The Squire of Sandal-Side Part 28

She looked into the suave, mocking, inscrutable face, shrugged her shoulders, and began to count her st.i.tches. Julius had many varieties of ill-humor. She regarded this statement only as a new phase of his temper; but he soon undeceived her. With a pitiless exactness he went over his position, and, in doing so, made the hopelessness of his case as clear to himself as it was to others. And yet he was determined not to yield without a struggle; though, apart from the income of Sandal, which he could not reach, he had little money and no credit.

The story, with all its romance of attachment and its long trial of faithful secrecy, touched the prejudices and the sympathies of every squire and shepherd between Duddon and Esk and Windermere. Stephen came to his own, and they received him with open arms. But for Julius, there was not a "seat" in the Dales, nor a cottage on the fells, no, nor a chair in any of the local inns, where he was welcome. He stood his social excommunication longer than could have been expected; and, even at the end, his surrender was forced from him by the want of money, and the never-ceasing laments of Sophia. She was clever enough to understand from the first, that fighting the case was simply "indulging Julius in his temper;" and she did not see the wisdom of spending what little money they had in such a gratification.

"You have been caught in your own trap, Julius," she said aggravatingly.

"Very clever people often are. It is folly to struggle. You had better ask Stephen to pay you back the ten thousand pounds. I think he ought to do that. It is only common honesty."

But Stephen had not the same idea of common honesty as Sophia had. He referred Julius to Harry.

"Harry, indeed! Harry who is in New York making ducks and drakes of your money, Julius,--trying to buy shares and things that he knows no more of than he knows of Greek. It's a shame!" and Sophia burst into some genuine tears over the reflection.

Still the idea, on a less extravagant basis, seemed possible to Steve.

He began to think that it would be better to compromise matters with the Julius Sandals; better to lose a thousand pounds, or even two thousand pounds, if, by doing so, he could at once restore Mrs. Sandal and Charlotte to their home. And he was on the point of making a proposition of this kind, when it was discovered that Julius and his wife had silently taken their departure.

"It is a hopeless fight against destiny," said Julius. "When the purse is empty, any cause is weak. I have barely money to take us to Calcutta, Sophia. It is very disagreeable to go there, of course; but my father advised this step, and I shall remind him of it. He ought, therefore, to re-arrange my future. It is hard enough for me to have lost so much time carrying out his plans. And I should write a letter to your mother before you go, if I were you, Sophia. It is your duty. She ought to have her cruel behavior to you pointed out to her."

Sophia did her duty. She wrote a very clever letter, which really did make both her mother and sister wretchedly uncomfortable. Charlotte held it in her hand with a heartache, wondering whether she had indeed been as envious and unjust and unkind as Sophia felt her to have been; and Mrs. Sandal buried her face in her sofa pillow, and had a cry over her supposed partiality and want of true motherly feeling. "They had been so misunderstood, Julius and she,--wilfully misunderstood, she feared; and they were being driven to a foreign land, a deadly foreign land, because Charlotte and Stephen had raised against them a social hatred they had not the heart to conquer. If they defended themselves, they must accuse those of their own blood and house, and they were not mean enough to do such a thing as that. Oh, no! Sophia Sandal had always done her duty, and always would do it forever." And broad statements are such confusing, confounding things, that for one miserable hour the mother and sister felt as mean and remorseful as Sophia and Julius could desire. Then the rector read the letter aloud, and dived down into its depths as if it was a knotty text, and showed the two simple women on what false conditions all of its accusations rested.

At the same time Julius wrote a letter also. It was to Harry Sandal,--a very short letter, but destined to cause nearly six years of lonely, wretched wandering and anxious sorrow.

DEAR HARRY,--There is great trouble about that ten thousand pounds.

It seems you had no right to sell. "Money on false pretences," I think they call it. I should go West, far West, if I were you.

Your friend,

JULIUS SANDAL.

He read it to Sophia, and she said, "What folly! Let Harry return home.

You have heard that he comes into the Latrigg money. Very well, let him come home, and then you can make him pay you back. Harry is very honorable."

"There is not the slightest chance of Harry paying me back. If he had a million, he wouldn't pay me back. Harry spoke me fair, but I caught one look which let me see into his soul. He hated me for buying his right.

