Allerton

“ Lord Allerton is that almost impossibility to manage—a young man who has been a good match from his cradle. He looks upon himself as the point of attack to every mamma and daughter who come within ear or eyeshot. His love for Mary Granard has taken him quite by surprise, and he is still reluctant and suspicious of so novel a feeling. Once let his attention be drawn to Lady Anne's manœuvres, and once let him suppose that Mary is a party to them, and the game is in our own hands. ”

“ Allerton, who felt it impossible to regard Mr. Lessingham as a stranger, gave him a brief outline of the circumstances of Constance's residence with them, and spoke of her as the guardian-angel of the family. "She is not only," said her sister-in-law, "one of the most amiable and affectionate, but also one of the most sensible and judicious of women. Never, never have we in any instance acted contrary to her advice, without eventually finding cause to regret that we did so." And Mrs. Allerton could not forbear casting her eyes over her mourning dress. ”

“ Only, O would-be wise man, only when we muse on Heaven do our souls ascend from the fowler's snare!"
"My saint-like liege," said Allerton, bowing low, and with tears in his eyes, "thinkest thou not that thy very disdain of thy rights makes thee more worthy of them? If not for thine, for thy son's sake, remember that the usurper sits on the throne of the conqueror of Agincourt!—Sir Clerk, the letters." ”

“ Fanchette was engaged on Lady Allerton's redundant tresses, when Georgiana and Helen burst into the room, overwhelming them with caresses, and receiving them with a joy almost amounting to sorrow in its effects ”

“ Mr. Allerton had maried ye daughter of their Reverend Elder, Mr. Brewster (a man beloved [306] & honoured amongst them, and who tooke great paines in teaching & dispenceing ye word of God unto them) , whom they were loath to greeve or any way offend, so as they bore with much in that respecte. And with all Mr. Allerton carried so faire with him, and procured such leters from Mr. Sherley to him, with shuch applause of Mr. Allertons wisdom, care, and faithfullnes, in ye bussines; and as things stood none were so fitte to send aboute them as he ”

“ No; he must not die! She swam to and fro among the drifting spars, forgetting that they might crush her with their weight; she dived and rose again, and reached the prince just when he felt that he could swim no longer in the stormy sea. His arms were beginning to fail him, his beautiful eyes were closed; in another moment he must have sunk, had not the little mermaid come to his aid. She kept his head above water, and let the waves carry them whither they would.”
Letty didn’t want Allerton’s life to be in danger, but she would have loved saving it. ”

“ Mr. Allerton is the most honorable—” he pronounced the initial h—“young man that hever was born. I valeted ’is father before ’im and know that ’e wouldn’t ’urt a fly. If madam’ll trust 53 me—Besides, Mr. Allerton left word with me as you was to be sure to ’ave your breakfast, and I shouldn’t know how to fyce ’im if ’e was to know that you’d gone awye without so much as a hegg.”
She wrung her hands. “I don’t want to see him. I couldn’t.”
“Madam won’t see ’im. ’E’s gone for the dye. ’E don’t so often heat at ’ome—’ardly never.”
Of the courses before her Letty saw that yielding was the easiest. ”

“ Half an hour later the three elder visitors with the governor, the captain, Allerton, Doctor Fuller, and one or two more, were closeted in the new room recently added to the governor’s house, and used by him as a council chamber and court room.
Moses Maverick, the handsome young boatman, had meanwhile somewhat pointedly sought out Bart Allerton, and almost invited himself to accompany him home.
“Go you into the front room and entertain him, Remember,” directed the young step-mother with a mischievous smile. “I am too busy with little Isaac to leave him just now.” ”

“ Bladen, "that Miss Constance is able to wear mourning if she chooses it. But you may rely on it, Mrs. Allerton, that if you and your children do not appear in black, people will be ill-natured enough to say that it is because you cannot afford it. Excuse my plainness."
"They will say rightly, then," replied Mrs. Allerton, with a sigh. "We certainly cannot afford it."
"How you talk!" said Mrs. Bladen. "Afford it or not, everybody has to wear mourning, and everybody does, from the highest down to the lowest. ”

