FORGIVE ME, CHRIST!
The ultimatum reached by Fenwick in the consideration of any subject
was, to please himself. In the case of Aspatria Anneys he was
particularly determined to do so. It was in vain Lady Redware
entreated him to be rational. How could he be rational? It was the
preponderance of the emotional over the rational in his nature which
imparted so strong a personality to him. He grasped all circumstances
by feeling rather than by reason.
In a few days he was again at Seat-Ambar. Aspatria drew him, as the
candle draws the moth which has once burned its wings at it. And among
the simple Anneys folk he found a hearty welcome. With Squire William
he travelled the hills, and counted the flocks, and speculated on the
value of the iron-ore cropping out of the ground. With Brune he went
line-fishing, and in the wide barns tried his skill in wrestling or
pole-leaping or single-stick. He tolerated the rusticity of the life,
for the charming moments he found with Aspatria.
No one like Ulfar Fenwick had ever visited Ambar-Side. To the young
men, who read nothing but the Gentleman's Magazine and the Whitehaven
Herald, and to Aspatria, who had but a volume of the Ladies' Garden
Manual, Notable Things, her Bible and Common Prayer, Fenwick was a
book of travel, song, and story, of strange adventures, of odd bits of
knowledge, and funny experiences. Things old and new fell from his
handsome lips. Squire William and Brune heard them with grave
attention, with delight and laughter; Aspatria with eyes full of
wonder and admiration.
As the season advanced and they grew more familiar, Aspatria was
thrown naturally into his society. The Squire was in the hay-field;
Brune had his task there also. Or they were down at the Long Pool,
washing the sheep, or on the fells, shearing them. In the haymaking,
Aspatria and Fenwick made some pretence of assistance; but they both
very soon wearied of the real labour. Aspatria would toss a few
furrows of the warm, sweet grass; but it was much sweeter to sit down
under the oak-tree with Fenwick at her side, and watch the moving
picture, and listen to the women singing in their high shrill voices,
as they turned the swaths, the Song of the Mower, and the men
mournfully shouting out the chorus to it,--
"We be all like grass! We be all like grass!"
As for the oak, it liked them to sit under it; all its leaves talked
to each other about them. The starlings, though they are always in a
hurry, stopped to look at the lovers, and went off with a Q-q-q of
satisfaction. The crows, who are a bad lot, croaked innuendoes, and
said it was to be hoped that evil would not come of such folly. But
Aspatria and Fenwick listened only to each other; they saw the whole
round world in each other's eyes.
Fenwick spoke very low; Aspatria had to droop her ear to his mouth to
understand his words. And they were such delightful words, she could
not bear to lose one of them. Then, as the sun grew warm, and the
scent of the grass filled the soft air, and the haymakers were more
and more subdued and quiet, heavenly languors stole over them. They
sat hand in hand,--Aspatria sometimes with shut eyes humming to
herself, sometimes dreamily pulling the long grass at her side;
Fenwick mostly silent, yet often whispering those words which are
single because they are too sweet to be double,--"Darling! Dearest!
Angel!" and the words drew her eyes to his eyes, drew her lips to his
lips; ere she was aware, her heart had passed from her in long,
loving, stolen kisses. On the fells, in the garden, in the empty,
silent rooms of the old house, it was a repetition of the same divine
song, with wondrously celestial variations. Goethe puts in Faust an
Interlude in Heaven: Fenwick and Aspatria were in their Interlude.
One evening they stood among the wheat-sheaves. The round, yellow
harvest-moon was just rising above the fells, and the stars trembling
into vision. The reapers had gone away; their voices made faint,
fitful echoes down the misty lane. The Squire was driving home one
load of ripe wheat, and Brune another. Aspatria said softly, "The day
is over. We must go home. Come!"
She stood in the warm mystical light, with one hand upon the bound
sheaf, the other stretched out to him. Her slim form in its white
dress, her upturned face, her star-like eyes,--he saw all at a glance.
He was subjugated to the innermost room of his heart. He answered,
with inexpressible emotion,--
"Come! Come to me, my Dear One! My Love! My Joy! My Wife!" He held her
close to his heart; he claimed her by no formal special yes, but by
all the sweet reluctances and sweeter yieldings, the thousand nameless
consents won day by day.
