Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE HIGH SHERIFF'S DINNER PARTY

William Halliburton drove his wife over in the pony carriage in the afternoon; they would dress and sleep at Deoffam. They went early, and in driving past Deoffam Vicarage, who should be at the gate looking out for them, but Anna! Not Anna Lynn now, but Anna Gurney.

"William, William, there's Anna!" Mary exclaimed. "I will get out here."

He assisted her down, and they remained talking with Anna. Then William asked what he was to do. Wait with the carriage for Mary, or drive on to the hall, and walk back for her?

"Drive to the hall," said Mary, who wished to stay a little while with Anna. "But, William," she added, as he got in, "don't let my box go round to the stables."

"With all its finery!" laughed William.

"It contains my dinner dress," Mary explained to Anna. "Have you been here long?"

"This hour, I think," replied Anna. "My husband had business a mile or two further on, and drove me here. What a nice garden this is! See, I have been picking Gar's flowers."

"Where is Mrs. Halliburton?" asked Mary.

"Dobbs called her in to settle some dispute in the kitchen. I know Dobbs is a great tyrant over that new housemaid."

"But now tell me about yourself, Anna," said Mary, leading her to a bench. "I have scarcely seen you since you were married. How do you like being your own mistress?"

"Oh, it's charming!" replied Anna, with all her old childish, natural manner. "Mary, what dost thee think? Charles lets me sit without my caps."

Mary laughed. "To the great scandal of Patience!"

"Indeed, yes. One day, Patience called when we were at dinner. I had not so much as a bit of net on, and Patience looked so cross; but she said nothing, for the servants were in waiting. When they had left the room she told Charles that she was surprised at his allowing it; that I was giddy enough and vain enough, and it would only make me worse. Charles smiled; he was eating walnuts: and what dost thee think he answered? He—but I don't like to tell thee," broke off Anna, covering her face with her pretty hands.

"Yes, yes, Anna, you must tell me."

"He told Patience that he liked to see me without the caps, and there was no need for my wearing them until I should have children old enough to set an example to."

Anna took off her straw bonnet as she spoke, and her curls fell to shade her blushing cheeks. Mary wondered whether the "children" would have faces as lovely as their mother's. She had never seen Anna look so well. For one thing, she had rarely seen her so well dressed. She wore a stone-coloured corded silk, glistening with richness, and an exquisite white shawl that must have cost no end of money.

"I should always let my curls be seen, Anna," said Mary; "there can be no harm in it."

"No, that there can't, as Charles does not think so," emphatically answered Anna. "Mary," dropping her voice to a whisper, "I want Charles not to wear those straight coats any more. He shakes his head at me and laughs; but I think he will listen to me."

Seeing what she did of the change in Anna's dress, Mary thought so too. Not but that Anna's things were still cut sufficiently in the old form to bespeak her sect: as they, no doubt, always would be.

"When art thee coming to spend the day with me, as thee promised?" asked Anna.

"Very soon: when this assize bustle shall be over."

"How gay you will be to-night!"

"How formal you mean," said Mary. "To entertain judges when on circuit, and bishops, and deans, is more formidable than pleasant. It is a state dinner to-night. When I saw papa this morning, I inquired if we were to have the javelin-men on guard in the dining-room."

Anna laughed. "Do Frank and Gar dine there?"

"Of course. The high sheriff could not give a dinner party without his chaplain at hand to say grace," returned Mary, laughing.

William came back: and they all remained for almost the rest of the afternoon, Jane regaling them with tea. It was scarcely over when Mr. Gurney drove up in his carriage: a large, open carriage, the groom's seat behind, the horses very fine ones. He came in for a few minutes; a very pleasant man of nearly forty years; a handsome man also. Then he took possession of Anna, carefully assisted her up, took the seat beside her, and the reins, and drove off.

William started for the Hall with Mary, walking at a brisk pace. It was not ten minutes' distance, but the evening was getting on. Henry Ashley met them as they entered, and began upon them in his crossest tones.

"Now what have you two got to say for yourselves? Here, I expect you, Mr. William, to pass the afternoon with me: the mother expects Mary: and nothing arrives but a milliner's box! And you make your appearance when it's pretty nearly time to go up to embellish!"

"We stayed at the Vicarage, Henry; and I don't think mamma could want me. Anna Gurney was there."

"Rubbish! Who's Anna Gurney that she should upset things? I wanted William, and that's enough. Do you think you are to monopolize him, Mrs. Mary, just because you happen to have married him?"

Mary went behind her brother, and playfully put her arms round his neck. "I will lend him to you now and then, if you are good," she whispered.

"You idle, inattentive girl! The mother wanted you to cut some hot-house flowers for the dinner-table."

"Did she? I will do it now."

"Listen to her! Do it now! when it has been done this hour past. William, I don't intend to show up to-night."

"Why not?" asked William.

"It is a nuisance to change one's things: and my side's not over clever to-day: and the ungrateful delinquency of you two has put me out-of-sorts altogether," answered Henry, making up his catalogue. "Condemning one to vain expectation, and to fretting and fuming over it! I shan't show up. William must represent me."

"Yes, you will show up," replied William. "For you know that your not doing so would vex Mr. Ashley."

"A nice lot you are to talk about vexing! You don't care how you vex me."

William gently took him by the arm. "Come along to your room now, and I will help you with your things. Once ready, you can do as you like about appearing."

"You treat me just as a child," grumbled Henry. "I say, do the judges come in their wigs?"

Mary broke into a laugh.

"Because that case of stuffed owls had better be ordered out of the hall. The animals may be looked upon as personal."

"I hope there's a good fire in your room, Henry."

"There had better be, unless the genius that presides over the fires in this household would like to feel the weight of my displeasure."

