Unfortunately, Will did not return that night from the Frosthams’; for in the morning the two men were to go together to Dalton 161 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 lass 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 162 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 passion.
Aspatria met him with the confession on her lips. He gave her no time. He assailed 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, 163 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 attitude.
“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 passionate as a brute beast, Will, and that, too, with a poor little lass that has her own troubles, and has borne 164 them like—like a good woman always does.”