THE ENEMY IN THE HOUSEHOLD.
"There is a method in man's wickedness,
It grows up by degrees."
"How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
To have a thankless child!"
After the wedding, there were some weeks of that peaceful monotony which
is the happiest vehicle for daily life,--weeks so uniform that Charlotte
remembered their events as little as she did their particular weather.
The only circumstance that cast any shadow over them related to Harry.
His behavior had been somewhat remarkable, and the hope that time would
explain it had not been realized at the end of August.
About three weeks before Sophia's marriage, Harry suddenly wrote to say
that he had obtained a three months' furlough, in order to go to Italy
with a sick friend. This letter, so utterly unexpected, caused some
heart-burning and disappointment. Sophia had calculated upon Harry's
fine appearance and splendid uniform as a distinct addition to her
wedding spectacle. She also felt that the whole neighborhood would be
speculating upon the cause of his absence, and very likely infer from it
that he disapproved of Julius; and the bare suspicion of such a slight
made her indignant.
Julius considered this to be the true state of the case, though he
promised himself "to find out all about Mr. Harry's affairs" as soon as
he had the leisure and opportunity.
"The idea of Harry going as sick-nurse with any friend or comrade is
absurd, Sophia. However, we can easily take Florence into our
wedding-trip, only we must not let Charlotte know of our intention.
Charlotte is against us, Sophia; and you may depend upon it, Harry meant
to insult us by his absence."
Insult or not to the bride and bridegroom, it was a great disappointment
to Mrs. Sandal. To see, to speak to Harry was always a sure delight to
her. The squire loved and yet feared his visits. Harry always needed
money; and lately his father had begun to understand, and for the first
time in his life, what a many-sided need it was. To go to his
secretary, and to find no gold pieces in its cash-drawer; and to his
bank-book, and find no surplus credit there, gave the squire a feeling
of blank amazement and heart-sick perplexity. He felt that such a change
as that might prefigure other changes still more painful and frightsome.
Charlotte inclined to the same opinion as Julius, regarding her
brother's sudden flight to Florence. She concluded that he had felt it
impossible to congratulate his sister, or to simulate any fraternal
regard for Julius; and her knowledge of facts made her read for "sick
friend" "fair friend." It was, indeed, very likely that the beautiful
girl, whose likeness Harry carried so near his heart, had gone to
Florence; and that he had moved heaven and earth to follow her there.
And when his own love-affairs were pressing and important, how was it
likely that he could care for those of Julius and Sophia?
So, at intervals, they wondered a little about Harry's peculiar
movement, and tried hard to find something definite below the surface
words of his short letters. Otherwise, a great peace had settled over
Seat-Sandal. Its hall-doors stood open all day long, and the August
sunshine and the garden scents drifted in with the lights and shadows.
Life had settled down into such simple ways, that it seemed to be always
at rest. The hours went and came, and brought with them their little
measure of duty and pleasure, both so usual and easy, that they took
nothing from the feelings or the strength, and gave an infinite sense of
peace and contentment.
One August evening they were in the garden; there had been several hot,
clear days, and the harvesters were making the most of every hour. The
squire had been in the field until near sunset, and now he was watching
anxiously for the last wain. "We have the earliest shearing in
Sandal-Side," he said. "The sickle has not been in the upper meadows
yet, and if they finish to-night it will be a good thing. It's a fine
moon for work. _A fine moon, God bless her!_ Hark! There is the song I
have been waiting for, and all's well, Charlotte." And they stood still
to listen to the rumble of the wagon, and the rude, hearty chant that at
intervals accompanied it:--
"Blest be the day that Christ was born!
The last sheaf of Sandal corn
Is well bound, and better shorn.
Hip, hip, hurrah!"
"Good-evening, squire." The speaker had come quickly around one of the
garden hedges, and his voice seemed to fall out of mid-air. Charlotte
turned, with eyes full of light, and a flush of color that made her
exceedingly handsome.
"Well-a-mercy! Good-evening, Stephen. When did you get home? Nobody had
heard tell. Eh? What?"
"I came this afternoon, squire; and as there is a favor you can do us, I
thought I would ask it at once."
"Surely, Stephen. What can I do? Eh? What?"
"I hear your harvest is home. Can you spare us a couple of men? The
wheat in Low Barra fields is ready for the sickle."