Oh, the glory of that homeward walk! The moon beamed upon them. The
trees bent down to touch them. The heath and the honeysuckle made a
posy for them. The nightingale sang them a canticle. They did not seem
to walk; they trod on ether; they moved as people move in happy dreams
of other stars, where thought and wish are motion. It would have been
heaven upon earth if those minutes could have lasted; but it was only
an interlude.
That night Fenwick spoke to Squire William and asked him for his
sister. The Squire was honestly confounded by the question. Aspatria
was such a little lass! It was beyond everything to talk of marrying
her. Still, in his heart he was proud and pleased at such high fortune
for the little lass; and he said, as soon as Fenwick's father and
family came forward as they should do, he would never be the one to
say nay.
Fenwick's father lived at Fenwick Castle, on the shore of bleak
Northumberland. He was an old man, but his natural feelings and wisdom
were not abated. He consulted the History of Cumberland, and found
that the family of Ambar-Anneys was as ancient and honourable as his
own. But the girl was country-bred, and her fortune was small, and in
a measure dependent upon her brother's management of the estate. A
careless master of Ambar-Side would make Aspatria poor. While he was
considering these things, Lady Redware arrived at the castle, and they
talked over the matter together.
"I expected Ulfar to marry very differently, and I must say I am
disappointed. But I suppose it will be useless to make any opposition,
Elizabeth," the old man said to his daughter.
"Quite useless, father. But absence works miracles. Try to secure
twelve months. You ought to go to a warm climate this winter; ask
Ulfar to take you to Italy. In a year time may re-shuffle the cards.
And you must write to the girl, and to her eldest brother, who is a
fine fellow and as proud as Lucifer. I called upon them before I left
Cumberland. She is very handsome."
"Handsome! Old men know, Elizabeth, that six months after a man is
married, it makes little difference to him whether his wife is
handsome or not."
"That may be, or it may not be, father. The thing to consider is, that
young men unfortunately persist in marrying for that first six
months."
"Well, then, fortune pilots many a ship not steered. Suppose we leave
things to circumstances?"
"No, no! Human affairs are for the most part arranged in such a way
that those turn out best to which most care is devoted."
So the letters were thoughtfully written; the one to Aspatria being of
a paternal character, that to her brother polite and complimentary. To
his son Ulfar the old baronet made a very clever appeal. He reminded
him of his great age, and of the few opportunities left for showing
his affection and obedience. He regretted the necessity for a
residence in Italy during the winter, but trusted to his son's love to
see him through the experience. He congratulated Ulfar on winning the
love of a young girl so fresh and unspoiled by the world, but kindly
insisted upon the wisdom of a little delay, and the great benefit this
delay would be to himself.
It was altogether a very temperate, wise letter, appealing to the best
side of Ulfar's nature. Squire William read it also, and gave it his
most emphatic approval. He was in no hurry to lose his little sister.
She was but a child yet, and knew nothing of the world she was going
into; and "surely to goodness," he said, looking at the child, "she
will have a lot of things to look after, before she can think of
wedding."
This last conjecture touched Aspatria on a very womanly point. Of
course there were all her "things" to get ready. She had never
possessed more than a few frocks at a time, and those of the simplest
character; but she was quite alive to the necessity of an elaborate
wardrobe, and she had also an instinctive sense of what would be
proper for her position.
So the suggestions of Ulfar's father were accepted in their entirety,
and the old gentleman was put into a very good temper by the fact. And
what was a year? "It will pass like a dream," said Ulfar. "And I shall
write constantly to you, and you will write to me; and when we meet
again it will be to part no more." Oh, the poverty of words in such
straits as these! Men say the same things in the same extremities now
that have been said millions of times before them. And Aspatria felt
as if there ought to have been entirely new words, to express the joy
of their betrothal and the sorrow of their parting.
The short delay of a last week together was perhaps a mistake. A very
young girl, to whom great joy and great sorrow are alike fresh
experiences, may afford a prolonged luxury of the emotions of
parting. Love, more worldly-wise, deprecates its demonstrativeness,
and would avert it altogether. The farewell walks, the sentimental
souvenirs, the pretty and petty devices of love's first dream, are
tiresome to more practised lovers; and Ulfar had often proved what
very cobwebs they were to bind a straying fancy.
