was in no wise outré.

I seemed to be plunged into a perfect atmosphere of love just then, for I left Revitts smiling foolishly at Mary, whose face reflected the lover as perfectly as a mirror, and went on to Hallett’s, where I unconsciously found myself mixed up with another trouble of the kind.

I have grown wiser since, but in those days it was a puzzle to me why people could not be friends and fond of one another without plunging into such heart-breaking passionate ways, to their own discomfort and that of all whom they knew.

I was rather later than usual at the Halletts’, and on going upstairs, full of my good news, I found that Mrs Hallett was in bed, and Linny with her brother.

I ran up, tapped, and went in according to my custom, and then drew back for it was evident that something was wrong, but Hallett called me to stay.

“We have no secrets from you, Antony,” he said excitedly. “You know what has taken place from the first, and you are as much Linny’s friend as mine.”

“Then if he is,” cried Linny, stamping her little foot, “I’ll appeal to him.”

“Why, Linny,” I said, “what is the matter?”

“Matter!” she cried, sobbing passionately, “have I not given up to him in all he wished? have not I obeyed him and been more like a prisoner here than his sister? And now he is not satisfied.”

“I am satisfied, my child,” he said kindly. “But go on: what have I done?”

“Done?” cried Linny; “wounded me where you knew my heart was sore; looked upon my every act with suspicion.”

“No, my child,” he said quietly, as he watched the pretty, wilful little thing more in grief than anger. “You know how happy we have been, these last few weeks, since you have had confidence in me, and listened to my words.”

“Happy?” she cried piteously, and with her hand upon her heart.

“Yes,” he said; “happy till this letter came to-day – a letter that has swept all your promises to the winds, and sown dissension between us. Once more, will you show me the letter?”

“Once more,” cried Linny passionately, “no! You assume too much. Even if you were my father, you could do no more.”

“I stand to you, my dear child, in the place of your dead father. Your honour is as dear to me as it would have been to him.”

“My honour!” echoed Linny. “Stephen, you degrade me, by talking in this way before a comparative stranger.”

“Antony Grace is not a comparative stranger,” said Hallett quietly. “If he were your own brother he could not have acted better to us both. I speak out before him, because I look to Antony, boy though he be, to help me to watch over you and protect you, since you are so weak.”

“To act as your spy?”

“No,” he said sadly, “we will not degrade ourselves by acting as spies, but you force it upon me, Linny, to take stern measures. You refuse to show me this letter?”

“I do. I would die first!” cried Linny.

“My poor child,” he said sadly, “there is no need. I can read it in your transparent little face. You thought, I believe, in the first hot sting of your wrong that night, that you had plucked this foolish love from your breast; and so long as he remained silent you were at rest. But now he writes to you and says – ”

“Hush, Stephen! You shall not before Antony Grace.”

“Why not?” he cried. “He says in this letter that he has been wretched ever since; that he begs your pardon for the past; that upon your forgiveness depends his future; and he implores you, by all you hold sacred, to grant him an interview, that he may be forgiven.”

“Stephen!” cried Linny, but he went mercilessly on.

“And the foolish, trusting little heart, unused to the wiles of this world, leaped at the words, forgave him on the instant, and a brother’s words, her own promises, the vows of amendment, all are forgotten,” he said angrily, as his face now grew white and his hands clenched, “and all for the sake of a man who is an utter scoundrel!”

“How dare you!” cried Linny, and the hot passionate blood flashed to her little cheeks. Her eyes flamed, her teeth were set, and, in an access of rage, she struck her brother across the lips with the back of her hand. “How dare you call him a scoundrel?” she cried.

“Because,” said Hallett – while I stood by, unutterably shocked by the scene, which was the more intense from the low voices in which brother and sister spoke, they being in unison on the point that Mrs Hallett should not hear their quarrel – “because,” said Hallett, “his conduct is that of a villain. While professing love for you, he insults you. He tells you you are more dear to him than life, and he skulks like a thief and does not show his face. If he loved you – ”

“Love! What do you know of love?” cried Linny passionately. “You – you cold-blooded groveller, without soul to worship anything greater than that!”

