Brett Ashley

“ Ashley, realizing, probably, that the interest of all present would remain, for a few minutes at least, with this marvelous jewel so astonishingly recovered, laid it, with many expressions of thankfulness, in Mrs. Burton's now eagerly outstretched palm, and advancing toward us, paused in front of Miss Glover and eagerly held out his hand.
"Congratulate me," he prayed. "All our troubles are over— Oh, what now!"
The poor young thing, in trying to smile, [Pg 144] had turned as white as a sheet. Before either of us could interpose an arm, she had slipped to the floor in a dead faint. ”

“ In the center of a small room containing a table and some chairs, I perceived a young man sitting, with fallen head and dejected air, staring at vacancy. By his side, with hand laid on his, knelt a young girl, striving in this gentle but speechless way to comfort him. It made a pathetic picture. I drew Ashley away.
"I am disposed to believe in that young man," said I. "If he still has the jewel, he would not try to carry off the situation in just this way. He really looks broken-hearted." ”

“ Ashley, "he has a sweetheart, and five hundred dollars looks like a fortune to a young man just starting life. But he was weak enough to take this girl into his confidence; and on their way here—for both were invited to the ball—he went so far as to pull it out of his pocket and show it to her.
"They were admiring it together, and vaunting its beauties to the young lady friend who had accompanied them, when their carriage turned into the driveway and they saw the lights of the house flashing before them. ”

“ Ashley laughed again, and gaily cried:
"Confound the fellow! Look at him, mother! look at him, ladies! Do you not see guilt written on his brow? It is he who has made us all this trouble. First, he must needs take umbrage at the two lights with which we presumed to illuminate our porch; then, envying Mrs. Burton her ruby and Mr. Deane his reward, seek to rob them both by grinding his hoofs all over the snow of the driveway till he came upon the jewel which Mr. Deane had dropped from his pocket, and, taking it up in a ball of snow, secrete it in his left hind shoe—where it might be yet, if Mr. ”

“ She resolves to do so, and lays her plans with considerable shrewdness. The necklace is believed by everyone to have been stolen; her lover receives the money in such a fashion that he imagines it to come from someone else from whom he has no hesitation in accepting it, and joyfully carries out his plans. Only two persons know the true facts of the case—the young lady and myself."
"A very romantic story, Mr. Ashley," said the young lady quietly, with her eyes fixed upon the carpet. "I should like to know the end."
The detective smiled and cleared his throat. ”

“ Guion continued. "Suppose I were to let you go ahead on this—let you raise the money—and take it from you—and pay Davenant—and all that—then you might marry my daughter, and get life on some sort of tolerable working basis. I dare say." He pulled himself forward on the couch. Ashley noticed the blazing of his eyes and hectic color in his cheeks. "You might even be happy, in a way," he went on, "if you didn't have—me." ”

“ At the same time, if I might make the suggestion, I should take a couple of plain-clothes policemen with me. It's a pretty low part where you are going, and one hears of queer doings, nowadays."
"I am bound to go, Ashley," I answered, "but I am not likely to come to much grief. I have a revolver in my pocket, and I have not studied boxing with Baxter for nothing. I don't fancy there's anything in Bermondsey going to hurt me."
"I hope not, sir," Ashley answered civilly. "At half-past eleven, if I do not hear from you, I shall go myself to Scotland Yard." ”

“ These roads of yours are no place for a man to linger on alone. But for the present, remember I have a wound not too well healed, and am more anxious for supper than for recounting adventures.”
“Ah! ah! he was stopped on the road by banditti,—and has escaped.” The vaqueros regarded Ashley with vastly increased respect. Their numbers were augmented as they neared the hacienda; and when the party reached the gates, wild rumors of Ashley’s prowess were already flying from mouth to mouth. ”

