WOOING AND WEDDING.
"She was made for him,—a special providence in his behalf."
"Like to like,—and yet love may be dear bought."
"In time comes she whom Fate sends."
Until after Twelfth Night the Christmas festivities were continued; but if the truth had been admitted, the cumbrous ceremonials, the excessive eating and visiting, would have been pronounced by every one very tiresome. Julius found it particularly so, for the festival had no roots in his boyhood's heart; and he did not include it in his dreams of pre-existence.
"It is such semblance of good fellowship, such a wearisome pretence of good wishes that mean nothing," he said one day. "What value is there in such talk?"
"Well," answered the squire, "it isn't a bad thing for some of us to feel obliged once in a twelve months to be good-natured, and give our neighbors a kind wish. There are them that never do it except at Christmas. Eh? What?"
"Such wishes mean nothing."
"Nay, now, there is no need to think that kind words are false words. There is a deal of good sometimes in a mouthful of words. Eh? What?"
"And yet, sir, as the queen of the crocodiles remarked, 'Words mend none of the eggs that are broken.'"
"I know nothing about the queen of the crocodiles. But if you don't believe in words, Julius, it is quite allowable at Christmas time to put your good words into any substantial form you like. Nobody will doubt a good wish that is father to a handsome gift; so, if you don't believe in good words, you have a very reliable substitute in good deeds. I saw how you looked when I said 'A merry Christmas' to old Simon Gills, and you had to say the words after me. Very well; send old Simon a new plaid or a pound of tobacco, and he'll believe in your wish, and you'll believe in yourself. Eh? What?"
The days were full of such strained conversations on various topics. Harry could say nothing which Julius did not politely challenge by some doubtful inquiry. Julius felt in every word and action of Harry's the authority of the heir, and the forbearance of a host tolerant to a guest. He complained bitterly to Sophia of the position in which he was constantly put. "Your father and brother have been examining timber, and looking at the out-houses this morning, and I understand they were discussing the building of a conservatory for Charlotte; but I was left out of the conversation entirely. Is it fair, Sophia? You and I are the next heirs, and just as likely to inherit as Harry. More so, I may say, for a soldier's life is already sold, and Harry is reckless and dissipated as well. I think I ought to have been consulted. I should not be in favor of thinning the timber. I dare say it is done to pay Harry's bills; and thus, you see, it may really be we who are made to suffer. I don't think your father likes our marriage, dear one."
"But he gave his consent, beloved."
"I was very dissatisfied with his way of doing it. He might as well have said, 'If it has to be, it has to be; and there is no use fretting about it.' I may be wrong, but that is the impression his consent left on my mind. And he was quite unreasonable when I alluded to money matters. I would not have believed that your father was capable of being so disagreeably haughty. Of course, I expected him to say something about our rights, failing Harry's, and he treated them as if they did not exist. Even when I introduced them in the most delicate way, he was what I call downright rude. 'Julius,' he said, 'I will not discuss any future that pre-supposes Harry's death.'"
"Father's sun rises and sets in Harry, and it was like him to speak that way; he meant nothing against us. Father would always do right. What I feel most is the refusal to give us our own apartments in Seat-Sandal. We do not want to live here all the time, but we ought to be able to feel that we have a certain home here."
"Yes, indeed. It is very important in my eyes to keep a footing in the house. Possession is a kind of right. But never mind, Sophia. I have always had an impression that this was my home. The first moment I crossed the threshold I felt it. All its rooms were familiar to me. People do not have such presentiments for nothing."
There is a class of lovers who find their supremest pleasure in isolating themselves; who consider their own affairs an oasis of delight, and make it desert all around them. Julius and Sophia belonged to it. They really enjoyed the idea that they were being badly used. They talked over the squire's injustice, Mrs. Sandal's indifference to every one but Harry, and Charlotte's envy, until they had persuaded themselves that they were the only respectable and intelligent members of the family. Naturally Sophia's nature deteriorated under this isolating process. She grew secretive and suspicious. Her love-affairs assumed a proportion which put her in false relations to all the rest of the world.
