Urith: A Tale of Dartmoor

by S. Baring-Gould

"Come, Urith," said he; "I think we will go. It is late." This was almost the only time he had spoken to her since the opening dance.

"I am ready," she answered; "have been for two hours."

He went forth to see after the horse, and had it brought round to the door. He took his place in the saddle, and Urith sat behind him. They rode forth from the grounds into the high road, along which their course lay for a mile and a half, after which it diverged over moor. Anthony did not speak, and Urith remained equally silent. She had her hand on his belt, and he felt the pressure. He was vexed with her; she had not done him credit that evening. She was uncouth, and unfit to associate with people accustomed to social intercourse—unable to take a part in the amusements such as is expected of every young person. She was decently dressed, but without richness and refinement of taste, and in an old-fashioned gown that had been her mother's. The blood rushed into his head as he thought of how folks must have laughed at him and her when she failed in the opening dance. She was the bride of the evening; every one was prepared to concede to her the place of pre-eminence, but she had shown herself wholly incapable of occupying the place offered her. Then how uninteresting she had appeared beside the other girls present! Their faces had been radiant with mirth, hers dull with discontent and ill-humour.

What if he had appeared there with Julian as his bride? How different all would have been! She would have been well, handsomely dressed, and in all the inherited jewelry of the Glanvilles. She would not have sat a whole evening mum against the wall. She would have shown herself queen of the revel. A warm breath, sweet as if laden with gorse essence, fanned his face at the thought, and was followed at once by a sharp and icy blast. Julian had been refused by him with all her wealth, her rank, her accomplishments, her beauty, and what had he acquired instead?

How could he have supposed that Urith was devoid of all those feminine delicacies of manner which enable a woman to place herself at ease in all society? She had thrown a cold, wet blanket over his joy on this first coming forth into the world from his seclusion at Willsworthy. Then Anthony went on spinning at the same dark thread of ideas. He asked himself what there was in Urith that had attracted him, why it was that he had been so infatuated as to throw his luck to the winds so as to possess her. When the head begins to reckon, then the heart is on the way to bankruptcy.

He counted over the advantages he had rejected, measured the sacrifices he had made for Urith's love, and he asked what she could throw into the scale to outweigh all this?

His hand twitched the bridle, and made the horse toss his head and plunge.

Urith also was occupied with her own thoughts. It had been a relief to her to get away from the laughter and music and revelry of Wringworthy; she thought that, could she be away from the heated room and swaling candles, in the cool night air, under the stars, her tranquillity of mind would return. But it was not so. Anthony's silence, her sense of having offended him by her clumsiness, her dread lest his love for her should be cooling; above all, the haunting spectre of a fear lest Julian should be fulfilling her threat, and be weaning from her the heart of her husband, followed her, and filled her blood with fever. But she strove against this fear, fought it with all the weapons at her command. It was impossible that his love, so strong, so unselfish, which had cost him so much, should evaporate, and that his heart should sway about like a weathercock. The resolution wherewith he had pursued his end, that proved him to have a strong character, and not one that is turned about in every direction.

He had some excuse for being out of humour. He was proud of her. He had desired to let all see what a woman he had got as his wife. He was disappointed, and the depth of his disappointment was the measure of his pride in her.

But then there rose up before her mind the picture of Julian on Anthony's arm, with burning cheeks and bright eyes, looking up in his face, and his eyes resting upon her with a warmth that should be in them only when fixed on the face of his wife. Did she not know that glow in his countenance? That fire in his eye? Had he not looked at her in the same way before they were married?