"Three men, four, if you want them. You cannot have too many sickles.
Cut wheat while the sun shines. Eh? What? How is the lady at Up-Hill?"
"Mother is middling well, I'm obliged to you. I think she has failed
though, since grandfather died."
"It is likely. She has been too much by herself. You should stay at
home, Stephen Latrigg. A man's duty is more often there than anywhere
else. Eh?"
"I think you are right now, squire." And then he blundered into the very
statement that he ought to have let alone. "And I am not going to build
the mill, squire,--not yet, at least. I would not do any thing to annoy
you for the world."
The information was pleasant to Sandal; but he had already heard it, in
its least offensive way, through Ducie and Charlotte. Steve's broad
relinquishment demanded some acknowledgment, and appeared to put him
under an obligation which he did not feel he had any right to
acknowledge. He considered the building of a mill so near his own
property a great social wrong, and why should he thank Stephen Latrigg
for not committing it?
So he answered coldly, "You must take your own way, Stephen. I am an old
man. I have had my say in my generation, maybe I haven't any right to
meddle with yours. New men, new times." Then being conscious that he
was a little ungenerous he walked off to Mrs. Sandal, and left the
lovers together. Steve would have forgiven the squire a great deal more
for such an opportunity, especially as a still kinder after-thought
followed it. For he had not gone far before he turned, and called back,
"Bring Steve into the house, Charlotte. He will stay, and have a bit of
supper with us, no doubt." Perhaps the lovers made the way into the
house a little roundabout. But Sandal was not an unjust man; and having
given them the opportunity, he did not blame them for taking it. Besides
he could trust Charlotte. Though the heavens fell, he could trust
Charlotte.
During supper the conversation turned again to Stephen's future plans.
Whether the squire liked to admit the fact or not, he was deeply
interested in them; and he listened carefully to what the young man
said.
"If I am going to trust to sheep, squire, then I may as well have plenty
to trust to. I think of buying the Penghyll 'walk,' and putting a
thousand on it."
"My song, Stephen!"
"I can manage them quite well. I shall get more shepherds, and there
are new ways of doing things that lighten labor very much. I have been
finding out all about them. I think of taking three thousand fleeces, at
the very least, to Bradford next summer."
"Two hundred years ago somebody thought of harnessing a flock of wild
geese for a trip to the moon. They never could do it. Eh? What?"
Stephen laughed a little uncomfortably. "That was nonsense, squire."
"It was 'almighty youth,' Stephen. The young think they can do every
thing. In a few years they do what they can and what they may. It is a
blessed truth that the mind cannot stay long in a _bree_. It gets tired
of ballooning, and comes down to hands and feet again. Eh? What?"
"I think you mean kindly, squire."
The confidence touched him. "I do, Steve. Don't be in a hurry, my lad.
There are some things in life that are worth a deal more than
money,--things that money cannot buy. Let money take a backward place."
Then he voluntarily asked about the processes of spinning and weaving
wool, and in spite of his prejudices was a little excited over
Stephen's startling statements and statistics.
Indeed, the young man was so interesting, that Sandal went with him to
the hall-door, and stood there with him, listening to his graphic
descriptions of the wool-rooms at the top of the great Yorkshire mills.
"I'd like well to take you through one, squire. Fleeces? You would be
wonder-struck. There are long staple and short staple; silky wool and
woolly wool; black fleeces from the Punjaub, and curly white ones from
Bombay; long warps from Russia, short ones from Buenos Ayres; little
Spanish fleeces, and our own Westmoreland and Cumberland skins, that
beat every thing in the world for size. And then to see them turned into
cloth as fast as steam can do it! My word, squire, there never was magic
or witchcraft like the steam and metal witchcraft of a Yorkshire mill."
"Well, well, Steve. I don't fret myself because I am set in stiller
ways, and I don't blame those who like the hurryment of steam and metal.
Each of us has God's will to do, and our own race to run; and may we
prosper."
After this, Steve, sometimes gaining and sometimes losing, gradually
won his way back to the squire's liking. September proved to be an
unusually fair month; and to the lovers it was full of happiness, for
early in it their relation to each other was fully recognized; and
Stephen had gone in and out of the pleasant "Seat," dayshine and dark,
as the acknowledged lover of Charlotte Sandal. The squire, upon the
whole, submitted gracefully: he only stipulated that for some time,
indefinitely postponed, the subject of marriage was not to be taken into
consideration. "I could not bear it any road. I could not bear it yet,
Stephen. Wait your full time, and be glad to wait. So few young men will
understand that to pluck the blossom is to destroy the fruit."