It was unfortunate that they had come to a crisis during Harry's visit, for of course Harry occupied a large share of every one's interest. The squire took the opportunity to talk over the affairs of the estate with him, and this was not a kind of conversation they felt inclined to make general. It took them long solitary walks to the different "folds," and several times as far as Kendal together. "Am I one of the family, or am I not?" Julius would ask Sophia on such occasions; and then the discussion of this question separated them from it, sometimes for hours at a time.
Mrs. Sandal hardly perceived the growth of this domestic antagonism. When Harry was at Seat-Sandal, she lived and moved and had her being in Harry. His food and drink, and the multitude of his small comforts; his friends and amusements; the renovation of his linen and hosiery; his hopes and fears, and his promotion or marriage, were enough to fill the mother's heart. She was by no means oblivious of Sophia's new interests, she only thought that they could be put aside until Harry's short visit was over; and Charlotte's sympathies were also with Harry. "Julius and Sophia do not want them, mother," she said, "they are sufficient unto themselves. If I enter a room pre-occupied by them, Sophia sits silent over her work, with a look of injury on her face; and Julius walks about, and kicks the stools out of his way, and simply 'looks' me out of their presence."
After such an expulsion one morning, she put on her bonnet and mantle, and went into the park. She was hot and trembling with anger, and her eyes were misty with tears. In the main walk she met Harry. He was smoking, and pacing slowly up and down under the bare branches of the oaks. For a moment he also seemed annoyed at her intrusion on his solitude; but the next one he had tucked her arm through his own, and was looking with brotherly sympathy into her flushed and troubled face. This morning Charlotte felt it to be a great comfort to complain to him, to even cry a little over the breaking of the family bond, and the loss of her sister's affection.
"I have always been so proud of Sophia, always given up to her in every thing. When grandmother showed me the sapphire necklace, and said she was going to leave it to me because she loved me best, I begged her not to slight Sophia in such a way as that,—Sophia being the elder, you know, Harry. I cried about it until she was almost angry with me. Julius offered his hand to me first; and though I claim no merit for giving up what I do not want, yet, all the same, if I had wanted him I should have refused, because I saw that Sophia had set her heart upon him. I should indeed, Harry."
"I believe you would, Charlotte."
"And somehow Julius manages to give me the feeling that I am only in Seat-Sandal on his tolerance. Many a time a day I have to tell myself that father is still alive, and that I have a right in my own home. I do not know how he manages to make me feel so."
"In the same way that he conveys to me the impression that I shall never be squire of Sandal-Side. He has doomed me to death in his own mind; and I believe if I had to live with him, I should feel constrained to go and shoot myself."
"I would come home, and get married, Harry. There will be room enough and welcome enough for your wife in Seat-Sandal, especially if she be Emily."
"She will not be Emily; for I love some one else far away better,—millions of times better than I love Emily."
"I am so glad, Harry. Have you told father?"
"Not yet. I do not think he will be glad, Charlotte."
"But why?"
"There are many reasons."
"Such as?"
"She is poor."
"Oh! that is bad, Harry; because I know that we are not rich. But she is not your inferior? I mean she is not uneducated or unladylike?"
"She is highly educated, and in all England there is not a more perfect lady."
"Then I can see no reason to think father will not be pleased. I am sure, Harry, that I shall love your wife. Oh, yes! I shall love her very dearly."
Then Harry pressed her arm close to his side, and looked lovingly down into her bright, earnest face. There was no need of speech. In a glance their souls touched each other.
"And so he asked you first, eh, Charley?"
"Yes."
"And you would not have him? What for Charley?"
"I did not like Julius, and I did like some one else."
"Oh! Oh! Who is the some one else?"
"Guess, Harry. He is very like you, very: fair and tall, with clear, candid, happy blue eyes; and brown hair curling close over his head. In the folds and in the fields he is a master. His heart is gentle to all, and full of love for me. He has spirit, dint,[6] ambition, enterprise; and can work twenty hours out of the twenty-four to carry out his own plans. He is a right good fellow, Harry."
"A North-country man?"
"Certainly. Do you think I would marry a stranger?"
"Cumberland born?"
"Who else?"
"Then it is Steve Latrigg, eh? Well, Charley, you might go farther, and fare worse. I don't think he is worthy of you."
"Oh, but I do!"
"Very few men are worthy of you."
