“But only think, if there was never anything accidental happened! Surprises are just what make life worth having,—eh, Brune?”
“Maybe so, and maybe not. When Will comes home, tell him everything at once. I can manage Lady Redware, I’ll be bound.”
With the promise he went away to perform it, and Aspatria carried her trembling heart into solitude. But the lonely place was full of Ulfar. A thousand hopes were budding in her heart, growing slowly, strongly, sweetly, in that earth which she had made for them out of her love, her desires, her hopes, and her faithful aspirations.
Brune arrived at Redware Hall while it was still afternoon, and he found no difficulty in obtaining an interview with its mistress. She was sitting at a table in a large bay-window, painting the view from it. For in those days ladies were not familiar with high art and all its nomenclature and accessories; Lady Redware had never thought of an easel, or a blouse, or indeed of any of the trappings now considered necessary to the making of pictures. She was prettily dressed in silk; and a square of bristol-board, a box of Newman’s water-colours, and a few camel’s-hair pencils were neatly arranged before her.
She rose when Brune entered, and met him with a suave courtesy; and the unsophisticated 152 young man took it for a genuine pleasure. He felt sorry to trouble such a nice-looking gentlewoman, and he said so with a sincerity that made her suddenly serious. “Have you brought me bad news, Mr. Anneys?” she asked.
“I am afraid you will be put about a bit. Sir Ulfar Fenwick met my sister this morning; and they were seen by ill-natured eyes, and I came, quiet-like, to let you know that he must leave the dales to-night.”
“Cannot Sir Ulfar meet his own wife?”
“Lady Redware, that is not the question. Put it, ‘Cannot Sir Ulfar meet your sister?’ and I will answer you quick enough, ‘Not while there are two honest men in Allerdale to prevent him.’”
“You cannot frighten Sir Ulfar from Allerdale. To threaten him is to make him stay.”
“Dalesmen are not ones to threaten. I tell you that the vicar’s maid saw Sir Ulfar and my sister together; and when William Anneys hears of it, Sir Ulfar will get such a notice to leave these parts as will give 154 him no choice. I came to warn him away before he could not help himself. I say freely, I did so to please Aspatria, and out of no good-will going his way.”
“But if he will not leave Allerdale?”
“But if William Anneys, and the sixty gentlemen who will ride with William Anneys, say he must go? What then?”
“Of course Sir Ulfar cannot fight a mob.”
“Not one of that mob of gentlemen would fight him; but they all carry stout riding-whips.” And Brune looked at the lady with a sombre intentness which made further speech unnecessary. She had been alarmed from the first; she now made no further attempt to disguise her terror.
“What must I do, Mr. Anneys?” she asked. “What must I do?”
“Send your brother away from Cumberland to-night. I say he must leave to-night. To-morrow morning may be too late to prevent a great humiliation. Aspatria begged me to come to you. I do not say I wanted to come.”
At this moment the door opened, and Sarah Sandys entered. Brune turned, and saw her; and his heart stood still. She came slowly forward, her garment of pale-green and white just touching her sandalled feet. She had a rush basket full of violets in her hands; there were primroses in her breast and belt, and her face was like a pink rose. High on her head her fair hair was lifted, and, being fastened with a large turquoise comb, it gave the idea of sunshine and blue sky.
Brune stood looking at her, as a mortal might look at the divine Cytherea made manifest. His handsome, open face, full of candid admiration, had almost an august character. He bowed to her, as men bow 156 when they bend their heart and give its homage and delight. Sarah was much impressed by the young man’s beauty, and she felt his swift adoration of her own charms. She made Lady Redware introduce her to Brune, and she completed her conquest of the youth as she stood a moment holding his hand and smiling with captivating grace into his eyes.
Then Lady Redware explained Brune’s mission, and Sarah grasped the situation without any disguises. “It simply means flight, Elizabeth,” she said. “What could Ulfar do with fifty or sixty angry Cumberland squires? He would have to go. In fact, I know they have a method of persuasion no mortal man can resist.”
Brune saw that his errand was accomplished. Lady Redware thanked him for his consideration, and Sarah rang for the tea-service, and made him a cup, and gave it to him with her own lovely hands. Brune saw their exquisite form, their translucent glow, the sparkling of diamonds and emeralds upon them. The tea was 157 as if brewed in Paradise; it tasted of all things delightful; it was a veritable cup of enchantments.