"Absence makes the heart grow fonder." Perhaps so, if the last memory
be an altogether charming one. It was, unfortunately, not so in
Aspatria's case. It should have been a closely personal farewell with
Ulfar alone; but Squire Anneys, in his hospitable ignorance, gave it a
public character. Several neighbouring squires and dames came to
breakfast. There was cup-drinking, and toasting, and speech-making;
and Ulfar's last glimpse of his betrothed was of her standing in the
wide porch, surrounded by a waving, jubilant crowd of strangers, whose
intermeddling in his joy he deeply resented. Anneys had invited them
in accord with the traditions of his house and order. Fenwick thought
it was a device to make stronger his engagement to Aspatria.
"As if it needed such contrivances!" he muttered angrily. "When it
does, it is a broken thread, and no Anneys can knot it again."
The weeks that followed were full of new interests to Aspatria.
Mistress Frostham, the wife of a near shepherd-lord, had been the
friend of Aspatria's mother; she was fairly conversant with the world
outside the fells and dales, and she took the girl under her care,
accompanied her to Whitehaven, and directed her in the purchase of all
considered necessary for the wife of Ulfar Fenwick.
Then the deep snows shut in Seat-Ambar, and the great white hills
stood round about it like fortifications. But as often as it was
possible the Dalton postman fought his way up there, with his packet
of accumulated mail; for he knew that a warm welcome and a large
reward awaited him. In the main, the long same days went happily by.
William and Brune had a score of resources for the season; the
farm-servants worked in the barn; they were making and mending sacks
for the wheat, and caps for the sheeps' heads in fly-time, sharpening
scythes and tools, doing the indoor work of a great farm, and mostly
singing as they did it.
As Aspatria sat in her room, surrounded by fine cambric and linen and
that exquisite English thread-lace now gone out of fashion, she could
hear their laughter and their song, and she unconsciously set her
stitches to its march and melody. The days were not long to her. So
many dozens of garments to make with her own slight fingers! She had
not a moment to waste, but the necessity was one of the sweetest
delight. The solitude and secrecy of her labour added to its charm.
She never took her sewing into the parlour. And yet she might have
done so: William and Brune had a delicacy of affection for her which
would have made them blind to her occupation and densely stupid as to
its design.
So, although the days were mostly alike, they were not unhappily so;
and at intervals destiny sent her the surprises she loved. One morning
in the beginning of February, Aspatria felt that the postman ought to
come; her heart presaged him. The day was clear and warm,--so much so,
that the men working in the barn had all the windows open. They were
singing in rousing tones the famous North Country song to the
barley-mow, and drinking it through all its verses, out of the jolly
brown bowl, the nipperkin, the quarter-pint, the quart and the
pottle,--the gallon and the anker,--the hogshead and the pipe,--the
well, and the river, and the ocean,--and then rolling back the chorus,
from ocean to the jolly brown bowl. Suddenly, while a dozen men were
shouting in unison,--
"Here's a health to the barley mow!"
the verse was broken by the cry of "Here comes Ringham the postman!"
Then Aspatria ran to the window and saw him climbing the fell. She did
not like to go downstairs until Will called her; but she could not sew
another stitch. And when at last the aching silence in her ears was
filled by Will's joyful "Come here, Aspatria! Here is such a parcel as
never was,--from foreign parts too!" she hardly knew how her feet
twinkled down the long corridor and stairs.
The parcel was from Rome. Ulfar had sent it to his London banker, and
the banker had sent a special messenger to Dalton with it. Over the
fells at that season no one but Ringham could have found a safe way;
and Ringham was made so welcome that he was quite imperious. He
ordered himself a rasher of bacon, and a bowl of the famous barley
broth, and spread himself comfortably before the great hearth-place.
At the table stood Aspatria, William, and Brune. Aspatria was
nervously trying to undo the seals and cords that bound love's message
to her. Will finally took his pocket-knife and cut them. There was a
long letter, and a box containing exquisite ornaments of Roman
cameos,--precious onyx, made more precious by work of rare artistic
beauty, a comb for her dark hair, a necklace for her white throat,
bracelets for her slender wrists, a girdle of stones linked with gold
for her waist. Oh, how full of simple delight she was! She was too
happy to speak. Then Will discovered a smaller package. It was for
himself and Brune. Will's present was a cameo ring, on which were
engraved the Anneys and Fenwick arms. Brune had a scarf-pin,
representing a lovely Hebe. It was a great day at Seat-Ambar. Aspatria
could work no more; Will and Brune felt it impossible to finish the
game they had begun.
There is a tide in everything: this was the spring-tide of Aspatria's
love. In its overflowing she was happy for many a day after her
brothers had begun to speculate and wonder why Ringham did not come.