“ He had only to advance by a few weeks his departure for Stoughton, Michigan, where he meant to return in any case. It was the familiar field of those opportunities in copper which he hoped to profit by again. Once he was on that ground, Olivia Guion and her concerns would be as much a part of a magic past as the woods and mountains of a holiday are to a man nailed down at an office desk. With a very little explanation to Ashley he could turn his back on the whole business and give himself up to his own affairs. ”

“ She could see why Ashley should thrust him aside as being "not a gentleman." He fell short, in two or three points, of the English standard. That he had little experience of life as it is lived, of its balance and proportion and perspective, was clear from the way in which he had flung himself and his money into the midst of the Guion disasters. No man of the world could possibly have done that. The very fact of his doing it made him lawfully a subject for some of the epithets Ashley applied to him. Almost any one would apply them who wanted to take him from a hostile point of view. ”

“ The white figure moved with an air of dragging itself along.
"It isn't the most important thing in the world for her," he whispered to himself, "to marry—the man she cares for."
There was a renewal of his blind fury against Ashley, while at the same time he found himself groaning, inwardly: "I wish to God the man she cares for wasn't such a—such a—trump!"
XVIII
hen the colonel of the Sussex Rangers woke on the following morning the Umfraville element in him, fatigued doubtless with the demands of the previous day, still slept on. ”

“ The man who takes his rights and keeps them can be amply justified. If there's a counsel of perfection that goes beyond that standard—well, it isn't given to all men to receive it."
"Then you think it isn't given to me. You'd put me down as a good sort of chap who comes in second best."
"What makes you think I should do that?"
"Because—because—hang it all! If I let this fellow keep ahead of me—why, I should come in second best."
"You say keep ahead of me. Do you think he's ahead of you now?"
Ashley straightened himself. He looked uncomfortable. "He's got a pull, by Jove! ”

“ Ashley, with the ready tact and good breeding which caused him so much to be admired, and so much to admire himself, passed by the more attractive of the younger members of the Circle, and did not even heed the half-veiled challenge of Miss Fisher to join her party homeward, for she had become exceedingly exasperated with Lieutenant Seymour, and had Colonel Ashley been attainable, she would have made the younger man rabid with jealousy on the walk to the town. ”

“ As Ashley sits by one of these pools, his wading boots plunged deep in the crystal liquid, and pulls lazily on a briar pipe, the reader is offered the opportunity of becoming better acquainted with him.
He is a prepossessing young fellow of something like 27, medium height and rather well built. Blue eyes and an aggressive nose, on which gold-bowed eyeglasses are airily perched, are characteristics of a face which has always been a passport for its owner into all society worth cultivating. ”

“ It was an aptitude that flourished best under an appreciative eye—of the dowager countess looking down from heaven—or of the discerning here on earth—as an actor is encouraged by a sympathetic public to his highest histrionic efforts. If there was anything histrionic in Ashley himself, it was only in the sense that he was at his finest when, actually or potentially, there was some one there to see. ”

“ Once more Ashley slipped his arm through Davenant's, but they walked on in silence. The silence continued till they were on the Embankment, when Ashley said: "On second thoughts, I sha'n't tell you what I was going to just now."
"That's all right," Davenant rejoined; and no more was said till they reached Rodney Temple's door.
"Good-by." Ashley offered his hand. "Good-by. You're a first-rate sort. You deserve everything you're—you're coming in for." ”

“ Since, however, logic is but one of several equal combatants in human hearts, men often do not act in accordance with its rules. They wait to have the situation ended for them from without; a sort of fatalism gains sway over them and is intensified by every growth of the difficulty in which they find themselves. Unconvinced by Ora's scheme and not thoroughly in harmony with her mood, Ashley acted as though the one satisfied and the other entirely dominated him. ”

“ Ora looked a little troubled; she knit her brows and clasped her hands; she seemed to be turning what he said over in her mind. She did not deny its truth, but its truth distressed her vaguely.
"It's no use bothering ourselves trying to explain things," Ashley went on more lightly. "It's all over now, anyhow." He was conscious of the old weakness—he could not cause her pain. His impulse even now was to make her think that she had been in all things right. ”