Mary went to find her mother; she was in her chamber, dressing.

"My dear child, how late you are!"

"There's plenty of time, mamma. We stayed at the parsonage. Anna Gurney was there. Henry says he is not very well."

"He says that always when William disappoints him. He will be all right now you have come. Go to your room, my dear, and I will send Sarah to you."

Mary was ready, and the maid gone, before William left Henry to come and dress on his own account. Mary wore white silk, with emerald ornaments.

"Shall I do, William?" asked she, when William came in.

"Do!" he answered, running his eyes over her. "No!"

"Why, what's the matter with me?" she cried, turning hurriedly to the great glass.

"This." He took her in his arms, and kissed her passionately. "My darling wife! You will never 'do' without that."

It was not a formidable party at all, in defiance of Mary's anticipations. The judges, divested of their flowing wigs and flaming robes, looked just like other men. Jane liked Sir William Leader, as Frank had told her she would; and Mr. Justice Keene was an easy, talkative man, fond of a good joke and a good dinner. Mr. Justice Keene seemed excessively to admire Mary Halliburton; and—there could be no doubt about it, and I hope the legal bench won't look grave at the reflection—seemed very much inclined to get up a flirtation with her over the coffee. Being a judge, I think the bishop ought to have read him a reprimand.

Standing at one end of the room, coffee-cups in hand, were Sir William Leader, the Dean of Helstonleigh, Mr. Ashley, and his son. They were talking of the Halliburtons. Sir William knew a good deal of their history from Frank.

"It is most wonderful!" Sir William was remarking. "Self-educated, self-supporting, and to be what they are!"

"Not altogether self-educated," dissented the dean; "for the two younger, the barrister and clergyman, were in the school attached to my cathedral; but self-educated in a great degree. The eldest, my friend's son-in-law, never had a lesson in the classics after his father's death, and there's not a more finished scholar in the county."

"The father died and left them badly provided for," remarked Sir William.

"He did not leave them provided for at all, Sir William," corrected Mr. Ashley. "He left nothing, literally nothing, but the furniture of the small house they rented; and he left some trifling debts. Poor Mrs. Halliburton turned to work with a will, and not only contrived to support them, but brought them up to be what you see them—high-minded, honourable, educated men."

The judge turned his eyes on Jane. She was sitting on a distant sofa, talking with the bishop. So quiet, so lady-like, nay—so attractive—she looked still, in the rich pearl-grey dress warn at William's wedding; not in the least like one who had had to toil hard for bread.

"I have heard of her—heard of her worth from Frank," he said, with emphasis. "She must be one in a thousand."

"One in a million, Sir William," burst forth Henry Ashley. "When they were boys, you could not have bribed them to do a wrong thing: neither temptation nor anything else turned them from the right. And they would not be turned from the right now, if I know anything of them."

The judge walked up to Jane, and took the seat beside her just vacated by the bishop.

"Mrs. Halliburton," said he, "you must be proud of your sons."

Jane smiled. "I have latterly been obliged to take myself to task for being so, Sir William," she answered.

"To task! I wish I had three such sons to take myself to task for being proud of," was his answer. "Not that mine are to be found fault with; but they are not like these."

"Do you think Frank will get on?" she asked him.

"It is no longer a question of getting on. He has begun to rise in an unusually rapid manner. I should not be surprised if, in after-years, he may find the very highest honours opening to him."

Again Jane smiled. "He has been in the habit of telling us that he looks forward to ruling England as Lord Chancellor."

The judge laughed. "I never knew a newly-fledged barrister who did not indulge that vision," said he. "I know I did. But there are really not many Frank Halliburtons. So, sir," he continued, for Frank at that moment passed, and the judge pinned him, "I hear you cherish dreams of the woolsack."

"To look at it from a distance is not high treason, Sir William," was Frank's ready answer.

"Why, what do you suppose you would do on the woolsack, if you got there?" cried Sir William.

"My duty, I hope, Sir William. I would try hard for it."

Sir William loosed him with an amused expression, and Frank passed on. Jane began to think Frank's dream—not of the woolsack, but of Maria Leader—not so very improbable a one.

"I have heard of your early struggles," said the judge to her in low tones. "Frank has talked to me. How you could have borne up, and done long-continued battle with them, I cannot imagine!"

"I never could have done it but for one thing," she answered: "my trust in God. Times upon times, Sir William, when the storm was beating about my head, I had no help or comfort in the wide world: I had nothing to turn to but that. I never lost my trust in God."

"And therefore God stood by you," remarked the judge.

"And therefore God stood by me, and helped me on. I wish," she added earnestly, "the whole world could learn the same great lesson that I have learnt. I have—I humbly hope I have—been enabled to teach it to my boys. I have tried to do it from their very earliest years."

"Frank shall have Maria," thought the judge to himself. "They are an admirable family. The young chaplain should have another of the girls if he liked her."

What was William thinking of, as he stood a little apart, with his serene brow and his thoughtful smile? His mind was in the past. That long past night, following the day of his entrance to Mr. Ashley's manufactory, was present to him, when he had lain down in despair, and sobbed out his bitter grief. "Bear up, my child," were the words his mother had comforted him with: "only do your duty, and trust implicitly in God." And when she had gone down, and he could get the sobs away from his heart and throat, he made the resolve to do as she had told him—at any rate, to try and do it. And he kneeled down there and then, and asked to be helped to do it. And, from that hour to this, William had never known the trust to fail. Success? Yes, they had reaped success—success in no measured degree. Be very sure that it was born of that great trust. Oh!—as Jane had just said to Sir William Leader—if the world could only learn this wonderful truth!

"Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him up, because he hath known my name."