Suddenly it struck her that the snow was gone, and the road open, and
that there was no letter. She began to worry, and Will quietly rode
over to Dalton, to ask if any letter was lying there. He came back
empty-handed, silent, and a little surly. The anniversary of their
meeting was at hand: surely Ulfar would remember it, so Aspatria
thought, and she watched from dawn to dark, but no token of
remembrance came. The flowers began to bloom, the birds to sing, the
May sunshine flooded the earth with glory, but fear and doubt and
dismay and daily disappointment made deepest, darkest winter in the
low, long room where Aspatria watched and waited. Her sewing had been
thrown aside. The half-finished garments, neatly folded, lay under a
cover she had no strength to remove.
In June she wrote a pitiful little note to her lover. She said that he
ought to tell her, if he was tired of their engagement. She told Will
what she had said, and asked him to post the letter. He answered
angrily, "Don't you write a word to him, good or bad!" And he tore the
letter into twenty pieces before her eyes.
"Oh, Will, I cannot bear it!"
"Thou art a woman: bear what other women have tholed before thee."
Then he went angrily from her presence. Brune was thrumming on the
window-pane. She thought he looked sorry for her; she touched his arm
and said, "Brune, will you take a letter to Dalton post for me?"
"For sure I will. Go thy ways and write it, and I'll be gone before
Will is back."
It was an unfortunate letter, as letters written in a hurry always
are. Absolute silence would have piqued and worried Ulfar. He would
have fancied her ill, dying perhaps; and the uncertainty, vague and
portentous, would have prompted him to action, if only to satisfy his
own mind. Sometimes he feared that a girl so sensitive would fade away
in neglect; and he expected a letter from William Anneys saying so.
But a hurried, halting, not very correct epistle, whose whole tenour
was, "What is the matter? What have I done? Do you remember last year
at this time?" irritated him beyond reply.
He was still in Italy when it reached him. Sir Thomas Fenwick was not
likely ever to return to England. He was slowly dying, and he had been
removed to a villa in the Italian hills. And Elizabeth Redware had a
friend with her, a young widow just come from Athens, who affected at
times its splendid picturesque national costume. She was a very
bright, handsome woman, whose fine education had been supplemented by
travel, society, and a rather unhappy matrimonial experience. She knew
how to pique and provoke, how to flirt to the very edge of danger and
then sheer off, how to manipulate men before the fire of passion, as
witches used to manipulate their waxen images before the blazing
coals.
She had easily won Ulfar's confidence; she had even assisted in the
selection of the cameos; and she declared to Elizabeth that she would
not for a whole world interfere between Ulfar and his pretty innocent!
A natural woman was such a phenomenon! She was glad Ulfar was going to
marry a phenomenon.
Elizabeth knew her better. She gave the couple opportunity, and
they needed nothing more. There were already between them a good
understanding, transparent secrets, little jokes, a confessed
confidence. They quickly became affectionate. The lovely Sarah,
relict of Herbert Sandys, Esq., not only reminded Ulfar of his
vows to Aspatria, but in the very reminder she tempted him to break
them. When Aspatria's letter was put into his hand, she was with
him, marvellously arrayed in tissue of silver and brilliant colours. A
head-dress of gold coins glittered in her fair braided hair; her
long white arms were shining with bracelets; she was at once languid
and impulsive, provoking Elizabeth and Ulfar to conversation, and
then amazing them by the audacity and contradiction of her opinions.
"It is so fortunate," she said, "that Ulfar has found a little
out-of-the-way girl to appreciate his great beauty. The world at
present does not think much of masculine beauty. A handsome fellow who
starts for any of its prizes is judged to be frivolous and poetical,
perhaps immoral: you see Byron's beauty made him unfit for a
legislator, he could do nothing but write poetry. I should say it was
Ulfar's best card to marry this innocent with the queer name: with his
face and figure, he will never get into Parliament. No one would trust
him with taxes. He is born to make love, and he and his country
Phyllis can go simpering and kissing through life together. If I were
interested in Ulfar----"
"You are interested in Ulfar, Sarah," interrupted Elizabeth. "You said
so to me last night."
"Did I? Nevertheless, life does not give us time really to question
ourselves, and it is the infirmity of my nature to mistake feeling for
evidence."
"You must not change your opinions so quickly, Sarah."
"It is often an element of success to change your opinions. It is
hesitating among a variety of views that is fatal. The man who does
not know what he wants is the man who is held cheap."
