A Rose of a Hundred Leaves: A Love Story - Amelia Barr 3 стр.

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 loves 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 Aspatrias 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 Ulfars 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 Aspatrias 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 accumulated 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 stitches 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,

Heres 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 stitch. And when at last the aching silence in her ears was filled by Wills 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 loves 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. Wills 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 Aspatrias 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, Dont 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 Ill 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 passion, as witches used to manipulate their waxen images before the blazing coals.

She had easily won Ulfars confidence; she had even assisted 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 Aspatrias 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 Byrons beauty made him unfit for a legislator, he could do nothing but write poetry. I should say it was Ulfars 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 Ulfars nature.

You say strange things, Sarah. I wish it was possible to understand you.

Who shall read the interpretation thereof? is written on everything we see, especially on women.

I believe, said Elizabeth, that Ulfar has quarrelled with his country maid. Is there a quarrel, Ulfar, really?

No, he answered, with some temper.

Sarah nodded at Ulfar, and said softly: The absent must be satisfied with the second place. However, if you have quarrelled with her, Ulfar, turn over a new leaf. I found that out when poor Sandys was alive. People who have to live together must blot a leaf now and then with their little tempers. The only thing is to turn over a new one.

If anything unpleasant happens to me, said Ulfar, I try to bury it.

You cannot do it. The past is a ghost not to be laid; and a past which is buried alive, it is terrible. It was Sarah who spoke, and with a sombre earnestness not in keeping with her usual character. There was a minutes pregnant silence, and it was broken by the entrance of a servant with a letter. He gave it to Ulfar.

It was Aspatrias sorrowful, questioning note. Written while Brune waited, it was badly written, incorrectly constructed and spelled, and generally untidy. It had the same effect upon Ulfar that a badly dressed, untidy woman would have had. He was ashamed of the irregular, childish scrawl. He did not take the trouble to put himself in the atmosphere in which the anxious, sorrowful words had been written. He crushed the paper in his hand with much the same contemptuous temper with which Elizabeth had seen him treat a dunning letter. She knew, however, that this letter was from Aspatria, and, saying something about her father, she went into an adjoining room, and left Ulfar and Sarah together. She thought Sarah would be the proper alterative.

The first words Sir Thomas Fenwick uttered regarded Aspatria. Turning his head feebly, he asked: Has Ulfar quarrelled with Miss Anneys? I hear nothing of her lately.

I think he is tired of his fancy for her. There is no quarrel.

She was a good girl,  eh? Kindhearted, beautiful,  eh, Elizabeth?

She certainly was.

He said no more then; but at midnight, when Ulfar was sitting beside him, he called his son, and spoke to him on the subject. I am going almost gone the way of all flesh, Ulfar. Take heed of my last words. You promised to make Miss Anneys your wife,  eh?

I did, father.

Do not break your promise. If she gives it back to you, that might be well; but you cannot escape from your own word and deed. Honour keeps the door of the house of life. To break your word is to set the door wide open,  open for sorrow and evil of all kinds. Take care, Ulfar.

The next day he died, and one of Ulfars first thoughts was that the death set him free from his promise for one year at the least. A year contained a multitude of chances. He could afford to write to Aspatria under such circumstances. So he answered her letter at once, and it seemed proper to be affectionate, preparatory to reminding her that their marriage was impossible until the mourning for Sir Thomas was over. Also death had softened his heart, and his fathers last words had made him indeterminate and a little superstitious. A clever woman of the world would not have believed in this letter; its aura subtle but persistent, as the perfume of the paper would have made her doubt its fondest lines. But Aspatria had no idea other than that certain words represented absolutely certain feelings.

The letter made her joyful. It brought back the roses to her cheeks, the spring of motion to her steps. She began to work in her room once more. Now and then her brothers heard her singing the old song she had sung so constantly with Ulfar,

But the lifting of the sorrow was only that it might press more heavily. No more letters came; no message of any kind; none of the pretty love-gages he delighted in giving during the first months of their acquaintance. A gloom more wretched than that of death or sickness settled in the old rooms of Seat-Ambar. William and Brune carried its shadow on their broad, rosy faces into the hay-fields and the wheat-fields. It darkened all the summer days, and dulled all the usual mirth-making of the ingathering feasts. William was cross and taciturn. He loved his sister with all his heart, but he did not know how to sympathize with her. Even mother-love, when in great anxiety, sometimes wraps itself in this unreasonable irritability. Brune understood better. He had suffered from a love-change himself; he knew its ache and longing, its black despairs and still more cruel hopes. He was always on the lookout for Aspatria; and one day he heard news which he thought would interest her. Lady Redware was at the Hall. William had heard it a week before, but he had not considered it prudent to name the fact. Brune had a kinder intelligence.