Towards the end of September, there was a letter from Sophia dated
Florence. Some letters are like some individuals, they carry with them a
certain unpleasant atmosphere. None of Sophia's epistles had been very
satisfactory; for they were so short, and yet so definitely pinned to
Julius, that they were but commentaries on that individual. At Paris she
had simply asked Julius, "What do _you_ think of Paris?" And the opinion
of Julius was then given to Seat-Sandal confidently as the only correct
estimate that the world was likely to get. At Venice, Rome, Naples, her
plan was identical; and any variation of detail simply referred to the
living at different places, and how Julius liked it, and how it had
agreed with him.
So when the Florence letter came, there was no particular enthusiasm
about it. The address assigned it to the squire, and he left it lying on
the table while he finished the broiled trout and coffee before him. But
it troubled Charlotte, and she waited anxiously for the unpleasant words
she felt sure were inside of it. Yet there was no change on the squire's
face, and no sign of annoyance, as he read it. "It is about the usual
thing, Alice. Julius likes Florence. It is called 'the beautiful.'
Julius thinks that it deserves the title. The wine in Rome did not suit
Julius, but he finds the Florence vintage much better. The climate is
very delightful, Julius is sure he will derive benefit from it; and so
on, and so on, and so on." Then there was a short pause, and a rapid
turn of the sheet to glance at the other side. "Oh, Julius met Harry
yesterday! He--Julius--does not think Harry is doing right. 'Harry
always was selfish and extravagant, and though he did affront us on our
wedding-day, Julius thought it proper to call upon him. He--I mean
Harry--was with a most beautiful young girl. Julius thinks father ought
to write to him, and tell him to go back to his duty.'"
These were the words, doubtful and suggestive, which made every heart in
Seat-Sandal thoroughly uncomfortable. And yet Charlotte stoutly said, "I
would not mind Sophia's insinuations, father and mother. She is angry at
Harry. Harry has as much right in Florence as Sophia has. He told us he
was going there. He has written to us frequently. Suppose he was with a
beautiful girl: is Julius the only young man entitled to such a
privilege? Sophia is happy in her own way, and we do not envy nor
interfere with her happiness; but why should we permit her to make us
unhappy? Throw the letter out of your memories, dear father and mother.
It is only a piece of ill-nature. Perhaps Julius had been cross with
her; and if Sophia has a grievance, she never rests until she passes it
on to some one."
Women still hold the divining-cup, and Charlotte was not far wrong in
her supposition. In spite of their twinship of soul, and in spite of
that habit of loving which was involved in their belief "that they had
been husband and wife in many a previous existence," Mr. and Mrs. Julius
Sandal disagreed as conventionally as the ordinary husband and wife of
one existence. The day on which the Florence letter was written had been
a very unhappy one for Sophia. Julius had quarrelled with her about some
very trivial affair, and had gone out in a temper disgracefully at
variance with the occasion for it; and Sophia had sat all day nursing
her wrath in her darkened room. She did not dress for the evening drive,
for she had determined to "keep up" her anger until Julius made her some
atonement.
But when he came home, she could not resist his air of confidence and
satisfaction. He had quite forgotten the affair at the breakfast-table,
and was only eager for her help and sympathy. "I have seen Harry," he
said.
"Very well. You came here to find him. I suppose I can see him also. I
am sure I need to see some one. I have been neglected all day;
suffering, lonely,"--
"Sophia, you and I are here to look after our own affairs a little. If
you are willing to help me, I shall be glad; if not"--
"You know I will help you in any thing I can, Julius."
Then he kissed her, and she cried a little, and he kissed her again; and
she dressed herself, and they went for a drive, and during it met Harry,
and brought him back to dine with them. Julius was particularly pleasant
to the unsuspicious soldier. He soon perceived that he was thoroughly
disgusted with the rigor and routine of military life, and longing to
free himself from its thraldom; and he encouraged him in the idea.
"I wonder how you stand it, Harry," he said sympathetically.
