"LOVE SHALL BE LORD OF SANDY-SIDE."
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 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 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 Encyclopaedia 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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
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,--
Jesus, permit thy gracious name to stand
As the first effort of my infant hand;
And, as my fingers on the sampler move,
Engage my tender heart to seek thy love.
With thy dear children may I have a part,
And write thy Name, thyself, upon my heart.
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 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 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 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 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.
Brune was naturally shy and silent among women. Sarah made him
eloquent, because she had the tact to discover the subject on which
he could talk,--his regiment, and its sayings and doings. So Brune was
delighted with himself; he had never before suspected how clever he
was. Stimulated by Sarah's and Aspatria's laughter and curiosity, he
found it easy to retail funny little bits of palace and mess gossip,
and to describe the queer men and the vain men and the fine fellows
that were his familiars.
"And pray how do you amuse yourself, Lieutenant? Do you drink wine,
and gamble, and go to the races, and bet your purse empty?"
"I was never brought up in such ways," Brune answered, "and, I can
tell you, I wouldn't make believe to like them. There are a good many
dalesmen in my company, and none of us enjoy anything more than a fair
throw or an in-lock."
"A throw or an in-lock! What do you mean, Lieutenant? You must explain
yourself to Miss Anneys and myself."
"Aspatria knows well enough. Did you ever see north-country lads
wrestling, madam? No? Then you have as fine a thing in keeping for
your eyes as human creatures can show you. I'll warrant that! Why-a!
wrestling brings all men to their level. When Colonel Jardine is
ugly-tempered, and top-heavy with his authority, a few sound throws
over Timothy Sutcliffe's head does bring him to level very well. I had
a little in-play with him yesterday; for in the wrestling-ring we be
all equals, though out of it he is my colonel."
"Now for the in-play. Tell me about it, for I see Miss Anneys is not
at all interested."
"Colonel Jardine is a fine wrestler; a fair match he would be even for
brother Will. Yesterday he said he could throw me; and I took the
challenge willingly. So we shook hands, and went squarely for the
throw. I was in good luck, and soon got my head under his right arm,
and his head close down to my left side. Then it was only to get my
right arm up to his shoulder, and lift him as high as my head, and,
when so, lean backward and throw him over my head: we call it the
Flying Horse."
"Oh, I can see it very well. No wonder Rosalind fell in love with
Orlando when he threw the wrestler Charles."
"Were they north-country or Cornish men?"
She was far too kindly and polite to smile; indeed, she gave Aspatria
a pretty, imperative glance, and answered, in the most natural manner,
"I think they were Italians."
"Oh!" said Brune, with some contempt. "Chaff on their ways! The
Devonshire wrestlers are brutal; the Cornish are too slow; but the
Cumberland men wrestle like gentlemen. They meet square and level in
the ring, and the one who could carry ill-will for a fair throw would
very soon find himself out of all rings and all good fellowship."
"You said 'even brother Will.' Is your brother a better wrestler than
you?"
"My song! he is that! Will has his match, though. We had a ploughman
once,--Aspatria remembers him,--Robert Steadman, an upright, muscular
young fellow, civil and respectful as could be in everything about his
work and place; but on wet days when we were all, masters and
servants, in the barn together, it was a sight to see Robert wrestling
with Will for the mastery, and Will never so ready to say, 'Well
done!' nor the rest of us so happy, as when we saw Will's two brawny
legs going handsomely over Robert's head."
"If I were a man, I should try to be a fine wrestler."
"It is a great comfort," said Brune. "If you have a quarrel of any
kind, it is a deal more satisfactory to meet your man, and throw him a
few times over your head, than to go to law with him. It puts a stop
to unpleasantness very quickly and very good-naturedly."
Then Sarah rose and opened the piano, and from its keys dashed out a
lilting, hurrying melody, like the galloping of horses and shaking of
bridles; and in a few moments she began to sing, and Brune went to
her side, and, because she looked so steadily into his eyes, he could
remember nothing at all of the song but its dashing refrain,--
"For he whom I wed
Must be north country bred,
And must carry me back to the North Countrie."
Then Aspatria played some wonderful music on her harp, and Sarah and
Brune sat still and listened to their own hearts, and sent out shy
glances, and caught each other in the act, and Brune was made nervous,
and Sarah gay, by the circumstance.