As she spoke, she stood with her head thrown back, looking the picture of scorn and rage, as she contemptuously pointed at poor Hallett’s model; while he, weak, nervous, and overwrought – stung almost to madness, caught her sharply by the shoulder, and in her fear she sank on her knees at his feet.

“My God!”

Chapter Thirty Five.

I Build a Castle in the Air

If ever words were uttered with a wild intensity of fervour, it was that awful appeal; and, in the interval that followed, I felt my heart beat painfully, while Hallett, with the great drops standing on his knotted brow, clutched the little shoulder, so that Linny flinched from him.

“I cold-blooded – I know naught of love?” he whispered hoarsely; “when, for a year past, my life has been one long-drawn agony! I know naught of love, who have had to crush down every thought, every aspiration, lest I should be a traitor to the man whose bread I eat! Love? Girl, my life has been a torture to me, knowing, as I did, that I was a groveller, as you say, and that I must grovel on, not daring to look up to one so far above me, that – Heaven help me, what am I saying?” he cried, looking from one to the other. “Linny, for our dead father’s sake – for the sake of that poor, pain-wrung sufferer below, let there be no more of this. Trust me, child. Believe in me. I know so much of what you must suffer, that if he, whoever he be, prove only true and worthy of you, he shall be welcome here. But why raise this barrier between us? See, I am not angry now. It is all past. You roused that within me that I could not quell, but I am calm again, and, as your brother, I implore you, tell me who is this man?”

“I – I cannot,” said Linny, shaking her head.

“You cannot?”

“No,” she said firmly; “I gave my promise.”

“That you would not tell me – your own brother? Your mother then?”

“No, not now,” she said, shaking her head. “After a time I will.”

Without another word she turned and ran from the room, leaving Hallett gazing vacantly before him, as if suffering from some shock.

I went up to him at last. “Can I help you, Hallett?” I said; and he turned and gazed at me as if he had not understood my words.

“Antony,” he said at length, “a time back I should have thought it folly to make a friend and confidant of such a boy as you; but I have no man friend: I have shut myself up with those two below there, and when I have not been with them my hours have been spent here – here,” he said, pointing mockingly at the model, “with my love, and a strange, coquettish jade she is – is she not? But somehow, my boy, we two have drifted together, and we are friends, badly coupled as we may seem. You have heard what Linny said. Poor child, she must be saved at any cost, though I hardly know what course to pursue. There,” he said wearily, “let it rest for to-night; sometimes, in the thickest wilderness of our lives, a little path opens out where least expected, and something may offer itself even here.”

“I am very, very sorry, Hallett,” I said.

“I know it, my boy, I know it,” he said hurriedly; “but forget what you heard me say to-night. I was betrayed into speaking as I did by a fit of passion. Forget it, Antony, forget it.”

I did not answer, and he turned to me.

“I meant to have had a good work at the model to-night, but that little scene stopped it. Now about yourself. You are getting a sad truant from the office.”

He said it in a hesitating manner, and turned his face away directly after, but only to dart round in surprise at my next words.

“I am not coming back to the office any more – but don’t think me ungrateful.”

“Not coming back?”

“No, Hallett; Miss Carr sent for me – she has been away – and I am to go at once as a pupil to an engineer.”

He turned his back to me, and I ran to his side:

“Oh, Hallett,” I cried piteously; “don’t be angry with me. I told her I was sorry to go, because you were such a good friend.”

“You told her that, Antony?”

“Indeed, indeed I did; but I thought in being an engineer I might be some day such a help to you, and that it was for the best; and now you are vexed and think me ungrateful.”

He was silent for a few moments, and then he turned to me and took my hands, speaking in a low, husky voice:

“You must not heed me to-night, Antony,” he said. “You saw how upset and strange I was. This affair of Linny’s, and her letter, trouble me more than I care to own. No, no, my dear boy, I am not vexed with you, and I do not for a moment think you ungrateful.”

“You do not!” I cried joyfully.