"I am sure I know what I want, Sarah." And as he spoke, Ulfar looked
with intelligence at the fair widow, and in answer she shot from her
bright blue eyes a bolt of summer lightning that set aflame at once
the emotional side of Ulfar's nature.
"You say strange things, Sarah. I wish it was possible to understand
you."
"'Who shall read the interpretation thereof?' is written on everything
we see, especially on women."
"I believe," said Elizabeth, "that Ulfar has quarrelled with his
country maid. Is there a quarrel, Ulfar, really?"
"No," he answered, with some temper.
Sarah nodded at Ulfar, and said softly: "The absent must be satisfied
with the second place. However, if you have quarrelled with her,
Ulfar, turn over a new leaf. I found that out when poor Sandys was
alive. People who have to live together must blot a leaf now and then
with their little tempers. The only thing is to turn over a new one."
"If anything unpleasant happens to me," said Ulfar, "I try to bury
it."
"You cannot do it. The past is a ghost not to be laid; and a past
which is buried alive, it is terrible." It was Sarah who spoke, and
with a sombre earnestness not in keeping with her usual character.
There was a minute's pregnant silence, and it was broken by the
entrance of a servant with a letter. He gave it to Ulfar.
It was Aspatria's sorrowful, questioning note. Written while Brune
waited, it was badly written, incorrectly constructed and spelled, and
generally untidy. It had the same effect upon Ulfar that a badly
dressed, untidy woman would have had. He was ashamed of the
irregular, childish scrawl. He did not take the trouble to put himself
in the atmosphere in which the anxious, sorrowful words had been
written. He crushed the paper in his hand with much the same
contemptuous temper with which Elizabeth had seen him treat a dunning
letter. She knew, however, that this letter was from Aspatria, and,
saying something about her father, she went into an adjoining room,
and left Ulfar and Sarah together. She thought Sarah would be the
proper alterative.
The first words Sir Thomas Fenwick uttered regarded Aspatria. Turning
his head feebly, he asked: "Has Ulfar quarrelled with Miss Anneys? I
hear nothing of her lately."
"I think he is tired of his fancy for her. There is no quarrel."
"She was a good girl,--eh? Kindhearted, beautiful,--eh, Elizabeth?"
"She certainly was."
He said no more then; but at midnight, when Ulfar was sitting beside
him, he called his son, and spoke to him on the subject. "I am
going--almost gone--the way of all flesh, Ulfar. Take heed of my last
words. You promised to make Miss Anneys your wife,--eh?"
"I did, father."
"Do not break your promise. If she gives it back to you, that might be
well; but you cannot escape from your own word and deed. Honour keeps
the door of the house of life. To break your word is to set the door
wide open,--open for sorrow and evil of all kinds. Take care, Ulfar."
The next day he died, and one of Ulfar's first thoughts was that the
death set him free from his promise for one year at the least. A year
contained a multitude of chances. He could afford to write to
Aspatria under such circumstances. So he answered her letter at
once, and it seemed proper to be affectionate, preparatory to
reminding her that their marriage was impossible until the mourning
for Sir Thomas was over. Also death had softened his heart, and
his father's last words had made him indeterminate and a little
superstitious. A clever woman of the world would not have believed
in this letter; its _aura_--subtle but persistent, as the perfume of
the paper--would have made her doubt its fondest lines. But Aspatria
had no idea other than that certain words represented absolutely
certain feelings.
The letter made her joyful. It brought back the roses to her cheeks,
the spring of motion to her steps. She began to work in her room once
more. Now and then her brothers heard her singing the old song she had
sung so constantly with Ulfar,--
"A shepherd in a shade his plaining made,
Of love, and lovers' wrong,
Unto the fairest lass that trod on grass,
And thus began his song:
'Restore, restore my heart again,
Which thy sweet looks have slain,
Lest that, enforced by your disdain, I sing,
Fye! fye on love! It is a foolish thing!
"'Since love and fortune will, I honour still
Your dark and shining eye;
What conquest will it be, sweet nymph, to thee,
If I for sorrow die?
Restore, restore my heart again,
Which thy sweet looks have slain,
Lest that, enforced by your disdain, I sing,
Fye! fye on love! It is a foolish thing!'"