By and by they began to talk of schools, and of how much Aspatria had
learned; and so Brune regretted his own ignorance, and wished he had
been more attentive to his schoolmaster.
Sarah laughed at the wish. "A knowledge of Shakspeare and the musical
glasses and the Della Cruscans," she said, "is for foolish,
sentimental women. You can wrestle, and you can fight, and I suppose
you can make money, and perhaps even make love. Is there anything else
a soldier needs?"
"Colonel Jardine is very clever," continued Brune, regretfully; "and I
had a good schoolmaster--"
"Nonsense, Lieutenant!" said Sarah. "None of them are good. They all
spoil your eyes, and seek to lay a curse on you; that is the confusion
of languages."
"Still, I might have learned Latin."
"It was the speech of pagans and infidels."
"Or logic."
"Logic hath nothing to say in a good cause."
"Or philosophy."
"Philosophy is curiosity. Socrates was very properly put to death for
it."
They were all laughing together, when Sarah condemned Socrates, and
the evening passed like a happy dream away.
It was succeeded by weeks of the same delight. Aspatria soon learned
to love Sarah. She had never before had a woman friend on whom she
could rely and to whom she could open her heart. Sarah induced her to
speak of Ulfar, to tell her all her suffering and her plans and hopes,
and she gave her in return a true affection and a most sincere
sympathy. Nothing of the past that referred to Ulfar was left untold;
and as the two women sat together during the long summer days, they
grew very near to each other, and there was but one mind and one
desire between them.
So that when the time came for Aspatria to go back to Mrs. St.
Alban's, Sarah would not hear of their separation. "You have had
enough of book-learning," she said. "Remain with me. We will go to
Paris, to Rome, to Vienna. We will study through travel and society.
It is by rubbing yourself against all kinds of men and women that you
acquire the finest polish of life; and then when Ulfar comes back you
will be able to meet him upon all civilized grounds. And as for the
South Americans, we will buy all the books about them we can find.
Are they red or white or black, I wonder? Are they pagans or
Christians? I seem to remember that when I was at school I learned
that the Peruvians worshipped the sun."
"I think, Sarah, that they are all descendants of Spaniards; so they
must be Roman Catholics. And I have read that their women are
beautiful and witty."
"My dear Aspatria, nothing goes with Spaniards but gravity and green
olives."
Aspatria was easily persuaded to accept Sarah's offer; she was indeed
very happy in the prospect before her. But Brune was miserable. He had
spent a rapturous summer, and it was to end without harvest, or the
promise thereof. He could not endure the prospect, and one night he
made a movement so decided that Sarah was compelled to set him back a
little.
"Were you ever in love, Mrs. Sandys?" poor Brune asked, with his heart
filling his mouth.
She looked thoughtfully at him a moment, and then slowly answered: "I
once felt myself in danger, and I fled to France. I consider it the
finest action of my life."
Aspatria felt sorry for her brother, and she said warmly: "I think no
one falls in love now. Love is out of date."
Sarah enjoyed her temper. "You are right, dear," she answered.
"Culture makes love a conscious operation. When women are all feeling,
they fall in love; when they have intellect and will, they attach
themselves only after a critical examination of the object."
Later, when they were alone, Aspatria took her friend to task for her
cruelty: "You know Brune loves you, Sarah; and you do love him. Why
make him miserable? Has he presumed too far?"
"No, indeed! He is as adoring and humble as one could wish a future
lord and master to be."
"Well, then?"
"I will give our love time to grow. When we come back, if Brune has
been true to me in every way, he may fall to blessing himself with
both hands;" and then she began to sing,--
"Betide, betide, whatever betide,
Love shall be Lord of Sandy-Side!"
"Love is a burden two hearts carry very easily together, but, oh,
Sarah! I know how hard it is to bear it alone. Therefore I say, be
kind to Brune while you can."
"My dear, your idea is a very pretty one. I read the other day a Hindu
version of it that smelled charmingly of the soil,--
'A clapping is not made with one hand alone:
Your love, my beloved, must answer my own.'"
But in spite of such reflections, Sarah's will and intellect were
predominant, and she left poor Brune with only such hope as he could
glean from the lingering pressure of her hand and the tears in her
eyes. Aspatria's pleading had done no good. Perhaps it had done harm;
for the very nature of love is that it should be spontaneous.