"You see, Julius, when I went into the army, I was so weary of
Sandal-Side; and I liked the uniform, and the stir of an officer's life,
and the admiration of the girls, and the whole _éclat_ of the thing. But
when a man's time comes, and he falls so deeply in love that he cares
for nothing on earth but one woman, then he hates whatever comes between
himself and that woman."
"Naturally so. I suppose it is the young lady I saw you walking with
this morning."
And Harry blushed like a girl as he gravely nodded his head.
"Does she live here?"
"She will for the future."
"And you must go back to your regiment?"
"Almost immediately."
"Too bad! Too bad! Why not leave the army?"
"I--I have thought of that; but unless I returned to Sandal-Side, my
father would be angry beyond every thing."
"Fathers cannot be autocrats--quite. You might sell out."
"Julius, you ought not to suggest such a thing. The temptation has been
lurking in my own heart. I am sorry you have given it a voice. It would
be a shameful thing to do unless father were willing."
"I have a friend anxious for a commission. I should think a thousand
pounds would make an exchange."
"Do not speak on the subject, Julius."
"Very well. I was only supposing; a fellow-feeling, you know. I have
married the girl I desired; and I am sorry for a young man who is
obliged to leave a handsome mistress, and to feel that others may see
her and talk to her while he cannot. It was only a supposition. Do not
mind it."
But the germ of every wrong deed is the reflection whether it be
possible. And after Harry had gone away with the thought in his heart,
Julius sat musing over his own plans, and Sophia wrote the letter which
so unnecessarily and unkindly shadowed the pleasant life at Seat-Sandal.
For though the squire pooh-poohed it, and Charlotte professed
indifference about it, and Mrs. Sandal kept assuring herself and others
that "Harry never, never would do any thing wrong or unkind, especially
about a woman," every one was apprehensive and watchful. But at last,
even suspicion tires of watching for events that never happen; and
Sophia sent other letters, and made no mention of Harry; and the fear
that had crouched at each home-heart slunk away into forgetfulness.
Into total forgetfulness. When Harry voluntarily came home for
Christmas, no one coupled his visit with the remarks made by Sophia four
months previously. They had not expected to see him, and the news of
his advent barely reached the house before he followed it; for there was
a heavy snow-storm, and the mail was sent forward with difficulty. So
Mrs. Sandal was reading the letter announcing his visit when she heard
his voice in the hall, and the joyful cry of Charlotte as she ran to
meet him. And that night every one was too happy, too full of inquiry
and information, to notice that Harry was under an unusual restraint. It
did not even strike Charlotte until she awoke the next morning with all
her faculties fresh and clear; then she felt, rather than understood,
that there was something not quite right about Harry.
It was still snowing, and every thing was white; but the atmosphere of a
quiet, happy Christmas was in the house. There were smiling faces and
good wishes at the breakfast-table, and the shifting lustres of blazing
fires upon the dark walls and evergreens and wax-white mistletoe. And
the wind brought a Christmas greeting from the bells of Furness and
Torver, and Sandal-Side peal sent it on to Earlstower and Coniston.
After breakfast they all went to church; and Harry saw, as in a dream,
the sacred table spread with spotless cloth and silver cups and
flagons, and the dim place decked with holly, and the smiling glance of
welcome from his old acquaintances in the village. And he fell into a
reverie which was not a Christmas reverie, and had it suddenly broken by
his sister singing high and clear the carol the angels sung on the hills
of Bethlehem,--"Glory be to God on high!" And the tears sprang into his
eyes, and he looked stealthily at his father and mother, who were
reverently listening; and said softly to himself, "I wish that I had
never been born."
For he had come to tell his father news which he knew would shake the
foundations of love and life; and he felt like a coward and a thief in
delaying the explanation. "What right have I to this one day's more
love?" he asked himself; and yet he could not endure to mar the holy,
unselfish festival with the revelation of his own selfishness. As the
day wore on, a sense of weariness and even gloom came with it. Rich food
and wine are by no means conducive to cheerfulness. The squire sloomed
and slept in his chair; and finally, after a cup of tea, went to bed.
The servants had a party in their own hall, and Mrs. Sandal and
Charlotte were occupied an hour or two in its ordering. Then the mother
was thoroughly weary; and before it was quite nine o'clock, Harry and
Charlotte were left alone by the parlor fire. Charlotte was a little
dull also; for Steve had found it impossible to get down the mountain
during the storm, and she missed him, and was constantly inclined to
fall into short silences.