Then Brune rode away, and the two women watched him over the hill. He sat his great black hunter like a cavalry officer; and the creature devoured the distance with strides that made their hearts leap to the sense of its power and life.
“He is the very handsomest man I ever saw!” said Sarah.
“What is to be done about Ulfar? Sarah, you must manage this business. He will not listen to me.”
“Ulfar has five senses. Ulfar is very fond of himself. He will leave Redware, of course. How handsome Brune Anneys is!”
“Will you coax him to leave to-night?”
“Ulfar? Yes, I will; for it is the proper thing for him to do. It would be a shame to bring his quarrels to your house.—What a splendid rider! Look, Elizabeth, he is just topping the hill! I do believe he turned his head! Is he not handsome? 158 Apollo! Antinoüs! Pshaw! Brune Anneys is a great deal more human, and a great deal more godlike, than either.”
“Do not be silly, Sarah. And do occupy yourself a little with Ulfar now.”
“When the hour comes, I will. Ulfar is evidently occupying himself at present in watching his wife. There is a decorous naughtiness and a stimulating sense of danger about seeing Aspatria, that must be a thorough enjoyment to Ulfar.”
“Men are always in fusses. Ulfar has kept my heart palpitating ever since he could walk alone.”
Sarah sighed. “It is very difficult,” she said, “to decide whether very old men or very young men can be the greater trial. The suffering both can cause is immense! Poor Sandys was sixty-six, and Ulfar is thirty-six, and—” She shook her head, and sighed again.
“How hateful country-people are!” exclaimed Elizabeth. “They must talk, no matter what tragedy they cause with their scandalous words.”
“Are they worse than our own set, either in town or country? You know what the Countess of Denbigh considered pleasant conversation?—telling things that ought not to be told.”
“The Countess is a wretch! she would tell the most sacred of secrets.”
“I tell secrets also. I do not consider it wrong. What business has any one to throw the onus of keeping their secret on my shoulders? Why should they expect from me more prudence than they themselves have shown?”
“That is true. But in these valleys they speak so uncomfortably direct; nothing but the strongest, straightest, most definite words will be used.”
“That is a pity. People ought to send scandal through society in a respectable hunt-the-slipper form of circulation. But that is a kind of decency to be cultivated. However, I shall tell Ulfar, in the plainest words I can find, that there will be about sixty Cumberland squires here to-morrow, to ride with him out of the county, and 160 that they are looking forward to the fun of it just as much as if it was a fox-hunt. Ulfar has imagination. He will be able to conceive such a ride,—the flying man, and the roaring, laughing, whip-cracking squires after him! He will remember how Tom Appleton the wrestler, who did something foul, was escorted across the county line last summer. And Ulfar hates a scene. Can you fancy him making himself the centre of such an affair?”
So they talked while Brune galloped homeward in a very happy mood. He felt as those ancients may have felt when they met the Immortals and saluted them. The thought of the beautiful Mrs. Sandys filled his imagination; but he talked comfortably to Aspatria, and assured her that there was now no fear of a meeting between her husband and Will. “Only,” he said, “tell Will yourself to-night, and he will never doubt you.”
Unfortunately, Will did not return that night from the Frosthams’; for in the morning the two men were to go together to Dalton 161 very early. Will heard nothing there, but Mrs. Frostham was waiting at her garden gate to tell him when he returned. He had left Squire Frostham with his son-in-law, and was alone. Mrs. Frostham made a great deal of the information, and broke it to Will with much consideration. Will heard her sullenly. He was getting a few words ready for Aspatria, as Mrs. Frostham told her tale, but they were for her alone. To Mrs. Frostham he adopted a tone she thought very ungrateful.
For when the whole affair, real and consequential, had been told, he answered: “What is there to make a wonder of? Cannot a woman talk and walk a bit with her own husband? Maybe he had something very particular to say to her. I think it is a shame to bother a little lass about a thing like that.”
And he folded himself so close that Mrs. Frostham could neither question nor sympathize with him longer. “Good-evening to you,” he said coldly; and then, while visible, he took care to ride as if quite at 162 his ease. But the moment the road turned from Frostham he whipped his horse to its full speed, and entered the farmyard with it in a foam of hurry, and himself in a foam of passion.