"Only Steve. I want you to like Steve. Harry."
"Certainly. Seat-Sandal folks and Up-Hill folks are always thick friends. And Steve and I were boy chums. He is a fine fellow, and no mistake. I am glad he is to be my brother. I asked mother about him; and she said he was in Yorkshire, learning how to spin and weave wool—a queer thing, Charley."
"Not at all. He may just as well spin his own fleeces as sell them to Yorkshiremen to spin." Then they talked awhile of Stephen's plans, and Harry appeared to be much impressed with them. "It is a pity father does not join him, Charley," he said. "Every one is doing something of the kind now. Land and sheep do not make money fast enough for the wants of our present life. The income of the estate is no larger than it was in grandfather's time; but the expenses are much greater, although we do not keep up the same extravagant style. I need money, too, need it very much; but I see plainly that father has none to spare. Julius will press him very close."
"What has Julius to do with father's money?"
"Father must, in honor, pay Sophia's portion. Unfortunately, when the fellow was here last, father told him that he had put away from the estate one hundred pounds a year for each of his girls. Under this promise, Sophia's right with interest will be near three thousand pounds, exclusive of her share in the money grandmother left you. I am sorry to say that I have had something to do with making it hard for father to meet these obligations. And Julius wants the money paid at the marriage. Father, too, feels very much as I feel, and would rather throw it into the sea than give it to him; only noblesse oblige."
The subject evidently irritated Harry beyond endurance, and he suddenly changed it by taking from his pocket an ivory miniature. He gave it to Charlotte, and watched her face with a glow of pleasant expectation. "Why, Harry!" she cried, "does so lovely a woman really exist?"
He nodded happily, and answered in a voice full of emotion, "And she loves me."
"It is the countenance of an angel."
"And she loves me. I am not worthy to touch the hem of her garment, Charley, but she loves me." Then Charlotte lifted the pictured face to her lips. Their confidence was complete; and they did not think it necessary to talk it over, or to exact promises of secrecy from each other.
The next day Harry returned to his regiment, and Sophia's affairs began to receive the attention which their important crisis demanded. In those days it was customary for girls to make their own wedding outfit, and there was no sewing-machine to help them. "Mine is the first marriage in the family," Sophia said, "and I think there ought to be a great deal of interest felt in it." And there was. Grandmother Sandal's awmries were opened for old laces and fine cambric, and petticoats and spencers of silks wonderful in quality and color, and guiltless of any admixture of less precious material. There were whole sets of many garments to make, and tucking and frilling and stitching were then slow processes. Agnes Bulteel came to assist; but the work promised to be so tedious, that the marriage-day was postponed until July.
In the mean time, Julius spent his time between Oxford and Sandal-Side. Every visit was distinguished by some rich or rare gift to his bride, and he always felt a pleasure in assuring himself that Charlotte was consumed with envy and regret. He was very much in love with Sophia, and quite glad she was going to marry him; and yet he dearly liked to think that he made Charlotte sorry for her rejection of his love, and wistfully anxious for the rings and bracelets that were the portion of his betrothed. Sophia soon found out that this idea flattered and pleased him, and it gave her neither shame nor regret to indorse it. She loved no one but Julius, and she made a kind of merit in giving up every one for him. The sentiment sounded rather well; but it was really an intense selfishness, wearing the mask of unselfishness. She did not reflect that the daily love and duty due to others cannot be sinlessly withheld, or given to some object of our own particular choice, or that such a selfish idolatry is a domestic crime.
It was a very unhappy time to Charlotte. Her mother was weary with many unusual cares, her father more silent and depressed than she had ever before seen him. The sunny serenity of her happy home was disturbed by a multitude of new elements, for an atmosphere of constant expectation gave a restless tone to its usual placid routine. And through all and below all, there was that feeling of money perplexity, which, where, it exists, is no more to be hid than the subtle odor of musk, present though unseen.
This year the white winter appeared to Charlotte interminable in length. The days in which it was impossible to go out, full of Sophia's sewing and little worries and ostentations; the windy, tempestuous nights, that swept the gathering drifts away; the cloudless moonlight nights, full of that awful, breathless quiet that broods in land-locked dales,—all of them, and all of Nature's moods, had become inexpressibly, monotonously wearisome before the change came. But one morning at the end of March, there was a great west wind charged with heavy rains, and in a few hours the snow on all the fells had been turned into rushing floods, that came roaring down from every side into the valley.