After one of them, she raised her eyes to Harry's face, and was shocked
by its expression. "Harry," she said, leaning forward to take his hand,
"I am sure you are in trouble. What is it?"
"If I durst tell you, Charlotte!"
"Whatever you have dared to do, you may dare to tell me, Harry, I
think."
"I have got married."
"Well, where is the harm? Is it to the lady whose picture you showed
me?"
"Yes. I told you she was poor."
"It is a great pity she is poor. I am afraid we are getting poor too.
Father was saying last week that he had been talking with Squire
Beverley. Emily is to have fifteen thousand pounds. Father is feverishly
anxious about you and Emily. Her fortune would be a great thing at
Sandal, and father likes her."
"What is the use of talking about Emily? I have been married to Beatrice
Lanza since last September."
"Such a strange name! Is it a Scotch name?"
"She is an Italian."
"Harry Sandal! What a shame!"
"Don't you think God made Italians as well as Englishmen?"
"That is not the question. God made Indians and negroes and all sorts of
people. But he set the world in races, as he set races in families. He
told the Jews to keep to themselves. He was angry when they intermarried
with others. It always brought harm. What kind of a person is an
Italian? They are papists, I know. The Pope of Rome is an Italian. O
Harry, Harry, Harry! It will kill father and mother. But perhaps, as you
met her in Edinburgh, she is a Protestant. The Scotch are all
Protestants."
"Beatrice is a Roman Catholic, a very strict Roman Catholic. I had to
marry her in a Romish church." He said the words rather defiantly, for
Charlotte's attitude offended him; and he had reached that point when it
was a reckless pleasure to put things at their worst.
"Then I am ashamed of you. The dear old rector! He married father and
mother; he christened and confirmed you; you might be sure, that if you
could not ask him to marry you, you had no business to marry at all."
"You said her face was like an angel's, and that you would love her,
Charlotte."
"Oh, indeed! But I did not think the angel was an Italian angel and a
Roman-Catholic angel. Circumstances alter cases. You, who have been
brought up a good Church-of-England gentleman, to go over to the Pope of
Rome!"
"I have not gone over to the Pope of Rome."
"All the same, Harry; all the same. And you know how father feels about
that. Father would fight for the Church quicker than he would fight for
his own house and land. Why! the Sandals got all of their Millom Estate
for being good Protestants; for standing by the Hanoverian line instead
of those popish Stuarts. Father will think you have committed an act of
treason against both church and state, and he will be ashamed to show
his face among the Dale squires. It is too bad! too bad for any thing!"
and she covered her face, and cried bitterly.
"She is so lovely, so good"--
"Nonsense! Were there no lovely English girls? no good English girls?
Emily is ten times lovelier."
"You know what you said."
"I said it to please you."
"Charlotte!"
"Yes, I did,--at least, in a great measure. It is easy enough to call a
pretty girl an angel; and as for my promise to love your wife, of course
I expected you would choose a wife suitable to your religion and your
birth. Suppose you selected some outlandish dress,--an Italian
brigand's, for instance,--what would the neighboring gentlemen think of
you? It would be an insult to their national costume, and they would do
right to resent it. Well, being who and what you are, you have no right
to bring an Italian woman into Seat-Sandal. It is an insult to every
woman in the county, and they will make you feel it."
"I shall not give them the opportunity. Beatrice cannot live in this
beastly climate."
"The climate is wrong also? Naturally. It would follow the religion and
the woman. Harry Sandal, I wish I had died, ere my ears had heard such a
shame and sorrow for my father and mother! Where are you going to live,
then?"
"In Florence. It is the birthplace of Beatrice the city associated with
all her triumphs."
"God have mercy, Harry! Her triumphs! Is she, then, an actress?"
"She is a singer,--a wonderful singer; one to whom the world has
listened with breathless delight."
"A singing woman! And you have married her? It is an outrage on your
ancestors, and on your parents and sisters."
"I will not hear you speak in that way, Charlotte. Of course I married
her. Did you wish me to ruin and debase her? _That_, I suppose, you
could have forgiven. My sin against the Sandals and society is, that I
married her."
"No, sir; you know better. Your sin is in having any thing whatever to
do with her. There is not a soul in Sandal that would have hesitated
between ruin and marriage. If it had to be one or the other, then father
and mother both, then I, then all your friends, would have said without
hesitation, 'Marry the woman.'"