Aspatria met him with the confession on her lips. He gave her no time. He assailed her with affronting and injurious epithets. He pushed her hands and face from him. He vowed her tears were a mockery, and her intention of confessing a lie. He met all her efforts at explanation, and all her attempts to pacify him, at sword-point.
She bore it patiently for a while; and then Will Anneys saw an Aspatria he had never dreamed of. She seemed to grow taller; she did really grow taller; her face flamed, her eyes flashed, and, in a voice authoritative and irresistible, she commanded him to desist.
“You are my worst enemy,” she said. “You are as deaf as the village gossips. You will not listen to the truth. Your abuse, heard by every servant in the house, 163 certifies all that malice dares to think. And in wounding my honour you are a parricide to our mother’s good name! I am ashamed of you, Will!”
From head to foot she reflected the indignation in her heart, as she stood erect with her hands clasped and the palms dropped downward, no sign of tears, no quiver of fear or doubt, no retreat, and no submission, in her face or attitude.
“Why, whatever is the matter with you, Aspatria?”
At this moment Brune entered, and she went to him, and put her hand through his arm, and said: “Brune, speak for me! Will has insulted mother and father, through me, in such a way that I can never forgive him!”
“You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Will Anneys!” And Brune put his sister gently behind him, and then marched squarely up to his brother’s face. “You are as passionate as a brute beast, Will, and that, too, with a poor little lass that has her own troubles, and has borne 164 them like—like a good woman always does.”
“I do not want to hear you speak, Brune.”
“Ay, but I will speak, and you shall hear me. I tell you, Aspatria is in no kind to blame. The man came on her sudden, out of the plantation. She did not take his hand, she did not listen to him. She sent him about his business as quick as might be.”
“Lottie Patterson saw her,” said Will, dourly.
“Because Aspatria called Lottie Patterson to her; and if Lottie Patterson says she saw anything more or worse than ought to be, I will pretty soon call upon Seth Patterson to make his sister’s words good. Cush! I will that! And what is more, Will Anneys, if you do not know how to take care of your sister’s good name, I will teach you,—you mouse of a man! You go and side with that Frostham set against Aspatria! Chaff on the Frosthams! It is a bad neighbourhood where 165 a girl like Aspatria cannot say a word or two on the king’s highway at broad noonday, without having a sisserara about it.”
“I did not side with the Frosthams against Aspatria.”
“I’ll be bound you did!”
“Let me alone, Brune! Go your ways out of here, both of you!”
“To be sure, we will both go. Come, Aspatria. When you are tired of ballooning, William Anneys, and can come down to common justice, maybe then I will talk to you,—not till.”
Now, good honest anger is one of the sinews of the soul; and he that wants it when there is occasion has but a maimed mind. The hot words, the passionate atmosphere, the rebellion of Aspatria, the decision of Brune, had the same effect upon Will’s senseless anger as a thunder-storm has upon the hot, heavy, summer air. Will raged his bad temper away, and was cool and clear-minded after it.
At the same hour the same kind of mental thunder-storm was prevailing over 166 all common-sense at Redware Hall. Ulfar, after a long and vain watch for another opportunity to speak to Aspatria, returned there in a temper compounded of anger, jealousy, disappointment, and unsatisfied affection. He heard Lady Redware’s story of his own danger and of Brune’s consideration with scornful indifference. Brune’s consideration he laughed at. He knew very well, he answered, that Brune Anneys hated him, and would take the greatest delight in such a hubbub as he pretended was in project.
“But he came to please Aspatria,” continued Lady Redware. “He said he came only to please Aspatria.”
“So Aspatria wishes me to leave Allerdale? I will not go.”
“Sarah, he will not go,” cried Lady 167 Redware, as her friend entered the room. “He says he will not go.”
“That is because you have appealed to Ulfar’s feelings instead of to his judgment. When Ulfar considers how savagely primitive these dalesmen are in their passions, he will understand that discretion is the nobler part of valour. In Russia he thought it a very prudent thing to get out of the way when a pack of wolves were in the neighbourhood.”
“The law will protect me in this house. Human beings have to mind the law.”
