The Squire of Sandal-Side: A Pastoral Romance

"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 - Dint, energy.] 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."