"What must I do, Mr. Anneys?" she asked. "What must I do?"
"Send your brother away from c.u.mberland to-night. I say he must leave to-night. To-morrow morning may be too late to prevent a great humiliation. Aspatria begged me to come to you. I do not say I wanted to come."
At this moment the door opened, and Sarah Sandys entered. Brune turned, and saw her; and his heart stood still. She came slowly forward, her garment of pale-green and white just touching her sandalled feet. She had a rush basket full of violets in her hands; there were primroses in her breast and belt, and her face was like a pink rose. High on her head her fair hair was lifted, and, being fastened with a large turquoise comb, it gave the idea of sunshine and blue sky.
Brune stood looking at her, as a mortal might look at the divine Cytherea made manifest. His handsome, open face, full of candid admiration, had almost an august character. He bowed to her, as men bow when they bend their heart and give its homage and delight. Sarah was much impressed by the young man"s beauty, and she felt his swift adoration of her own charms. She made Lady Redware introduce her to Brune, and she completed her conquest of the youth as she stood a moment holding his hand and smiling with captivating grace into his eyes.
Then Lady Redware explained Brune"s mission, and Sarah grasped the situation without any disguises. "It simply means flight, Elizabeth,"
she said. "What could Ulfar do with fifty or sixty angry c.u.mberland squires? He would have to go. In fact, I know they have a method of persuasion no mortal man can resist."
Brune saw that his errand was accomplished. Lady Redware thanked him for his consideration, and Sarah rang for the tea-service, and made him a cup, and gave it to him with her own lovely hands. Brune saw their exquisite form, their translucent glow, the sparkling of diamonds and emeralds upon them. The tea was as if brewed in Paradise; it tasted of all things delightful; it was a veritable cup of enchantments.
Then Brune rode away, and the two women watched him over the hill. He sat his great black hunter like a cavalry officer; and the creature devoured the distance with strides that made their hearts leap to the sense of its power and life.
"He is the very handsomest man I ever saw!" said Sarah.
"What is to be done about Ulfar? Sarah, you must manage this business.
He will not listen to me."
"Ulfar has five senses. Ulfar is very fond of himself. He will leave Redware, of course. How handsome Brune Anneys is!"
"Will you coax him to leave to-night?"
"Ulfar? Yes, I will; for it is the proper thing for him to do. It would be a shame to bring his quarrels to your house.--What a splendid rider! Look, Elizabeth, he is just topping the hill! I do believe he turned his head! Is he not handsome? Apollo! Antinous! Pshaw! Brune Anneys is a great deal more human, and a great deal more G.o.dlike, than either."
"Do not be silly, Sarah. And do occupy yourself a little with Ulfar now."
"When the hour comes, I will. Ulfar is evidently occupying himself at present in watching his wife. There is a decorous naughtiness and a stimulating sense of danger about seeing Aspatria, that must be a thorough enjoyment to Ulfar."
"Men are always in fusses. Ulfar has kept my heart palpitating ever since he could walk alone."
Sarah sighed. "It is very difficult," she said, "to decide whether very old men or very young men can be the greater trial. The suffering both can cause is immense! Poor Sandys was sixty-six, and Ulfar is thirty-six, and--" She shook her head, and sighed again.
"How hateful country-people are!" exclaimed Elizabeth. "They must talk, no matter what tragedy they cause with their scandalous words."
"Are they worse than our own set, either in town or country? You know what the Countess of Denbigh considered pleasant conversation?--telling things that ought not to be told."
"The Countess is a wretch! she would tell the most sacred of secrets."
"I tell secrets also. I do not consider it wrong. What business has any one to throw the _onus_ of keeping their secret on my shoulders?
Why should they expect from me more prudence than they themselves have shown?"
"That is true. But in these valleys they speak so uncomfortably direct; nothing but the strongest, straightest, most definite words will be used."
"That is a pity. People ought to send scandal through society in a respectable hunt-the-slipper form of circulation. But that is a kind of decency to be cultivated. However, I shall tell Ulfar, in the plainest words I can find, that there will be about sixty c.u.mberland squires here to-morrow, to ride with him out of the county, and that they are looking forward to the fun of it just as much as if it was a fox-hunt. Ulfar has imagination. He will be able to conceive such a ride,--the flying man, and the roaring, laughing, whip-cracking squires after him! He will remember how Tom Appleton the wrestler, who did something foul, was escorted across the county line last summer.
And Ulfar hates a scene. Can you fancy him making himself the centre of such an affair?"
So they talked while Brune galloped homeward in a very happy mood. He felt as those ancients may have felt when they met the Immortals and saluted them. The thought of the beautiful Mrs. Sandys filled his imagination; but he talked comfortably to Aspatria, and a.s.sured her that there was now no fear of a meeting between her husband and Will.
"Only," he said, "tell Will yourself to-night, and he will never doubt you."