"I expected and hoped this would be your view of the situation. I could
not give up Beatrice, and I could not be a scoundrel to her."
"You might have thought of another woman besides Beatrice. Is a sin
against a mother a less sin than one against a strange woman? A mother
is something sacred. To wound her heart is to throw a stone at her. You
have committed a sort of sacrilege. And you are married. No entreaties
can prevent, and no repentance can avail. Oh, what a sorrow to darken
all the rest of father's and mother's days! What right have you to spoil
their lives, in order to give yourself a little pleasure? O Harry! I
never knew that you were selfish before."
"I deserve all you say, Charley, but I loved Beatrice so much."
"Are you sure, even of that excuse? I heard you vow that you loved Eliza
Pierson 'so much,' and Fanny Ulloch 'so much,' and Emily Beverley 'so
much.' Why did you not come home, and speak to me before it was too
late? Why come at all now?"
"Because I want to talk to you about money. I have sold out."
"Sold out? Is there any more bad news? Do you know what father paid for
your commission? Do you know how it hampered him to do it? that, in
fact, he has never been quite easy about ready money since?"
"I had to sell out. Did I not tell you that Beatrice could not live in
this climate? She was very ill when she returned to Italy. Signor Lanza
was in great trouble about her."
"Signor Lanza? Her brother, I suppose."
"You suppose wrong. He is her father."
"For her, then, you have given up your faith, your country, your home,
your profession, every thing that other men hold dear and sacred. Do you
expect father to support you? Or is your wife to sing in Italy?"
"I think you are trying how disagreeable you can be, Charlotte."
"I am asking you honest questions in honest words."
"I have the money from the sale of my commission."
"It does not then strike you as dishonorable to keep it?"
"No, father gave me it."
"It appears to me, that if money was taken from the estate, let us say
to stock a sheep-walk, and it was decided after three years' trial to
give up the enterprise, and sell the sheep, that the money would
naturally go back to the estate. When you came of age, father made you a
very generous allowance. After a time you preferred that he should
invest a large sum in a military commission for you; and you proposed to
live upon your pay,--a thing you never have even tried to do. Suddenly,
you find that the commission will not suit your more recent plans, and
you sell it. Ought not the money to go back to the estate, and you to
make a fresh arrangement with father about your allowance? That is my
idea."
"Foolishness! And pray what allowance would my father make me, after the
marriage I have contracted?"
"Now, you show your secret heart, Harry. You know you have no right to
expect one, and so you keep what is not yours. This sin also for the
woman whom you have put before every sentiment of love and honor."
"You were stubborn enough about Steve Latrigg."
"I was honorable; I was considerate for father, and did not put Stephen
before him. Do you think I would ever marry Stephen against father's
wish, or to the injury or suffering of any one whom I love? Certainly I
would marry no one else, but I gave father my word that I would wait for
his sanction. When people do right, things come right for them. But if
father had stood out twenty years, Steve and I would have waited. Ducie
gave us the same advice. 'Wait, children,' she said: 'I have seen many a
wilful match, and many a run-away match, but never one, never one that
prospered.'"
"Charley, I expected you to stand by me. I expected you to help me."
"O Harry, Harry! How can I help? What can I do? There is nothing left
but to suffer."
"There is this: plead for me when I am away. My wife is sick in
Florence. I must go to her at once. The money I have from my commission
is all I have. I am going to invest it in a little house and vineyard. I
have found out that my real tastes are for a pastoral life."
"Ah, if you could only have found that out for father!"
"Circumstances may change."
"That is, your father may die. I suppose you and your wife have talked
over that probability. Beatrice will be able to endure the climate
then."
"If I did not see that you were under very strong excitement, Charlotte,
I should be much offended by what you say. But you don't mean to hurt
me. Do you imagine that I feel no sorrow in leaving father and my mother
and you and the old home? My heart is very sad to-night, Charley. I feel
that I shall come here no more."
"Then why go away? Why, why?"
"Because a man leaves father and mother and every thing for the woman he
loves. Charley, help me."
She shook her head sadly.
"Help me to break the trouble to father."
"There is no 'breaking' it. It will break him. It will kill him. Alas,
it is the ungrateful child that has the power to inflict a slow and
torturing death! Poor father! Poor mother! And it is I that must witness
it. I, that would die to save them from such undeserved sorrow."