“There are times when human beings are a law unto themselves. How would you like to see a crowd of angry men shouting around this house for you? Think of your sister,—and of me, if I am worth so much consideration.”
“I am not to be frightened, Sarah.”
“Will you consider, then, that as far as Keswick and Kendal on one side, and as far as Dalton and Whitehaven on the other side, every local newspaper will have, or will make, its own version of the affair? 168 The Earl of Lonsdale, with a large party, is now at Whitehaven Castle. What a sauce piquante it will be to his dinners! How the men will howl over it, and how the women will snicker and smile!”
“Sarah! you can think of the hatefullest things.”
“And Lonsdale will go up to London purposely to have the delight of telling it at the clubs.”
“Sarah!”
“And the ‘Daily Whisper’ will get Lonsdale’s most delectable version, and blow it with the four winds of heaven to the four corners of the civilized world.”
“Sarah Sandys, I—”
“Worse still! that poor girl whom you treated so abominably, must suffer the whole thing over again. Her name will be put as the head and front of your offending. All her sorrows and heartbreak will be made a penny mouthful for country bumpkins and scandalous gammers to ‘Oh!’ and ‘Ah!’ over. Ulfar, if you are a man, you will not give her a moment’s 169 terror of such consequences. You may see that she fears them, by her sending her brother to entreat your absence.”
“And I must be called coward and runaway!”
“Let them call you anything they like, so that you spare her further shame and sorrow.”
“Your talking in this fashion to me, Sarah, is very like Satan correcting sin. I loved Aspatria when I met you in Rome.”
“Of course! Adam always has his Eve ready. ‘Not my fault, good people! Look at this woman! With her bright smiles and her soft tongue she beguiled me; and so I fell!’ We can settle that question, you and I, again. Now you must ring the bell, and order your horse—say, at four o’clock to-morrow morning. You can have nearly six hours’ sleep,—quite enough for you.”
“You have not convinced me, Sarah.”
“Then you must ride now, and be convinced afterward. For your sister’s sake 170 and for Aspatria’s sake, you will surely go away.”
Lady Redware was crying, and she cried a little harder to emphasize Sarah’s pleading. Ulfar was in a hard strait. He looked angrily at the handsome little woman urging him to do the thing he hated to do, and then taking the kerchief from his sister’s face, he kissed her, and promised to leave Redware at dawn of day.
“But,” said he, “if you send me away now, I tell you, our parting is likely to be for many years, perhaps for life. I am going beyond civilization, and so beyond scandal.”
“Do not flatter yourself so extravagantly, Ulfar. There is scandal everywhere, and always has been, even from the beginning. I have no doubt those nameless little sisters of Cain and Abel were talked about unpleasantly by their sisters and brothers-in-law. In fact, wherever there are women there are men glad to pull them down to their own level.”
“Is it not very hard, then, that I am not to be permitted to stay here and defend the women I love?”
Sarah shook her head. “It is beyond your power, Ulfar. If Porthos were on earth again, or Amadis of Gaul, they might have happy and useful careers in handling as they deserve the maligners of good, quiet women. But the men of this era!—which of them durst lift the stone that the hand without sin is permitted to cast?”
So they talked the night away, drifting gradually from the unpleasant initial subject to Ulfar’s plan of travel and 172 the far-off prospect of his return. And in the gray, cold dawn he bade them farewell, and they watched him until he vanished in the mists rolling down the mountain. Then they kissed each other,—a little, sad kiss of congratulation, wet with tears; they had won their desire, but their victory had left them weeping. Alas! it is the very condition of success that every triumph must be baptized with somebody’s tears.
This event, beginning in such a trifle as an almost accidental visit of Aspatria to the vicar, was the line sharply dividing very different lives. Nothing in Seat-Ambar was ever quite the same after it. William Anneys, indeed, quickly perceived and acknowledged his fault, and the reconciliation was kind and complete; but Aspatria had taken a step forward, and crossed clearly that bound which divides girlhood from womanhood. Unconsciously she assumed a carriage that Will felt compelled to respect, and a tone was in her voice he did not care to bluff and contradict. He never again ordered her to remain silent or 173 to leave his presence. A portion of his household authority had passed from him, both as regarded Aspatria and Brune; and he felt himself to be less master than he had formerly been.