“ She’s the missus of this ’ouse.”
“Oh, no, I ain’t. Mr. Allerton just brung me here––”
Once more there was the delicate emphasis with which he had corrected other slips. “Mr. Allerton brought madam, and told me to see that she was put in ’er proper plyce. If madam’ll let me steer the thing, I’ll myke it as easy for ’er as easy.” ”

“ Allerton's means) that, after she had brought a fraight of goods here into the countrie, and fraight her selfe with fish, she should goe from hence to Port of porte, [CQ] and ther be sould, both ship, goods, and ordenance; and had, for this end, had speech with a factore of those parts, beforehand, to whom she should have been consigned. But this was prevented at this time, (after it was known,) partly by ye contrary advice given by their freinds hear to Mr. Allerton & Mr. Hatherley, showing how it might insnare their friends in England, (being men of estate,) if it should come to be knowne ”

“ Without any great stretch of vanity, I may expect to cut a better figure than the poor sallow bride, or that brown Isabella, and the other two can be thrown to a distance. Lord Allerton must be a fool; but that is nothing to me. I am the more obliged to him, and I cannot doubt that he will gladly unite with me in saving Georgiana from the sad fate which seems to await her. I must give the marquis up; there are some hopes of a gouty man, but rheumatism is a vulgar complaint, and would sink even a ducal coronet—the very lowest people have it. ”

“ Admitting that, I may tell you, for I am authorized to do so, both in the body of the letter and again in the postscript, that Lord Allerton is a penitent in all that concerns the past, and a true lover at the present, and that he is returning with Glentworth, to offer you the heart which has suffered anguish enough since you lost sight of each other, to render him an object of pity if not of——. ”

“ While Allerton was making these reflections Steptoe was summoned to the telephone.
“Is this you, Steptoe? I’m Miss Barbara Walbrook.”
Steptoe braced himself. In conversing with Miss Barbara Walbrook he always felt the need of inner strengthening. “Yes, Miss Walbrook?”
“Mr. Allerton tells me you’ve a young woman at the house.”
“We ’ave a young lydy. Certainly, miss.” ”

“ Penrhyn is now in possession of his paternal estate, and his wife enjoys her carriage, and all other comforts consistent with a fortune on the increase, and a husband whose affections do not decrease. Lady Allerton is the delight of her lord, and a blessing to his tenantry, for her own early wants have taught her how to think and feel for others. ”

“ Lucy Allerton, hearing a commotion, comes in. She is older than George, a tall girl, white now, with eyes heavy from want of sleep. She has lived in the country all her life, and has brought up to London a sort of remoteness from the world. She is beautiful in a very English manner, and her clear-cut features are an index to a character in which the moral notions are peculiarly rigid. ”

“ Letty whispered to herself; “my arms clasped round a marble statue—like my prince—but only a marble statue.”
“Her flowers were neglected,” Allerton read on, “and grew wild in a luxuriant tangle of stem and blossom, reaching the branches of the willow-tree, and making the whole place dark and dim. At last she 211 could bear it no longer and she told one of her sisters––”
“I wouldn’t tell my sister, if I had one,” Letty assured herself. “I’d never tell no one. It’s more like my own secret when I keep it to myself. Nobody’ll ever know—not even him.” ”

“ Yet Mr Larkspur once told Mr Allerton that this feminine dragon had had a violent love-affair when she was nineteen; and Mr Allerton—whose connection with the Marrable family is of much more recent date than that of Lucy’s father—actually declared that he could well believe it. If, however, Miss Marrable did have a love-affair in her youth, I am not inclined at this time of day to cast it as a reproach in her teeth. Boys will be boys; and girls, I suppose, will be girls, though they may live to see the error of their ways, and be none the worse for their follies. ”

“ Isaac Allerton, it is a fair assumption, was about thirty-four in 1620, from the fact that he married his first wife October 4, 1611, as he was called “a young man” in the Leyden marriage record. He is called “of London, England,” by Bradford and on the Leyden records. He was made a “freeman” of Leyden, February 7, 1614. Arber and others state that his early occupation was that of “tailor,” but he was later a tradesman and merchant. ”