"Oh, wind!
If winter comes, can spring be far behind?"
quoted Charlotte, as she stood watching the white cascades.
"It will be cuckoo time directly my dear; and the lambs will be bleating on the fells, and the yellow primroses blowing under all the hedges. I want to see the swallows take the storm on their wings badly this year. Eh? What, Charlotte?"
"So do I, father. I never was so tired of the house before."
"There's a bit of a difference lately, I think. Eh? What?"
Charlotte looked at him; there was no need to speak. They both understood and felt the full misery of household changes that are not entirely happy ones; changes that bring unfaithfulness and ingratitude on one side, and resentful, wounded love on the other. And the worst of it all was, that it might have been so different. Why had the lovers set themselves apart from the family, had secrets and consultations and interests they refused to share? How had it happened that Sophia had come to consider her welfare as apart from, and in opposition to, that of the general welfare of Seat-Sandal? And when this feeling existed, it seemed unjust to Charlotte that they should still expect the whole house and household to be kept in turmoil for the furtherance of their plans, and that every one should be made to contribute to their happiness.
"After all, maybe it is a bit natural," said the squire with a sad air of apology. "I have noticed even the robins get angry if you watch them building their nests."
"But they, at least, build their own nest, father. The cock-robin does not go to his parents, and the hen robin to her parents, and say, 'Give us all the straw you can, and put it down at the foot of our tree; but don't dare to peep into the branches, or offer us any suggestions about the nest, or expect to have an opinion about our housekeeping.' Selfishness spoils every thing, father. I think if a rose could be selfish it would be hideous."
"I don't think a lover would make my Charlotte forget her father and mother, and feel contempt for her home, and all in and about it that she does not want for herself. Why, a stranger would think that Sophia was never loved by any human heart before! They would think that she never had been happy before. Nay, then, she sets more store by the few nick-nacks Julius has given her than all I have bought her for twenty years. When yonder last bracelet came, she went on as if she had never seen aught of the kind in all her born days. Yet I have bought her one or two that cost more money, and happen more love, than it did. Eh? What, Charlotte?"
There were two large tears standing in his blue eyes, and two sprang into Charlotte's to meet them. She clasped his hand tight, and after a minute's silence said,—
"I have a lover, father; the best a girl ever had. Has he made any difference between you and me? Only that I love you better. You are my first love; the very first creature I remember, father. One summer day you had me in your arms in the garden. I recollect looking at you and knowing you. I think it was at that moment my soul found me."
"It was on a summer day, Charlotte? Eh? What?"
"And the garden was all roses, father; red with roses,—roses full of scent. I can smell them yet. The sunshine, the roses, the sweet air, your face,—I shall never, never forget that moment, father."
"Nor I. I was a very happy man in those days, Charlotte. Young and happy, and full of hope. I thought my children were some new make of children. I could not have believed then, that they would ever give me a heartache, or have one themselves. And I had not a care. Money was very easy with me then: now it is middling hard to bring buckle and tongue together."
"When Sophia is married, we can begin and save a little. Mother and you and I can be happy without extravagances."
"To be sure, we can; but the trouble is, my saving will be the losing of all I have to send away. It is very hard, Charlotte, to do right at both ends. Eh? What?"
After this conversation, spring came on rapidly, and it was not long ere Charlotte managed to reach Up-Hill. She had not seen Ducie for several weeks, and she was longing to hear something of Stephen. "But if ill had come, ill would have cried out, and I would have heard tell;" she thought, as she picked her way among the stones and débris of the winter storms. The country was yet bare; the trees had no leaves, no nests, no secrets; but she could see the sap running into the branches, making them dark red, scarlet, or yellow as rods of gold. Higher up, the pines, always green, took her into their shade; into their calm spirit of unchangeableness, their equal light, their keen aromatic air. Then came the bare fell, and the raw north wind, and the low gray house, stretching itself under the leafless, outspreading limbs of the sycamores.