With my money in his hand, he hated me. He would toss his hat to the stars if he heard how far I have been over-reached. Next to Charlotte Sandal, I hate Harry Sandal; and I am going to send him a road that he is not likely to return. I don't intend Stephen and Harry to sit together, and chuckle over me. Besides, your mother and Charlotte are surely calculating upon having 'dear Harry' and 'poor Harry' at home again very soon. I have no doubt Charlotte is planning about that Emily Beverley already. For Harry is to have Latrigg Hall when it is finished, I hear."

"Really? Is that so? Are you sure?"

"Harry is to have the new hall, and all of old Latrigg's gold and property."

"Julius, would it not be better to try and get around Harry? We could stay with him. I cannot endure Calcutta, and I always did like Harry."

"And I always detested him. And he always detested me. No, my sweet Sophia, there is really nothing for us but a decent lodging-house on the shady side of the Chowringhee Road. My father can give me a post in 'The Company,' and I must get as many of its rupees as I can manage. Go through the old rooms, and bid them farewell, my soul. We shall not come back to Seat-Sandal again in this chapter of our eternity." And with a mocking laugh he turned away to make his own preparations.

"But why go in the night, Julius? You said to-night at eleven o'clock.

Why not wait until morning?"

"Because, beloved, I owe a great deal of money in the neighborhood.

Stephen can pay it for me. I have sent him word to do so. Why should we waste our money? We have done with these boors. What they think of us, what they say of us, shall we mind it, my soul, when we drive under the peopuls and tamarinds at Barrackpore, or jostle the crowds upon the Moydana, or sit under the great stars and listen to the tread of the chokedars? All fate, Sophia! All fate, soul of my soul! What is Sandal-Side? Nothing. What is Calcutta? Nothing. What is life itself, my own one? Only a little piece out of something that was before, and will be after."

Who that has seen the c.u.mberland moors and fells in July can ever forget them?--the yellow broom and purple heather, the pink and white waxen b.a.l.l.s of the rare vacciniums, the red-leaved sundew, the asphodels, the cranberries and blueberries and bilberries, and the wonderful green mosses in all the wetter places; and, above and around all, the great mountain chains veiled in pale, ethereal atmosphere, and rising in it as airy and unsubstantial as if they could tremble in unison with every thrill of the ether above them.

It was thus they looked, and thus the fells and the moors looked, one day in July, eighteen months after the death of Squire William Sandal,--his daughter Charlotte's wedding-day. From far and near, the shepherd boys and la.s.ses were travelling down the craggy ways, making all the valleys ring to their wild and simple songs, and ever and anon the bells rung out in joyful peals; and from Up-Hill to Seat-Sandal, and around the valley to Latrigg Hall, there were happy companies telling each other, "Oh, how beautiful was the bride with her golden hair flowing down over her dress of shining white satin!" "And how proud and handsome the bridegroom!" "And how lovely in their autumn days the two mothers! Mistress Alice Sandal leaning so confidently upon the arm of the stately Mrs. Ducie Sandal." "And how glad was the good rector!"

Little work, either in field or house or fellside, was done that day; for, when all has been said about human selfishness, this truth abides,--in the main, we do rejoice with those who rejoice, and we do weep with those who weep.

The old Seat was almost gay in the sunshine, all its windows open for the wandering breezes, and its great hall doors set wide for the feet of the new squire and his bride. For they were too wise to begin their married life by going away from their home; they felt that it was better to come to it with the bridal benediction in their ears, and the sunshine of the wedding-day upon their faces.

The ceremony had been delayed some months, for Stephen had been in America seeking Harry; seeking him in the great cities and in the lonely mining-camps, but never coming upon his foot steps until they had been worn away into forgetfulness. At last the rector wrote to him, "Return home, Stephen. We are both wrong. It is not human love, but G.o.d love, that must seek the lost ones. If you found Harry now, and brought him back, it would be too soon. When his lesson is learned, the heart of G.o.d will be touched, and he will say, 'That will do, my son. Arise, and go home.'"

And when Mrs. Sandal smiled through her tears, for the hope's sake, he took her hand, and added solemnly, "Be confident and glad, you shall see Harry come joyfully to his own home. Oh, if you could only listen, angels still talk with men! Raphael, the affable angel, loves to bring them confidences. G.o.d also speaks to his children in dreams, and by the oracles that wait in darkness. If we know not, it is because we ask not.

But I know, and am sure, that Harry will return in joy and in peace. And if the dead look over the golden bar of heaven upon their earthly homes, Barf Latrigg, seeing the prosperity of the two houses, which stand upon his love and his self-denial, will say once more to his friend, 'William, I did well to Sandal.'"