Unfortunately, Will did not return that night from the Frosthams"; for in the morning the two men were to go together to Dalton very early.
Will heard nothing there, but Mrs. Frostham was waiting at her garden gate to tell him when he returned. He had left Squire Frostham with his son-in-law, and was alone. Mrs. Frostham made a great deal of the information, and broke it to Will with much consideration. Will heard her sullenly. He was getting a few words ready for Aspatria, as Mrs.
Frostham told her tale, but they were for her alone. To Mrs. Frostham he adopted a tone she thought very ungrateful.
For when the whole affair, real and consequential, had been told, he answered: "What is there to make a wonder of? Cannot a woman talk and walk a bit with her own husband? Maybe he had something very particular to say to her. I think it is a shame to bother a little la.s.s about a thing like that."
And he folded himself so close that Mrs. Frostham could neither question nor sympathize with him longer. "Good-evening to you," he said coldly; and then, while visible, he took care to ride as if quite at his ease. But the moment the road turned from Frostham he whipped his horse to its full speed, and entered the farmyard with it in a foam of hurry, and himself in a foam of pa.s.sion.
Aspatria met him with the confession on her lips. He gave her no time.
He a.s.sailed her with affronting and injurious epithets. He pushed her hands and face from him. He vowed her tears were a mockery, and her intention of confessing a lie. He met all her efforts at explanation, and all her attempts to pacify him, at sword-point.
She bore it patiently for a while; and then Will Anneys saw an Aspatria he had never dreamed of. She seemed to grow taller; she did really grow taller; her face flamed, her eyes flashed, and, in a voice authoritative and irresistible, she commanded him to desist.
"You are my worst enemy," she said. "You are as deaf as the village gossips. You will not listen to the truth. Your abuse, heard by every servant in the house, certifies all that malice dares to think. And in wounding my honour you are a parricide to our mother"s good name! I am ashamed of you, Will!"
From head to foot she reflected the indignation in her heart, as she stood erect with her hands clasped and the palms dropped downward, no sign of tears, no quiver of fear or doubt, no retreat, and no submission, in her face or att.i.tude.
"Why, whatever is the matter with you, Aspatria?"
At this moment Brune entered, and she went to him, and put her hand through his arm, and said: "Brune, speak for me! Will has insulted mother and father, through me, in such a way that I can never forgive him!"
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Will Anneys!" And Brune put his sister gently behind him, and then marched squarely up to his brother"s face. "You are as pa.s.sionate as a brute beast, Will, and that, too, with a poor little la.s.s that has her own troubles, and has borne them like--like a good woman always does."
"I do not want to hear you speak, Brune."
"Ay, but I will speak, and you shall hear me. I tell you, Aspatria is in no kind to blame. The man came on her sudden, out of the plantation. She did not take his hand, she did not listen to him. She sent him about his business as quick as might be."
"Lottie Patterson saw her," said Will, dourly.
"Because Aspatria called Lottie Patterson to her; and if Lottie Patterson says she saw anything more or worse than ought to be, I will pretty soon call upon Seth Patterson to make his sister"s words good.
Cush! I will that! And what is more, Will Anneys, if you do not know how to take care of your sister"s good name, I will teach you,--you mouse of a man! You go and side with that Frostham set against Aspatria! Chaff on the Frosthams! It is a bad neighbourhood where a girl like Aspatria cannot say a word or two on the king"s highway at broad noonday, without having a _sisserara_ about it."
"I did not side with the Frosthams against Aspatria."
"I"ll be bound you did!"
"Let me alone, Brune! Go your ways out of here, both of you!"
"To be sure, we will both go. Come, Aspatria. When you are tired of ballooning, William Anneys, and can come down to common justice, maybe then I will talk to you,--not till."
Now, good honest anger is one of the sinews of the soul; and he that wants it when there is occasion has but a maimed mind. The hot words, the pa.s.sionate atmosphere, the rebellion of Aspatria, the decision of Brune, had the same effect upon Will"s senseless anger as a thunder-storm has upon the hot, heavy, summer air. Will raged his bad temper away, and was cool and clear-minded after it.
At the same hour the same kind of mental thunder-storm was prevailing over all common-sense at Redware Hall. Ulfar, after a long and vain watch for another opportunity to speak to Aspatria, returned there in a temper compounded of anger, jealousy, disappointment, and unsatisfied affection. He heard Lady Redware"s story of his own danger and of Brune"s consideration with scornful indifference. Brune"s consideration he laughed at. He knew very well, he answered, that Brune Anneys hated him, and would take the greatest delight in such a hubbub as he pretended was in project.
"But he came to please Aspatria," continued Lady Redware. "He said he came only to please Aspatria."
"So Aspatria wishes me to leave Allerdale? I will not go."
"Sarah, he will not go," cried Lady Redware, as her friend entered the room. "He says he will not go."