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 gra.s.s 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 gra.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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 repet.i.tion 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 la.s.s! 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 la.s.s; 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 sh.o.r.e of bleak Northumberland. He was an old man, but his natural feelings and wisdom were not abated. He consulted the History of c.u.mberland, 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 c.u.mberland. 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 circ.u.mstances?"
"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 pa.s.s 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 acc.u.mulated 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 st.i.tches 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 st.i.tch. 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 pa.s.sion, as witches used to manipulate their waxen images before the blazing coals.
She had easily won Ulfar"s confidence; she had even a.s.sisted 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."