“ Lord Allerton will, of course, look out for an heiress; he is travelling on the Continent for that purpose, and has taken the best method—for when people are jumbled together in miserable inns, frightened by banditti, or cheated by shopkeepers, it produces great union of opinion and interests—and there is little doubt of his catching somebody worth the bait his person and position offers. I merely touch on this subject, to guard you from thinking about him, should he cross your path. No man marries two portionless wives, especially after the first has played the fool, as Miss Aubrey has done. ”

“ She is here, disguised, in London!”
“Margaret! our hero-queen! the manlike woman!” exclaimed Allerton, clasping his hands. “Then be sure that—” He stopped, and abruptly taking Adam’s arm, drew him aside, while Henry continued to read—“Master Warner, we may trust thee,—thou art one of us; thou art sent here, I know; by Robin of Redesdale,—we may trust thee?”
“Young sir,” replied the philosopher, gravely, “the fears and hopes of power are not amidst the uneasier passions of the student’s mind. ”

“ Allerton had before leaving with his family for the North was with this same lively party, the detective who joined them that [Pg 163] night at the St. Charles, and Allerton, being a man of much substance, had tapped his pocket-book significantly.
"The difficulty just now is in having a talk with the widow," said this official to Cram and Reynolds, whom he had met by appointment on the Thursday following the eventful Saturday of Braxton's "combined" review. "She is too much prostrated. ”

“ Allerton fell back uneasily, "it is a principle among us that every man is to follow his conscience. If we have thrown off the authority of our old days, an authority mind you, that had much to be said for it, and set up our own conscience as the sole guide of our actions, then how dare you come into my house to reproach me for what I consider no wrong-doing? Ted and Ned are good fellows, on whose hands leisure hangs heavily, since they do not read Shakespeare, as does their master, whom equally you condemn. To my mind shovelboard is innocent ”

“ Letty didn’t know that people lived with so much space around them. Only a hall light burned in a many-colored oriental lamp, and in the 55 half-gloom the rooms on each side of the entry were cavernous. There was not a servant, not a sound. The only living thing was a little dog which pattered out of the obscurity and, raising his paws against her skirt, adopted her instantaneously.
“He was my mother’s dog,” Allerton explained briefly. “He likes women, but not men, though he’s never taken to the women in the house. He’ll probably like you. His name is Beppo. ”

“ Allerton, and with his wife here to come, and she to spare him this one year (nay I hope but a few months more) to finish this great and weighty business, which we conceive will be much for your good and well and sure subsisting, yea, and I hope for your posterity, and for many generations to come; for I am persuaded Sir Ferdinando (how loving and friendly soever he seems to be) knows he can, nay, purposeth to overthrow, at his pleasure, all the patents he grants, but, this being obtained, he will be frustrate of his intent ”

“ Courage left too?”
Letty nodded, the damask flush flooding her cheeks darkly.
“When? Since—since you came?”
Letty nodded again. She knew now that this was the bar of social judgment of which she had been afraid.
The social judge continued. “That must be very hard on Mr. Allerton.”
Letty bowed her head. “I suppose it is.”
“He’s not used to new people about him, and it’s not good for him. I don’t know whether you’ve seen enough of him to know that he’s something of an invalid.” ”

“ Allerton went to work and died.”
Letty’s eyes shone with their tiny fires, not in pleasure but in wonder.
“When old servants is good, they’re good, but even when they’re good, there’s times when you can’t ’elp wishin’ as ’ow the Lord ’ud be pleased to tyke them to ’Imself.”
He allowed this to sink in before going further.
“The men’s all right, for the most part. Indoor work comes natural to ’em, and they’ll swing it without no complynts. But with the women it’s kick, kick, kick, and when they’re worn theirselves out with kickin’, they’ll begin to kick again. ”

“ But Letty sprang up in alarm. “Oh, don’t leave me. Some of them women will blow in––”
“None of them women will come—” he threw a delicate emphasis on the word—“if madam’ll just sit down. They don’t mean to come. I’ll explyne that to madam when I come back, if she’ll only not leave this room.”
64 Chapter VI
“Good morning, Steptoe. Will you ask Mr. Allerton if he’ll speak to Miss Walbrook?”
“Mr. Allerton ’as gone to the New Netherlands club for ’is breakfast, miss.” ”