Then Harry rose up angrily, pushed his chair impatiently away, and
without a word went to his own room.
In the morning the squire came down to breakfast in exceedingly high
spirits. A Scotchman would have called him "_fey_," and been certain
that misfortune was at his heels. And Charlotte looked at him in
wondering pity, for Harry's face was the face of a man determined to
carry out his own will regardless of consequences.
"Come, come, Harry," said the squire in a loud, cheerful voice, "you are
moping, and eating no breakfast. Charlotte will have to fill three times
before it is 'cup down' with me. I think we will take Dobbin, and go
over to Windermere in the tax-cart. The roads will be a bit sloppery,
but Dobbin isn't too old to splash through them at a rattling pace. He
is a famous good old-has-been is Dobbin. Give me a Suffolk Punch for a
roadster. I set much by them. Eh? What?"
"I must leave Sandal this morning, sir."
"Sir me no sir, Harry. 'Father' will stand between you and me, I think.
You must make a put-off for one day. I was at Bowness last week, and
they say such a winter for char-fishing was never seen. While I was on
the lakeside, Kit Noble's boat came in. He had all of twenty dozen in
the bottom of it. Mr. Wordsworth was there too, and he made a piece of
poetry about 'The silvery lights playing over them;' and he took me to
see a picture that a London gentleman painted of Kit and his boat. You
never saw fish out of the water look so fresh; their olive-green backs
and vermillion bellies and dark-red fins were as natural as life. Come
Harry, we will go and fetch over a few dozen. If you carry your colonel
some, he will take the gift as an excuse for the day. Eh? What?"
"I think Harry had better not go with you, father."
"Eh? What is the matter with you, Charlotte? You are as nattert and
cross as never was. Where is your mother? I like my morning cup filled
with a smile. It helps the day through."
"Mother isn't feeling well. She had a bad dream about Harry and you, and
she is making herself sick over it. She is all in a tremble. I didn't
think mother was so foolish."
"Dreams are from somewhere beyond us, Charlotte. There's them that visit
us a-dreaming. I am not so wise as to be foolish. I believe in some
things that are outside of my short wits. Maybe we had better not go to
Windermere. We might be tempted into a boat, and dry land is a middling
bit safer. Eh? What?"
Charlotte felt as if she could endure her father's unsuspicious
happiness no longer. It was like watching a little child smiling and
prattling on the road to its mother's funeral. She put Mrs. Sandal's
breakfast on a small tray, and with this in her hand went up-stairs,
leaving Harry and the squire still at the table.
"Charlotte is a bit hurrysome this morning," he said; and Harry making
no answer, he seemed suddenly to be struck with his attitude. He looked
curiously at him a moment, and then lapsed into silence. "Harry wants
money." That was his first thought, and he began to calculate how far he
was able to meet the want. Even then, his only bitter reflection was,
that Harry should suppose it necessary to be glum about it. "A cheerful
asker is the next thing to a cheerful giver;" and to such musings he
filled his pipe, and with a shadow of offence on his large ruddy face
went into "the master's room" to smoke.
When kindly good-nature is snubbed, it feels it keenly; and there was a
mist of tears in the squire's blue eyes when Harry followed, and he
turned them on him. And it was part of his punishment, that, even in the
first flush of the pleasure of his sin, he felt all the pangs of
remorse.
"Father?"
"Well, well, Harry! I see you are wanting money again."
"It will be the last time. I am married, and am going to Italy to live."
"Eh? What?" The squire flushed hotly. His hand shook, his long clay pipe
fell to the hearthstone, and was shattered to pieces.
Then a reckless desire to have the whole wrong out urged the unhappy
son to a most cruel distinctness of detail. Without wasting a word in
explanation or excuse, he stated broadly that he had fallen in love with
the famous singer, Beatrice Lanza, and had married her. He spared
himself or his father nothing; he appeared to gather a hard courage as
he spoke of her failing health, her hatred of England, her devotion to
her own faith, and the necessity of his retirement to Italy with her. He
seemed determined to put it out of the power of any one to say worse of
him than he had already said of himself. In conclusion he added, "I have
sold my commission, and paid what I owed, and have very little money
left. Life, however, is not an expensive affair in the village to which
I am going. If you will allow me two hundred pounds a year I shall be
very grateful."