Perhaps this was one reason of the growing frequency of his visits to Frostham. There he was made much of, deferred to, and all his little fancies flattered and obeyed. Will knew he was the most important person in the world to Alice Frostham; and he knew, also, that he only shared Aspatria’s heart with Ulfar Fenwick. Men like the whole heart, and nothing less than the whole heart; hence Alice’s influence grew steadily all through the summer days, full to the brim of happy labour and reasonable love. As early as the haymaking Will told Aspatria that Alice was coming to Seat-Ambar as its mistress; and when the harvest was gathered in, the wedding took place. It was as noisily jocund an affair as Aspatria’s had been silent and sorrowful; and Alice Frostham, encircled by Will’s protecting 174 arm, was led across the threshold of her own new home, to the sound of music and rejoicing.
The home was quickly divided, though without unkind intent. Will and Alice had their own talk, their own hopes and plans, and Aspatria and Brune generally felt that their entrance interfered with some discussion. So Aspatria and Brune began to sit a great deal in Aspatria’s room, and by and by to discuss, in a confidential way, what they were to do with their future. Brune had no definite idea. Aspatria’s intents were clear and certain. But she knew that she must wait until the spring brought her majority and her freedom.
One frosty day, near Christmas, as Brune was returning from Dalton, he heard himself called in a loud, cheerful voice. He was passing Seat-Ketel, and he soon saw Harry Ketel coming quickly toward him. Harry wore a splendid scarlet uniform; and the white snow beneath his feet, and the dark green pines between which he walked, made it all the more splendid by their 175 contrast. Brune had not seen Harry for five years; but they had been companions through their boyhood, and their memories were stored with the pleasant hours they had spent together.
Brune passed that night, and many subsequent ones, with his old friend; and when Harry went back to his regiment he took with him a certainty that Brune would soon follow. In fact, Harry had found his old companion in that mood which is ready to accept the first opening as the gift of fate. Brune found there was a commission to be bought in the Household Foot-Guards, and he was well able to pay for it. Indeed, Brune was by no means a poor man; his father had left him seven thousand pounds, and his share of the farm’s proceeds had been constantly added to it.
Aspatria was delighted. She might now go to London in Brune’s care. They discussed the matter constantly, and began to make the preparations necessary for the change. But affairs were not then arranged 176 by steam and electricity, and the letters relating to the purchase and transfer of Brune’s commission occupied some months in their transit to and fro; although Brune did not rely upon the postman’s idea of the practicability of the roads.
Aspatria’s correspondence was also uncertain and unsatisfactory for some time. She had at first no guide to a school but the advertisements in the London papers which Harry sent to his friend. But one night Brune, without any special intention, named the matter to Mrs. Ketel; and that lady was able to direct Aspatria to an excellent school in Richmond, near London. And as she was much more favourably situated for a quick settlement of the affair, she undertook the necessary correspondence.
Will was not ignorant of these movements, but Alice induced him to be passive in them. “No one can then blame us, Will, whatever happens.” And as Will and Alice were extremely sensitive to public opinion, this was a good consideration. 177 Besides Alice, not unnaturally, wished to have the Seat to herself; so that Aspatria’s and Brune’s wishes fitted admirably into her own desires, and it gave her a kind of selfish pleasure to forward them.
The ninth of March was Aspatria’s twenty-first birthday; and it was to her a very important anniversary, for she received as its gift her freedom and her fortune. There was no hitch or trouble in its transfer from Will to herself. Honour and integrity were in the life-blood of William Anneys, honesty and justice the very breath of his nostrils. Aspatria’s fortune had been guarded with a super-sensitive care; and when years gave her its management, Will surrendered it cheerfully to her control.
Fortunately, the school selected by Mrs. Ketel satisfied Will thoroughly; and Brune’s commission in the Foot-Guards was in honourable accord with the highest traditions and spirit of the dales. For the gigantic and physically handsome men of 178 these mountain valleys have been for centuries considered the finest material for those regiments whose duty it is to guard the persons and the homes of royalty. Brune had only followed in the steps of a great number of his ancestors.