“No, no, of course not. I rejoice to find that you have so good and powerful a friend in – Miss Carr. She must be – a truly good – woman.”

“She’s everything that’s good and beautiful and kind,” I cried, bursting into raptures about her. “I’m to have books and to go there every week, and she trusts to me to try and succeed well in my new life. Oh, Hallett, you can’t think how I love her.”

He laid his hand on my shoulder and gazed with a strange light in his eyes upon my eager face.

“That’s right,” he said. “Yes – love her, and never give her cause to blush for her kindness to you, my boy.”

He sat listening to me eagerly as I went on telling him her words, describing her home, everything I could think of, but the one subject tabooed, and of that I gave no hint, while he, poor fellow, sat drinking in what was to him a poisoned draught, and I unwittingly kept on adding to his pain.

“I’m only afraid of one thing,” I said with all a boy’s outspoken frankness.

“And what is that, Antony?”

“I’m afraid that when she is married to Mr Lister – ”

His hand seemed to press my shoulder more tightly.

“Yes,” he said in a whisper, “she is to be married to Mr Lister.”

“Yes, I knew that the first day I came to the office.”

“It is the common talk there,” he said with knitted brows. “And what is your fear, Antony?”

“That when she is married to Mr Lister she will forget all about me.”

“You wrong her, boy,” he said almost fiercely; and I stared at his strange display of excitement, for I had not the key then to his thoughts, and went on blindly again and again tearing open his throbbing wound.

“You wrong her,” he said. “Antony, Miss Carr is a woman to have won whose esteem is to have won a priceless gem, and he who goes farther, and wins her love, can look but for one greater happiness – that of heaven.”

He was soaring far beyond my reach, grovelling young mole that I was, and I said in an uneasy way that must have sounded terribly commonplace and selfish:

“You don’t think she will forget me, then?”

“No,” he said sternly. “There is that in her face which seems to say that she is one who never forgets – never forgives. She is no common woman, Antony; be worthy of her trust, and think of her name in your prayers before you sleep.”

I gazed at him curiously, he seemed so strange; and, noticing my uneasy looks, he said in a cheerful voice:

“There, we will not talk so seriously any more. You see how I trust you, Antony, in return for your confidence in me. Now let’s talk of pleasant things. An engineer, eh?”

“Yes,” I said, delighted at the change in his conversation. “I am glad of it – heartily glad of it,” he said with kindling eyes. “Linny is right; I do love and idolise my model, and you shall share her love, Antony. Together we will make her the queen of models, and if in time, perhaps years hence, I do perfect her – nay, if we perfect her – there, you see,” he said playfully, “I have no petty jealousies – you will then be engineer enough to make the drawings and calculations for the machines that are to grow from the model. Is it a bargain, Antony?”

“That it is,” I cried, holding out my hand, which he firmly clasped; and that night I went back to Revitts’ walking upon air, with my head in a whirl with the fancied noise of the machinery made by Hallett and Grace, while, out of my share of the proceeds, I was going down to Rowford to pay Mr Blakeford all my father’s debt; and then – being quite a man grown – I meant to tell him he was a cowardly, despicable scoundrel, for behaving to me as he did when I was a boy.

Chapter Thirty Six.

Mr Jabez Rowle’s Money Matters

Something like the same sensation came over me when I made my way to Great George Street, Westminster, as I had felt on the morning when I presented myself at the great printing-office. But my nervousness soon passed away on being received by Mr Girtley, a short, broad-shouldered man, with a big head covered with crisp, curly grey hair.

“Ah,” he said, speaking in a great hurry, “you’re Antony Grace, our new pupil, are you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Miss Carr’s young friend. Knew Carr: clever, wealthy man.”

“Indeed, sir?”

“Yes, only had one fault – died twenty years too soon. Been a millionaire and a modest man combined. Rara avis, eh? Ha, ha, ha! Tom!”

“Yes, father.”