In the valley, there had been many wild flowers,—tufts of violets and early primroses,—and even at Up Hill the blackthorn's stiff boughs were covered with tiny white buds, and here and there an open blossom. Ducie was in the garden at work; and as Charlotte crossed the steps in its stone wall she lifted her head, and saw her. Their meeting was free from all demonstration; only a smile, and a word or two of welcome, and yet how conscious of affection! How satisfied both women were! Ducie went on with her task, and Charlotte stood by her side, and watched her drop the brown seeds into the damp, rich earth; watched her clip the box-borders, and loosen the soil about the springing crocus bulbs. Here and there tufts of snowdrops were in full bloom,—white, frail bells, looking as if they had known only cheerless hours and cold sunbeams, and wept and shrank and feared through them.
As they went into the house, Ducie gathered a few; but at the threshhold, Charlotte turned, and saw them in her hand. A little fear and annoyance came into her face. "You a North-country woman, Ducie," she said, "and yet going to bring snowdrops across the doorstone? I would not have believed such a thing of you. Leave them outside the porch. Be said, now."
"It seems such a thing to think of flowers that way,—making them signs of sorrow."
"You know what you said about your father and the plant,—'Death-come-quickly.' I have heard snowdrops called 'flowers from dead-men's dale.' Look at them. They are like a shrouded corpse. They keep their heads always turned down to the grave. It is ill-luck to bring them where there is life and love and warmth. It will do you no harm to mind me; so be said, Ducie. Besides, I wouldn't pull them anyway. There was little Grace Lewthwaite, she was always gathering the poor, innocent flowers just to fling them on the dusty road to be trodden and trampled to pieces; well, before she was twelve years old, she faded away too. Perhaps even the prayers of mangled flowers may be heard by the merciful Creator."
"You do give me such turns, Charlotte." But who ever reasons with a superstition? Ducie simply obeyed Charlotte's wish, and laid the pallid blooms almost remorsefully back upon the earth from which she had taken them. A strange melancholy filled her heart; although the servants were busy all around, and everywhere she heard the good-natured laugh, the thoughtless whistle, or the songs of hearts at ease.
When she entered the houseplace she put the bright kettle on the hob, and took out her silver teapot and her best cups of lovely crown Derby. And as she moved about in her quiet, hospitable way they began to talk of Stephen. "Was he well?"—"Yes, he was well, but there were things that might be better. I thought when he went to Bradford," continued Ducie, "that he would at least be learning something that he might be the better of in the long end; and that in a mill he would over-get his notions about sheepskins being spun into golden fleeces. But he doesn't seem to get any new light that way, and Up-Hill is not doing well without him. Fold and farm are needing the master's eye and hand; and it will be a poor lambing season for us, I think, wanting Steve. And, deary me, Charlotte, one word from you would bring him home!"
Charlotte stooped, and lifted the tortoise-shell cat, lying on the rug at her feet. She was not fond of cats, and she was only attentive to puss as the best means of hiding her blushes. Ducie understood the small, womanly ruse, and waited no other answer. "What is the matter with the squire, Charlotte? Does he think that Stephen isn't good enough to marry you? I'll not say that Latrigg evens Sandal in all things, but I will say that there are very few families that can even Latrigg. We have been without reproach,—good women, honest men; not afraid of any face of clay, though it wore a crown above it."
"Dear Ducie, there is no question at all of that. The trouble arose about Julius Sandal. Father was determined that I or Sophia should marry him, and he was afraid of Steve standing in the way of Julius. As for myself, I felt as if Julius had been invited to Seat-Sandal that he might make his choice of us; and I took good care that he should understand from the first hour that I was not on his approbation. I resented the position on my own account, and I did not intend Stephen to feel that he was only getting a girl who had been appraised by Julius Sandal, and declined."
"You are a good girl, Charlotte; and as for Steve standing in the way of Julius Sandal, he will, perhaps, do that yet, and to some more purpose than sweet-hearting. I hear tell that he is very rich; but Steve is not poor,—no, not by a good deal. His grandfather and I have been saving for him more than twenty years, and Steve is one to turn his penny well and often. If you marry Steve, you will not have to study about money matters."
"Poor or rich, I shall marry Steve if he is true to me."