In the beginning of April, Aspatria left Seat-Ambar for London,—left forever all the pettiness of her house life, chairs and tables, sewing and meals, and the useless daily labour that has to be continually done over again. And at the last Will was very tender with her, and even Alice did her best to make the parting 179 days full of hope and kindness. As for the journey, there was no anxiety; Brune was to travel with his sister, and see her safely within her new home.
Yet neither of them left the old home without some tears. Would they ever see again those great, steadfast hills, that purify those who walk upon them; ever dwell again within the dear old house, that had not been builded, but had grown with the family it had sheltered, through a thousand years? They hardly spoke to each other, as they drove through the sweet valleys, where the sunshine laid a gold on the green, and the warm south-wind gently rocked the daisies, and the lark’s song was like a silvery water-fall up in the sky.
But they were young; and, oh, the rich significance of the word “young” when the heart is young as well as the body, when the thoughts are not doubts, and when the eyes look not backward, but only forward, into a bright future!
During thirty years of the first half of this century Mrs. St. Alban’s finishing school for young gentlewomen was a famous institution of its kind. For she had been born to the manner of courts and of people of high degree; and when evil fortune met her, she very wisely turned her inherited social advantages into a means of honest livelihood. Aspatria was much impressed by her noble bearing and fine manners, and by the elaborate state in which the twelve pupils, of whom she was one, lived.
Each had her own suite of apartments; each was expected to keep a maid, and to dress with the utmost care and propriety. There were fine horses in the stables for their equestrian exercise, there were grooms 181 to attend them during it, and there were regular reception-days, which afforded tyros in social accomplishments practical opportunities for cultivating the graceful and gracious urbanity which evidences really fine breeding.
Many of Aspatria’s companions were of high rank,—Lady Julias and Lady Augustas, who were destined to wear ducal coronets and to stand around the throne of their young queen. But they were always charmingly pleasant and polite, and Aspatria soon acquired their outward form of calm deliberation and their mode of low, soft speech. For the rest, she decided, with singular prudence, to cultivate only those talents which nature had obviously granted her.
A few efforts proved that she had no taste for art. Indeed, the attempt to portray the majesty of the mountains or the immensity of the ocean seemed to her childishly petty and futile. She had dwelt among the high places and been familiar with the great sea, and to make images of 182 them appeared a kind of sacrilege. But she liked the study of languages, and she had a rich contralto voice capable of expressing all the emotions of the heart. At the piano she hesitated; its music, under her unskilled fingers, sounded mechanical; she doubted her ability to put a soul into that instrument. But the harp was different; its strings held sympathetic tones she felt competent to master. To these studies she added a course of English literature and dancing. She was already a fine rider, and her information obtained from the vicar’s library and the Encyclopædia covered an enormous variety of subjects, though it was desultory, and in many respects imperfect.
Her new life was delightful to her. She had an innate love for study, for quiet, and for elegant surroundings. These tastes were fully gratified. The large house stood in a fair garden, surrounded by very high walls, with entrance-gates of handsomely wrought iron. Perfect quiet reigned within this flowery enclosure. She could study 183 without the constant interruptions which had annoyed her at home; and she was wisely aided in her studies by masters whose low voices and gliding steps seemed only to accentuate the peace of the wide schoolroom, with its perfect appointments and its placid group of beautiful students.
On Saturdays Brune generally spent several hours with her; and if the weather were fine, they rode or walked in the Park. Brune was a constant wonder to Aspatria. Certainly his handsome uniform had done much for him, but there was a greater 184 change than could be effected by mere clothes. Without losing that freshness and singleness of mind he owed to his country training, he had become a man of fashion, a little of a dandy, a very innocent sort of a lady-killer. His arrival caused always a faint flutter in Mrs. St. Alban’s dove-cot, and the noble damosels found many little womanly devices to excuse their passing through the parlour while Brune was present. They liked to see him bend his beautiful head to them; and Lady Mary Boleyn, who was Aspatria’s friend and companion, was mildly envied the privileges this relation gave her.
During the vacations Aspatria was always the guest of one or other of her mates, though generally she spent them at the splendid seat of the Boleyns in Hampshire, and the unconscious education thus received was of the greatest value to her. It gave the ease of nature to acquired accomplishments, and, above all, that air which we call distinction, which is rarely natural, and is attained only by 185 frequent association with those who dwell on the highest social peaks.