The answer came from an inner office, and a good-looking youth, wonderfully like Mr Girtley, came out with a pencil across his mouth, a pen behind his ear, a scale in one hand, and a pair of compasses in the other. “This is Antony Grace; you take charge of him and show him about. Take it coolly. Festina lente, you know. I say, Antony Grace, what does rara avis mean?”

“A rare or strange bird, sir.”

“Good lad. And festina lente?”

“Hasten slowly, sir.”

“Good lad. You’re all right with your Latin, then. I wasn’t when I began. Had to learn it after I was twenty. Well, I’m busy, Tom; you understand; he’ll be a bit nervous and strange, so don’t worry him. Let him take in spoonfuls first. He’ll learn to drink big draughts later on.”

“I’m very busy over those syphon plans, father.”

“Ah, the new syphon. Yes, that must be done. Well, I’ll set Browning to do them.”

“I’d – I’d much rather finish them myself,” said the youth.

“Of course you would. Well, then, I’ll give you a fortnight’s extension; then you can finish them and have plenty of time for Antony Grace as well. Take him round the works, and then you can go down the river for a run. And, by-the-way, Tom, go in one of the new boats, and tip the engineer. Have a good look at those fresh oscillating cylinders, and see whether you think they beat ours. I’m off. You were quite punctual, Antony Grace, or you wouldn’t have seen me. Always keep your appointments exactly. Good-morning; glad to see you. Hope you’ll get on and like the business. Work hard at it, and mind this – steady application wins. Bring him home to dinner to-night, Tom. Eh? yes.”

“Mr Williamson to see you, sir,” said a clerk.

“My compliments to Mr Williamson, and he must make another appointment. He is an hour after the time he named, and I am engaged for the rest of the day. Lesson in punctuality, Antony Grace,” he said, nodding. “I’m off.”

The door closed after his retreating figure, and Tom and I stood staring, probably thinking the same thing, whether we should like one another. The result of the scrutiny was satisfactory to me, for there was something very pleasant in the young fellow’s frank open countenance, and I longed to meet with a companion nearly my own age.

“Well,” he said quietly, “suppose we have a look round. I shan’t work any more at my plans this morning. This is my place,” he continued, taking me into the inner office, where a great broad mahogany desk was covered with papers. “You’ll have that one; it was Bailey’s; he was father’s pupil; he’s gone out to India on the Great Central.”

I said, “Has he?” but I had no idea whether the Great Central was a ship or a great engine.

“There are my plans for a self-acting syphon. Those parts coloured red are where the vacuum valves will come in, and, of course, this lower part takes the place of a steam-pump.”

“Does it?” I said, laughing. “But I don’t understand it a bit.”

“No, of course not,” he said, laughing too. “Well, you’ll soon learn. You’ll like father, and we’ll like you if you’ll work well. Bailey and he did not get on at all.”

“Didn’t Bailey work well?” I said, as a vision of the idle apprentice came before my eyes.

“Father used to say he was like an engine with a bad stoker. He was either racing, or there was no steam un. He’d work furiously for two days, and then he’d idle for a week.”

“Mr Girtley is fond of work, then?”

“Father says everyone was meant to work, and life’s too short for all we have to do. But he likes play, too. We have a cricket-field at home, and a billiard-table, and bowls – all sorts of games. Father plays at all of them when he’s at home and isn’t gardening. He calls it oiling his machinery and slackening his bands. Come along, I’ll show you the factory, and our workshop, where you and I will have to work, making models, and then we’ll oil our machinery.”

“Shall we have to make models?” I cried eagerly.

“You will, of course. I’m going to be a lawyer. Father thinks the man who is a good engineer is sure to have to invent, and if so, he ought to be able to take the tools out of his men’s hands, and show them how they should be used. Shall you like that? It makes your hands black.”

“Oh, I shan’t mind that,” I said, laughing. “I shall like it.”

We went over the office, and then, taking our caps, he showed me the way over Westminster Bridge to the great works in Lambeth, where steam was puffing and panting, wheels whirring, and iron and steel were shrieking as they were being tortured into shape.