But the lifting of the sorrow was only that it might press more
heavily. No more letters came; no message of any kind; none of the
pretty love-gages he delighted in giving during the first months of
their acquaintance. A gloom more wretched than that of death or
sickness settled in the old rooms of Seat-Ambar. William and Brune
carried its shadow on their broad, rosy faces into the hay-fields and
the wheat-fields. It darkened all the summer days, and dulled all the
usual mirth-making of the ingathering feasts. William was cross and
taciturn. He loved his sister with all his heart, but he did not know
how to sympathize with her. Even mother-love, when in great anxiety,
sometimes wraps itself in this unreasonable irritability. Brune
understood better. He had suffered from a love-change himself; he
knew its ache and longing, its black despairs and still more cruel
hopes. He was always on the lookout for Aspatria; and one day he heard
news which he thought would interest her. Lady Redware was at the
Hall. William had heard it a week before, but he had not considered it
prudent to name the fact. Brune had a kinder intelligence.
"Aspatria," he said, "Redware Hall is open again. I saw Lady Redware
in the village."
"Brune! Oh, Brune, is he there too?"
"No, he isn't. I made sure of that."
"Brune, I want to go to Redware. Perhaps his sister may tell me the
truth. Go with me. Oh, Brune, go with me! I am dying of suspense and
uncertainty."
"Ay, they're fit to kill anybody, let alone a little lass like you. It
will put William about, and it may make bad bread between us; but I'll
go with you, even if we do have a falling out. I'm not flayed for
William's rages."
The next market-day Brune kept his word. As soon as Squire Anneys had
climbed the fell breast and passed over the brow of the hill, Brune
was at the door with horses for Aspatria and himself. She was a good
rider, and they made the distance, in spite of hills and hollows, in
two hours. Lady Redware was troubled at the visit, but she came to the
door to welcome Aspatria, and she asked Brune with particular warmth
to come into the house with his sister. Brune knew better; he was sure
in such a case that it would prove a mere formal call, and that
Aspatria would never have the courage to ask the questions she wished
to.
But Aspatria had come to that point of mental suffering when she
wanted to know the truth, even though the truth was the worst. Lady
Redware saw the determination on her face, and resolved to gratify it.
She was shocked at the change in Aspatria's appearance. Her beauty
was, in a measure, gone. Her eyes were hollow, and the lids dark and
swollen with weeping. Her figure was more angular. The dew of youth,
the joy of youth, was over. She drooped like a fading flower. If Ulfar
saw her in such condition he might pity, but assuredly he would not
admire her.
Lady Redware kissed the poor girl. "Come in, my dear," she said
kindly. "How ill you look! Here is wine: take a drink."
"I am ill. I even hope I am dying. Life is so hard to bear. Ulfar has
forgotten me. I have vexed him, and cannot find out in what way. If
you would only tell me!"
"You have not vexed him at all."
"What then?"
"He is tired, or he has seen a fresher face. That is Ulfar's great
fault. He loves too well, because he does not love very long. Can you
not forget him?"
"No."
"You must have other lovers?"
"No. I never had a lover until Ulfar wooed me. I will have none after
him. I shall love him until I die."
"What folly!"
"Perhaps. I am only a foolish child. If I had been wise and clever, he
would not have left me. It is my fault. Do you believe he will ever
come to Seat-Ambar again?"
"I do not think he will. It is best to tell you the truth. My dear, I
am truly sorry for you! Indeed I am, Aspatria!"
The girl had covered her face with her thin white hands. Her attitude
was so hopeless that it brought the tears to Lady Redware's eyes.
Hoping to divert her attention, she said,--
"Who called you Aspatria?"
"It was my mother's name. She was born in Aspatria, and she loved the
place very much."
"Where is it, child? I never heard of it."
"Not far away, on the sea-coast,--a little town that brother Will says
has been asleep for centuries. Such a pretty place, straggling up the
hillside, and looking over the sea. Mother was born there, and she is
buried there, in the churchyard. It is such an old church, one
thousand years old! Mother said it was built by Saint Kentigern. I
went there to pray last week, by mother's grave. I thought she might
hear me, and help me to bear the suffering."
"You poor child! It is shameful of Ulfar!"
"He is not to blame. Will told me that it was a poor woman who
couldn't keep what she had won."
"It was very brutal in Will to say such a thing."
"He did not mean it unkindly. We are plain-spoken people, Lady
Redware. Tell me, as plainly as Will would tell me, if there is any
hope for me. Does Ulfar love me at all now?"
"I fear not."
"Are you sure?"
"I am sure."