“ Mr. Ashley, still in his overcoat, stood at the other end of the hall, and facing him were ranged the whole line of young people whom I had left scattered about in the various parlours. I thought he appeared to be in a peculiar frame of mind; and when he glanced our way, and saw who was standing with me in the library doorway, his voice took on a tone which made me doubt whether he was about to announce good news or bad. ”

“ For they had reason to thinke this bussines was cheefly of his contriving, and Ashley was a man fitte for his turne and dealings. So they, to prevente a worse mischeefe, resolved to joyne in ye bussines, and gave him supplies in what they could, & overlooked his proceedings as well as they could; the which they did ye better, by joyning an honest yonge man, [CO] that came from Leyden, with him as his fellow (in some sorte) , and not merely as a servante. Which yonge man being discreete, and one whom they could trust, they so instructed as [311] keept Ashley in some good mesure within bounds. ”

“ At the time I did not fancy her appearance and made a mental note to the effect that I would never like Miss Ashley. I had no use for cool, businesslike women—women should have no concern with business. Nellie would never have troubled her dear, curly head over it.
Miss Ashley came out with her arms full of packages, stowed them away in the carriage, got in, told me which road to take, and did not again speak till we were out of the village and driving along a pretty country lane, arched over with crimson maples and golden-brown beeches. ”

“ To escape the irony of this situation they took refuge in the topics that came readiest, the novelty to Ashley of the outward aspect of American things keeping them on safe ground till the meal was done. It was a relief to both men that Guion could make his indisposition an excuse for retiring again to his room.
It was a relief to Olivia, too. For the first time in her life she had to recognize her father as insupportable to any one but herself and Peter Davenant. Ashley did his best to conceal his repulsion; she was sure of that; he only betrayed it negatively in a tendency to ignore him. ”

“ Ashley's glance shifted from Drusilla to Olivia as though asking in some alarm who was this exuberant bumpkin in his Sunday clothes who had dropped from nowhere. Davenant drew back; his face fell. He looked like a big, sensitive dog hurt by a rebuff. It was Mrs. Fane who came to the rescue.
"Peter's come to see Cousin Henry. They've got business to talk over. And mother wants to know if you and Colonel Ashley won't come to dinner to-morrow evening. That's my errand. Just ourselves, you know. It'll be very quiet." ”

“ Ashley was coming in. Mr. Ashley had been in the manufactory; he did not often go there after tea. "Going already, William?" Mr. Ashley exclaimed in accents of surprise.
"Not for long, sir. I must just look in at East's."
"Is that scheme likely to prosper? Can you keep the men?"
"Yes, indeed, I think so. My hopes are strong."
"Well, there's nothing like hope," answered Mr. Ashley, with a laugh. "But I shall wonder if you do keep them. William," he added, after a slight pause, his tone changing to a business one, "I have a few words to say to you. ”

“ A young man’s arm encircles a young lady’s waist and the attitude of the pair suggests either the relations of lovers or of brother and sister. They start up in some confusion upon the advent of a stranger and come forward to greet Navarro. When the latter dismounts the young man embraces him warmly and Navarro, as he rests one arm affectionately about the youth’s shoulders, says to Ashley: “My younger brother, Don Carlos.” Then he turns to the young lady:
“Juanita, I want you to know my friend, Senor Jack Ashley of New York. Senor Ashley, La Senorita de Quesada.” ”

“ For an instant Ora raised her head, then she bent down again to Ashley.
"Because I'm going away, to Devonshire," she went on. "And I mayn't see you for ever so long, unless you'll come and see me; and Irene Kilnorton says you [Pg 203] oughtn't to. But you must. But still it will be days! Oh, how shall I pass days without you? So do forgive me before I go."
"Forgive you!" said he with a little laugh.
"Ah, you do," she sighed. "How good you are, Ashley." She pressed his shoulder with her hand. "I couldn't go on living if it wasn't for you," she said. "Everybody else is so hard to me. ”