"There is another thing, Charlotte, a thing I talk about to no one; but we will speak of it once and forever. Have you heard a word about Steve's father? My trouble is long dead and buried, but there are some that will open the grave itself for a mouthful of scandal. What have you heard? Don't be afraid to speak out."
"I heard that you ran away with Steve's father."
"Yes, I did."
"That your father and mother opposed your marriage very much."
"Yes, that also is true."
"That he was a handsome lad, called Matt Pattison, your father's head shepherd."
"Was that all?"
"That it killed your mother."
"No, that is untrue. Mother died from an inflammation brought on by taking cold. I was no-ways to blame for her death. I was to blame for running away from my home and duty, and I took in full all the sorrowful wage I earned. Steve's father did not live to see his son; and when I heard of mother's death, I determined to go back to father, and stay with him always if he would let me. I got to Sandal village in the evening, and stayed with Nancy Bell all night. In the morning I went up the fell; it was a wet, cold morning, with gusts of wind driving the showers like a solid sheet eastward. We had a hard fight up the breast of the mountain; and the house looked bleak and desolate, for the men were all in the barn threshing, and the women in the kitchen at the butter-troughs. I stood in the porch to catch my breath, and take my plaid from around the child; and I heard father in a loud, solemn voice saying the Collect,—father always spoke in that way when he was saying the Confession or the Collect,—and I knew very well that he would be standing at that east window, with his prayer-book open on the sill. So I waited until I heard the 'Amen,' and then I lifted the latch and went in. He turned around and faced me; and his eyes fell at once upon little Steve, who was a bonny lad then, more than three years old. 'I have come back to you, father,' I said, 'I and my little Steve.'—'Where is thy husband?' he asked. I said, 'He is in the grave. I did wrong, and I am sorry, father."
"'Then I forgive thee.' That was all he said. His eyes were fixed upon Steve, for he never had a son of his own; and he held out his hands, and Steve went straight to him; and he lifted the boy, and kissed him again and again, and from that moment he loved him with all his soul. He never cast up to me the wrong I had done; and by and by I told him all that had happened to me, and we never more had a secret between us, but worked together for one end; and what that end was, some day you may find out. I wish you would write a word or two to Steve. A word would bring him home, dear."
"But I cannot write it, Ducie. I promised father there should be no love-making between us, and I would not break a word that father trusts in. Besides, Stephen is too proud and too honorable to have any underhand courting. When he can walk in and out Seat-Sandal in dayshine and in dark, and as every one's equal, he will come to see me. Until then we can trust each other and wait."
"What does the squire think of Steve's plans? Maybe, now, they are not very pleasant to him. I remember at the sheep-shearing he did not say very much."
"He did not say very much because he never thought that Steve was in earnest. Father does not like changes, and you know how land-owners regard traders. And I'm sure you wouldn't even one of our shepherd-lads with a man that minds a loom. The brave fellows, travelling the mountain-tops in the fiercest storms to fold the sheep, or seek some stray or weakly lamb, are very different from the lank, white-faced mannikins all finger-ends for a bit of machinery; aren't they, Ducie? And I would far rather see Steve counting his flocks on the fells than his spinning-jennys in a mill. Father was troubled about the railway coming to Ambleside, and I do think a factory in Sandal-Side would make him heart-sick."
"Then Steve shall never build one while Sandal lives. Do you think I would have the squire made heart-sick if I could make him heart-whole? Not for all the woollen yarn in England. Tell him Ducie said so. The squire and I are old, old friends. Why, we pulled primroses together in the very meadow Steve thought of building in! I'm not the woman to put a mill before a friend, oh, no! And in the long end I think you are right, Charlotte. A man had better work among sheep than among human beings. They are a deal more peaceable and easy to get on with. It is not so very hard for a shepherd to be a good man."
"You speak as I like to hear you, Ducie; but I must be going, for a deal falls to my oversight now." And she rose quickly from the tea-table, and as she tied on her bonnet, began to sing,—
"'God bless the sheep upon the fells!
Oh, do you hear the tinkling bells
Of sheep that wander on the fells?
The tinkling bells the silence fills,
Sings cheerily the soul that wills;
God bless the shepherd on the hills!
God bless the sheep! Their tinkling bells
Make music over all the fells;
By force and gill and tarn it swells,
And this is what their music tells:
God bless the sheep upon the fells.'"