"Thank you. Now I will go." She put out her hands before her, as if
she was blind and had to feel her way; and in answer to all Lady
Redware's entreaties to remain, to rest, to eat something, she only
shook her head, and stumbled forward. Brune saw her coming. He was
standing by the horses, but he left them, and went to meet his sister.
Her misery was so visible that he put her in the saddle with fear. But
she gathered the reins silently, and motioned him to proceed; and
Aspatria's last sad smile haunted Lady Redware for many a day. Long
afterward she recalled it with a sharp gasp of pity and annoyance. It
was such a proud, sorrowful farewell.
She reached home, but it took the last remnant of her strength. She
was carried to her bed, and she remained there many weeks. The hills
were white with snow, and the winter winds were sounding among them
like the chant of a high mass, when she came down once more to the
parlor. Even then Will carried her like a baby in his arms. He had
carried her mother in the same way, when she began to die; and his
heart trembled and smote him. He was very tender with his little
sister, but tempests of rage tossed him to and fro when he thought of
Ulfar Fenwick.
And he was compelled lately to think of him very often. All over the
fell-side, all through Allerdale, it had begun to be whispered,
"Aspatria Anneys has been deserted by her lover." How the fact had
become known it was difficult to discover: it was as if it had flown
from roof to roof with the sparrows. Will could see it in the faces of
his neighbours, could hear it in the tones of their speech, could feel
it in the clasp of their hands. And he thought of these things, until
he could not eat a meal or sleep an hour in peace. His heart was on
fire with suppressed rage. He told Brune that all he wanted was to lay
Fenwick across his knees and break his neck. And then he spread out
his mighty hands, and clasped and unclasped them with a silent force
that had terrible anticipation in it. And he noticed that after her
illness his sister no longer wore the circlet of diamonds which had
been her betrothal-ring. She had evidently lost all hope. Then it was
time for him to interfere.
Aspatria feared it when he came to her room one morning and kissed her
and bade her good-by. He said he was going a bit off, and might be a
week away,--happen more. But she did not dare to question him. Will at
times had masterful ways, which no one dared to question.
Brune knew where his brother was going. The night before he had taken
Brune to the little room which was called the Squire's room. In it
there was a large oak chest, black with age and heavy with iron bars.
It contained the title-deeds, and many other valuable papers. Will
explained these and the other business of the farm to Brune; and Brune
did not need to ask him why. He was well aware what business William
Anneys was bent on, before Will said,--"I am going to Fenwick Castle,
Brune. I am going to make that measureless villain marry Aspatria."
"Is it worth while, Will?"
"It is worth while. He shall keep his promise. If he does not, I will
kill him, or he must kill me."
"If he kills you, Will, he must then fight me." And Brune's face grew
red and hot, and his eyes flashed angry fire.
"That is as it should be; only keep your anger at interest until you
have lads to take your place. We mustn't leave Ambar-Side without an
Anneys to heir it. I fancy your wrath won't get cold while it is
waiting."
"It will get hotter and hotter."
"And whatever happens, don't you be saving of kind words to Aspatria.
The little lass has suffered more than a bit; and she is that like
mother! I couldn't bide, even if I was in my grave, to think of her
wanting kindness."
The next morning Will went away. Brune would not talk to Aspatria
about the journey. This course was a mistake; it would have done her
good to talk continually of it. As it was, she was left to chew over
and over the cud of her mournful anticipations. She had no womanly
friend near her. Mrs. Frostham had drawn back a little when people
began to talk of "poor Miss Anneys." She had daughters, and she did
not feel that her friendship for the dead included the living, when
the living were unfortunate and had questionable things said about
them.
And the last bitter drop in Aspatria's cup full of sorrow was the
hardness of her heart toward Heaven. She could not care about God; she
thought God did not care for her. She had tried to make herself pray,
even by going to her mother's grave, but she felt no spark of that
hidden fire which is the only acceptable prayer. There was a Christ
cut out of ivory, nailed to a large ebony cross, in her room. It had
been taken from the grave of an old abbot in Aspatria Church, and had
been in her mother's family three hundred years. It was a Christ that
had been in the grave and had come back to earth. Her mother's eyes
had closed forever while fixed upon it, and to Aspatria it had always
been an object of supreme reverence and love. She was shocked to find
herself unmoved by its white pathos. Even at her best hours she could
only stand with clasped hands and streaming eyes before it, and with
sad imploration cry,--
"I cannot pray! I cannot pray! Forgive me, Christ!"