It was a confusing place, and, after passing the timekeeper’s box at the entrance, we seemed to plunge into a kind of Pandemonium, where fires glared, and white-hot masses of metal were being dragged out and beaten till they sent sparks of brilliant fire flying in all directions. From there we ascended to a floor where wheels were whirring and great machines were at work, with men tending them, and pouring oil in the wounds made by mighty steam-worked chisels, or bored in pieces of black iron. In one place, shavings of iron were curling off before a plane like so much soft wood; and on touching them I found them rigid, and hot with the friction necessary to tear them away. Next we were in a higher shop, where lathes were at work, and iron, steel, and brass were being turned like so much ivory. Out of this great floor was a smaller workshop, whose walls were covered with tools; and on shelves around were dozens of strange models, which took my attention strongly as I thought of Hallett’s patient work, and longed to begin at something on the spot.

Here, too, there were lathes, vices, and all the necessary paraphernalia for the constructing engineers, and I left the place unwillingly to join young Girtley in his run down the river, where, the right steamer being chosen, we had our ride; the oscillating engines were examined, and we were back and down at Dulwich in good time for dinner and a look round the spacious grounds afterwards.

I returned to Caroline Street full of my day’s adventures, and ready to tell Mary of my progress towards prosperity, but, to my disappointment, she seemed in nowise dazzled. It was quite a matter of course to her, only a question of time before I should be a great engineer, and in that faith she was a strong believer.

Time glided on, and the half-work, half-play system, upon which I had commenced business at Great George Street had in the course of a month settled into regular hours, but the work did not trouble me, for I led so pleasant a life with Tom Girtley, and found his father so eager and willing a teacher, that I quite enjoyed the toil. There was the one idea, too, always before my mind that some day I should be able to help Hallett, whom I joined nearly every night, to pore over and try to scheme something new for the machine.

I could see that matters were in anything but a happy state at the Halletts’ – Mrs Hallett being more complaining and querulous than ever, and, it seemed to me, rather disposed to side with Linny in her rebellion against her brother’s authority.

For they were not at one: Linny was pale, excitable, and troubled: Hallett, loving, kind, and firm. But from hints he let drop, I found that Linny was as obstinate as ever, and that she was still carrying on a correspondence with her unknown admirer.

One night, after leaving Great George Street, I made my way to Hallett’s, but he was out, and Linny assured me that he would not be back for hours. She evidently wanted me to go, and the reason was plain – she was busy writing a letter; and as I went away, wondering where to go, I bethought me of Mr Jabez Rowle, who lodged in the neighbourhood, and as it would be his time for being home, I determined to go and see him.

I easily found his lodgings, at a little grocer’s shop in a bystreet, where he had the first floor, the front window being turned into quite a garden with flowers, and some scarlet-runners twining up strings on either side.

I heard the familiar snap of his snuff-box as I tapped at the door, and in reply to his “Come in,” I entered, to find the old gentleman taking his leisure by poring over a long slip, and, pen in hand, darting in corrections with a grunt of satisfaction.

“Ah, young Grace,” he cried, “you here! I thought you were lost. Glad to see you, boy. Here, sit down – no, stand up; catch hold of that bit of manuscript, and read it to me – only a dozen sides.” And to my great astonishment I found myself reading away to him in the old style for quite half-an-hour before he reached the bottom of the slip proofs and laid his pen down with a satisfied grunt and took a pinch of snuff.

“Quite a treat, Grace – quite a treat,” he cried. “Sit down. I haven’t had a bit of copy read to me like that since you left. Boy I’ve got’s a fool, and I could knock his head against the wall. Shake hands. How are you?”

I replied that I was quite well, and could see that he was.

“No, I’m not,” he said tartly. “Much bothered. Money matters?” and he took another pinch of snuff. “So you’ve called to ask me to say a word for you to come back to the office, eh? Well, I’m glad, boy – I’m glad! Take it as settled. You can come back to-morrow morning! I will have you, or I’ll know the reason why.”

I stared at him aghast.

“Oh no, Mr Rowle,” I said, “I only came to see you. I thought I should like to. I’m getting on so well.”