The melody was wild and simple, a little plaintive also; and Charlotte sang it with a low, sweet monotony that recalled, one knew not how or why, the cool fragrance of the hillside, and the scent of wild flowers by running water.
Then she went slowly home, Ducie walking to the pine-wood with her. There was a vague unrest and fear at her heart, she knew not why; for who can tell whence spring their thoughts, or what mover first starts them from their secret lodging-place? A sadness she could not fight down took possession of her; and it annoyed her the more, because she found every one pleasantly excited over a box of presents that had just arrived from India for Sophia. She knew that her depression would be interpreted by some as envy and jealousy, and she resented the false position it put her in; and yet she found it impossible to affect the enthusiasm which was expected from her over the Cashmere shawl and scarfs, the Indian fans and jewelry, the carved ivory trinkets, the boxes full of Eastern scents,—sandalwood and calamus, nard and attar of roses, and pungent gums that made the old "Seat" feel like a little bit of Asia.
In a few days Julius followed; he came to see the presents, and to read, with personal illustrations and comments, the letters that had accompanied them. Sophia's ideas of her own importance grew constantly more pronounced; indeed, there was a certain amount of "claim" in them, which no one liked very well to submit to. And yet it was difficult to resist demands enforced by such remarks as, "It is the last time I shall ask for such a thing;" "One expects their own people to take a little interest in their marriage;" "I am sure Julius and his family have done all they can;" "They seem to understand what a girl must feel and like at such an eventful time of her life," and so on, and so on, in variations suited to the circumstances or the occasion.
Every one was worn out before July, and every one felt it to be a relief when the wedding-day came. It was ushered in with the chiming of bells, and the singing of bride-songs by the village children. The village itself was turned upside down, and the house inside out. As for the gloomy old church, it looked like a festal place, with flowers and gay clothing and smiling faces. It was the express wish of Sophia that none of the company should wear white. "That distinction," she said, "ought to be reserved for the bride;" and among the maids in pink and blue and primrose, she stood a very lily of womanhood. Her diaphanous, floating robe of Dacca muslin; her Indian veil of silver tissue, filmy as light; her gleaming pearls and feathery fan, made her
"A sight to dream of, not to tell."
The service was followed by the conventional wedding-breakfast; the congratulations of friends, and the rattling away of the bridal-carriage to the "hurrahing" of the servants and the villagers; and the tin-tin-tabula of the wedding-peals. Before four o'clock the last guest had departed, and the squire stood with his wife and Charlotte weary and disconsolate amid the remains of the feast and the dying flowers; all of them distinctly sensitive to that mournful air which accomplished pleasures leave behind them.
The squire could say nothing to dispel it. He took his rod as an excuse for solitude, and went off to the fells. Mrs. Sandal was crying with exhaustion, and was easily persuaded to go to her room, and sleep. Then Charlotte called the servants, men and women, and removed every trace of the ceremony, and all that was unusual or extravagant. She set the simplest of meals; she managed in some way, without a word, to give the worried squire the assurance that all the folly and waste and hurryment were over for ever; and that his life was to fall back into a calm, regular, economical groove.
He drank his tea and smoked his pipe to this sense, and was happier than he had been for many a week.
"It is a middling good thing, Alice," he said, "that we have only one more daughter to marry. I should think a matter of three or four would ruin or kill a man, let alone a mother. Eh? What?"
"That is the blessed truth, William. And yet it is the pride of my heart to say that there never was such a bride or such a bridal in Sandal-Side before. Still, I am tired, and I feel just as if I had had a trouble. Come day, go day; at the long end, life is no better than the preacher called it—vanity."
"To be sure it is not. We laugh at a wedding, we cry at a burying, a christening brings us a feast. On the Sabbath we say our litany; and as for the rest of the year, one day marrows another."
"Well, well, William Sandal! Maybe we will both feel better after a night's sleep. To-morrow is untouched."
And the squire, looking into her pale, placid face, had not the heart to speak out his thought, which was, "Nay, nay; we have mortgaged to-morrow. Debt and fear, and the penalties of over-work and over-eating and over-feeling, will be dogging us for their dues by dayshine."