Much might be said of this phase of Aspatria’s life which may be left to the reader’s imagination. For three years it saw only such changes as advancing intelligence and growing friendships made. The real change was in Aspatria personally. No one could have traced without constant doubt the slim, virginal, unfinished-looking girl that left Seat-Ambar, in the womanly perfection of Aspatria aged twenty-four years. She had grown several inches taller; her angles had all disappeared; every joint was softly rounded. Her hands and arms were exquisite; her throat and the poise of her head like those of a Greek goddess. Her hair was darker and more abundant, and her eyes retained all their old charm, with some rarer and nobler addition.
To be sure, she had not the perfect regularity of feature that distinguished some of her associates, that exact beauty which Titian’s Venus possesses, and which makes 186 no man’s heart beat a throb the faster. Her face had rather the mobile irregularity of Leonardo’s Mona Lisa, the charming face that men love passionately, the face that men can die for.
At the close of the third year she refused all invitations for the summer holidays, and went back to Seat-Ambar. There had not been much communication between Will and herself. He was occupied with his land and his sheep, his wife and his two babies. People then took each other’s affection as a matter of course, without the daily assurance of it. About twice a year Will had sent her a few strong words of love, and a bare description of any change about the home, or else Alice had covered a sheet with pretty nothings, written in the small, pointed, flowing characters then fashionable.
But the love of Aspatria for her home depended on no such trivial, accidental tokens. It was in her blood; her personality was knotted to Seat-Ambar by centuries of inherited affection; she could test 187 it by the fact that it would have killed her to see it pass into a stranger’s hands. When once she had turned her face northward, it seemed impossible to travel quickly enough. Hundreds of miles away she felt the cool wind blowing through the garden, and the scent of the damask rose was on it. She heard the gurgling of the becks and the wayside streams, and the whistling of the boys in the barn, and the tinkling of the sheep-bells on the highest fells. The raspberries were ripe in their sunny corner; she tasted them afar off. 188 The dark oak rooms, their perfume of ancient things, their air of homelike comfort,—it was all so vivid, so present to her memory, that her heart beat and thrilled, as the breast of a nursing mother thrills and beats for her longing babe.
She had told no one she was coming; for, the determination made, she knew that she would reach home before the Dalton postman got the letter to Seat-Ambar. The gig she had hired she left at the lower garden gate; and then she walked quickly through the rose-alley up to the front door. It stood open, and she heard a baby crying. How strange the wailing notes sounded! She went forward, and opened the parlour door; Alice was washing the child, and she turned with an annoyed look to see the intruder.
Of course the expression changed, but not quickly enough to prevent Aspatria seeing that her visit was inopportune. Alice said afterward that she did not recognize her sister-in-law, and, as Will met her 189 precisely as he would have met an entire stranger, Alice’s excuse was doubtless a valid one. There were abundant exclamations and rejoicings when her identity was established, but Will could do nothing all the evening but wonder over the changes that had taken place in his sister.
However, when the first joy of reunion is over, it is a prudent thing not to try too far the welcome that is given to the home-comer who has once left home. Will and Alice had grown to the idea that Aspatria would never return to claim the room in Seat-Ambar which was hers legally so long as she lived. It had been refurnished and was used as a guest-room. Aspatria looked with dismay on the changes made. Her very sampler had been sent away,—the bit of canvas made sacred by her mother’s fingers holding her own over it. She could remember the instances connected with the formation of almost every letter of its simple prayer,—
And it was gone! She went into the lumber-room, and picked it out from under a pile of old prints and shabbily framed certificates for prize cattle.
With a sad heart Aspatria regarded the other changes. Her little tent-bed, with its white dimity curtains, had been given to baby’s nurse. The vase her father had bought her at Kendal fair was broken. Her small mirror and dressing-table had been removed for a fine Psyche in a gilded frame. Nothing, nothing was untouched, but the big dower-chest into which she had flung her wretched wedding-clothes. She stood silently before it, reflecting, with excusable ill-nature, that neither Will nor Alice knew the secret of its spring. Her mother had taught it to her, and that bit of knowledge she determined to keep to herself.