"I will not give you one penny, sir."
The words came thick and heavy, and with great difficulty; though the
wretched father had risen, and was standing by the table, leaning hard
with both hands upon it.
He would not look at his son, though the young man went on speaking. He
heard nothing that he said. In his ears there was the roaring of mighty
waters. All the waves and the billows were going over him. For a few
moments he struggled desperately with the black, advancing tide. His
sight failed, it was growing dark. Then he threw the last forces of life
into one terrible cry, and fell, as a great tree falls, heavily to the
ground.
The cry rang through the house. The mother, trembling in her bed;
Charlotte, crouching upon the stairs, fearing and listening; the
servants, chattering in the kitchen and the chambers,--all heard it, and
were for a moment horrified by the agony and despair it expressed. But
ere the awful echo had quite subsided, Charlotte was at her father's
side; in a moment afterwards, Mrs. Sandal, sobbing at every flying step,
and still in her night-clothing, followed; and then servants from every
quarter came rushing to the master's room.
There was no time for inquiry or lamentation. Harry and two of the men
mounted swift horses in search of medical help. Others lifted the
insensible man, and carried him tenderly to his bed. In a moment the
atmosphere of the house had changed. The master's room, which had held
for generations nothing but memories of pastoral business and sylvan
pleasures, had suddenly become a place of sorrow. The shattered pipe
upon the hearthstone made Charlotte utter a low, hopeless cry of pain.
She closed the shutters, and put the burning logs upon the hearth safely
together, and then locked the door. Alas! alas! they had carried the
master out, and in Charlotte's heart there was a conviction that he
would never more cross its threshold.
After Harry's first feelings of anguish and horror had subsided, he was
distinctly resentful. He felt his father's suffering to be a wrong to
him. He began to reflect that the day for such intense emotions had
passed away. But he forgot that the squire belonged to a generation
whose life was filled and ruled by a few strong, decided feelings and
opinions that struck their roots deep into the very foundations of
existence; a generation, also, which was bearing the brunt of the
transition between the strong, simple life of the past, and the rapid,
complex life of the present. Thus the squire opposed to the indifference
of the time a rigidity of habits, which, to even small events, gave
that exceptional character which rarity once imparted. He felt every
thing deeply, because every thing retained its importance to him. He had
great reverence. He loved, and he hated. All his convictions and
prejudices were for life.
Harry's marriage had been a blow at the roots of all his conscious
existence. The Sandals had always married in their own county,
Cumberland ladies of honorable pedigree, good daughters of the Church of
England, good housewives, gentle and modest women, with more or less
land and gold as their dowry. Emily Beverley would have been precisely
such a wife. And in a moment, even while Harry was speaking, the squire
had contrasted this Beatrice Lanza with her;--a foreigner,--an Italian,
of all foreigners most objectionable; a subject of the Papal States; a
member of the Romish Church; a woman of obscure birth, poor and
portionless, and in ill-health; worse than all, a public woman, who had
sung for money, and yet who had made Harry desert his home and country
and profession for her. And with this train of thought another ran
parallel,--the shame and the wrong of it all. The disgrace to his wife
and daughters, the humiliation to himself. Each bitter thought beat on
his heart like the hammer on the anvil. They fought and blended with
each other. He could not master one. He felt himself being beaten to the
ground. He made agonizing efforts to retain control over the surging
wave of anguish, rising, rising, rising from his breast to his brain.
And failing to do so, he fell with the mighty cry of one who, even in
the death agony, protests against the victor.
The news spread as if all the birds in the air carried it. There were a
dozen physicians in Seat-Sandal before noon. There was a crowd of
shepherds around it, waiting in silent groups for their verdict. All the
afternoon the gentlemen of the Dales were coming and going with offers
of help and sympathy; and in the lonely parlor the rector was softly
pacing up and down, muttering, as he walked, passages from the "Order
for the Visitation of the Sick":--
"O Saviour of the world, who by thy cross and precious blood hast
redeemed us, save us, and help us, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord.
"Spare us good Lord. Spare thy people whom thou hast redeemed with thy
most precious blood.
"Shut not up thy tender mercies in displeasure; but make him to hear of
joy and gladness.
"Deliver him from the fear of the enemy. Lift up the light of thy
countenance upon him. Amen."