“What were you watching me for? What were you listening to me for? I have a mind to hit you, Brune.”
“You had better not hit me, Will. I was not bothering myself about you. I was watching Aspatria. I was listening, because I knew the madman in you had got loose, and I was feared for my sister. I was not going to let you say or do things you would be sorry to death for when you came to yourself. And so you are going to let that villain marry Aspatria? You are not of my mind, Will. I would not let him put a foot into our decent family, or have a claim of any kind on our sister.”
“I have done what I thought best.”
“I don’t say it is best.”
“And I don’t ask for your opinion. Go to your own room, Brune, and mind your own affairs.”
And Brune, brought up in the religious belief of the natural supremacy of the elder brother, went off without another word, but with a heart full to overflowing of turbulent, angry thoughts.
In the morning Will went to see Mrs. Frostham. He told her of his interview with Ulfar Fenwick, and begged her to help Aspatria with such preparations as could be made. But neither to her nor yet to Aspatria did he speak of Fenwick’s avowed intention to leave his wife after the ceremony. In the first place, he did not believe that Fenwick would dare to give him such a cowardly insult; and then, also, he thought that the sight of Aspatria’s suffering would make him tender toward her. William Anneys’s simple, kindly soul did not understand that of all things the painful results of our sins are the most irritating. The hatred we ought to give to the sin or to the sinner, we give to the results.
Surely it was the saddest preparation for a wedding that could be. Will and Brune were “out.” They did not speak to each other, except about the farm business. Aspatria spent most of her time in her own room with a sempstress, who was making the long-delayed wedding-dress. 97 The silk for it had been bought more than a year, and it had lost some of its lustrous colour. Mrs. Frostham paid a short visit every day, and occasionally Alice Frostham came with her. She was a very pretty girl, gentle and affectionate to Aspatria; and just because of her kindness Will determined at some time to make her Mistress of Seat-Ambar.