After some hesitation she tried the 191 spring: it answered her pressure at once; the lid flew back, and there lay the unhappy white satin dress, the wreath, and veil, and slippers, just as she had tumbled them in. The bitter hour came sharply back to her; she thought and gazed, and thought and gazed, until she felt herself to be weeping. Then she softly closed 192 the lid, and, as she did so, a smile parted her lips,—a smile that denied all that her tears said; a smile of hope, of good presage, of coming happiness.
She stayed only a week at Seat-Ambar, though she had originally intended to remain until the harvest was over. The time was spent in public festivity; every one in Allerdale was invited to give her a fitting welcome. But the very formality of all this entertainment pained her. It was, after all, only a cruel evidence that Will and Alice did not care to take her into their real home-life. She would rather have sat alone with them, and talked of their hopes and plans, and been permitted to make friends of the babies.
So far away, so far away as she had drifted in three years from the absent living! Would the dead be kinder? She went to Aspatria Church and sat down in her mother’s seat, and let the strange spiritual atmosphere which hovers in old churches fill her heart with its supernatural influence. All around her were the graves 193 of her fore-elders, strong elemental men, simple God-loving women. Did they know her? Did they care for her? Her soul looked with piteous entreaty into the void behind it, but there was no answer; only that dreadful silence of the dead, which presses upon the drum of the ear like thunder.
She went into the quiet yard around the 194 church. The ancient, ancient sun shone on the young grass. Over her mother’s grave the sweet thyme had grown luxuriantly. She rubbed her hands in it, and spread them toward heaven with a prayer. Then peace came into her heart, and she felt as if eyes, unseen heavenly eyes, rained happy influence upon her. Thus it is that death imparts to life its most intense interest; for, kneeling in his very presence, Aspatria forgot the mortality of her parents, and did reverence to that within them which was eternal.
She returned to London, and was a little disappointed there also. Mrs. St. Alban had promised herself an absolute release from any outside element. She felt Aspatria a trifle in the way, and, though far too polite to show her annoyance, Aspatria by some similar instinct divined it. That is the way always. When we plan for ourselves, all our plans fail. Happy are they who learn early to let fate alone, and never interfere with the Powers who hold the thread of their destiny!
It was not until she had reached this mood, a kind of content indifference, that her good genius could work for her. She then sent Brune as her messenger, and Brune took his sister to meet her on Richmond Hill. On their way thither they talked about Seat-Ambar, and Will and Alice, until Aspatria suddenly noticed that Brune was not listening to her. His eyes were fixed upon a lovely woman approaching them. It was Sarah Sandys. Brune stood bareheaded to receive her salutation.
“I never should have known you, Lieutenant Anneys,” she said, extending her hand, and beaming like sunshine on the handsome officer, “had not your colonel Jardine been in Richmond to-day. He is very proud of you, sir, and said so many fine things of you that I am ambitious to show him that we are old acquaintances. May I know, through you, Mrs. Anneys also?”
“This is my sister, Mrs. Sandys,—my sister—” Brune hesitated a moment, and then said firmly, “Miss Anneys.”
Then Sarah insisted on taking them to her house to lunch; and there she soon had them under her influence. She waited on them with ravishing smiles and all sorts of pretty offices. She took them in her handsome carriage to drive, she insisted on their remaining to dinner. And before the drive was over, she had induced Aspatria to extend her visit until the opening of Mrs. St. Alban’s school.
“We three are from the north country,” she said, with an air of relationship; “and how absurd for Miss Anneys to be alone at Mrs. St. Alban’s, where she is not wanted, and for me to be alone here, when I desire her society so much!”
Aspatria was much pleased to receive such a delightful invitation, and a messenger was sent at once for her maid. Mrs. St. Alban was quite ready to resign Aspatria, and the maid was as glad as her mistress to leave the lonely mansion. In an hour or two she had removed Aspatria’s wardrobe, and was arranging the pleasant rooms Mrs. Sandys had placed at her guest’s disposal.
Sarah was evidently bent on conquest. Her toilet was a marvellous combination of some shining blue and white texture, mingled with pink roses and gold ornaments. Her soft fair hair was loosened and curled, and she had a childlike manner of being carelessly happy. Brune sat at her right hand; she talked to him in smiles and glances, and gave her words to Aspatria. She was determined to please both sister and brother, and she succeeded. Aspatria thought she had never in all her life seen a woman so lovable, so amusing, so individual.