The Squire of Sandal-Side Part 24

"Well, then, call it a dream. I saw your grandfather. He was in this room; he was sorting the papers he left; and, as I watched his hands, he lifted his head and looked at me. I have got my orders, I feel that. But wait not now, I will follow you anon."

In the "Seat" there was a distinct feeling of consummating calamity. The servants had come to a state of mind in which the expectation was rather a relief. They were only afraid the squire might rally again. In Mrs.

Sandal's heart there was that resentful resignation which says to sorrow, "Do thy worst. I am no longer able to resist, or even to plead."

Charlotte only clung to her dream of hope, and refused to be wakened from it. She was sure her father had been worse many a time. She was almost cross at Ducie's unusual visit.

About four o'clock Steve had a long interview with the squire. Charlotte walked restlessly to and fro in the corridor; she heard Steve's voice, strong and kind and solemn, and she divined what promises he was making to the dying man for herself and for her mother. But even her love did not antic.i.p.ate their parting words,--

"Farewell, Stephen. Yet one word more. If Harry should come back--what of Harry? Eh? What?"

"I will stand by him. I will put my hand in his hand, and my foot with his foot. They that wrong Harry will wrong me, they that shame Harry will shame me. I will never call him less than a brother, as G.o.d hears me speak."

A light "that never was on sea or sky" shone in Sandal's fast dimming eyes, and irradiated his set gray countenance. "Stephen, tell him at death's door I turned back to forgive him--to bless him. I stretch--out--my hand--to--him."

At this moment Charlotte opened the door softly, and waved Stephen towards her. "Your mother is come, and she says she must see the squire." And then, before Stephen could answer, Ducie gently put them both aside. "Wait in the corridor, my children," she said: "none but G.o.d and Sandal must hear my farewell." With the words, she closed the door, and went to the dying man. He appeared to be unconscious; but she took his hand, stroked it kindly, and bending down whispered, "William, William Sandal! Do you know me?"

"Surely it is Ducie. It is growing dark. We must go home, Ducie. Eh?

What?"

"William, try and understand what I say. You will go the happier to heaven for my words." And, as they grew slowly into the squire's apprehension, a look of amazement, of grat.i.tude, of intense satisfaction, transfigured the clay for the last time. It seemed as if the departing soul stood still to listen. He was perfectly quiet until she ceased speaking; then, in a strange, unearthly tone, he uttered one word, "Happy." It was the last word that ever parted his lips. Between sh.o.r.es he lingered until the next daybreak, and then the loving watchers saw that the pallid wintry light fell on the dead. How peaceful was the large, worn face! How tranquil! How distant from them! How grandly, how terribly indifferent! To Squire William Sandal, all the noisy, sorrowful controversies of earth had grown suddenly silent.

The reading of the squire's will made public the real condition of affairs. Julius had spoken with the lawyer previously, and made clear to him his right in equity to stand in the heir's place. But the squires and statesmen of the Dales heard the subst.i.tution with muttered dissents, or in a silence still more emphatic of disapproval. Ducie and Mrs. Sandal and Charlotte were shocked and astounded at the revelation, and there was not a family in Sandal-Side who had that night a good word for Julius Sandal. He thought it very hard, and said so. He had not forced Harry in any way. He had taken no advantage of him. Harry was quite satisfied with the exchange, and what had other people to do with his affairs? He did not care for their opinion. "That for it!" and he snapped his fingers defiantly to every point of the compa.s.s. But, all the same, he walked the floor of the east rooms nearly all night, and kept Sophia awake to listen to his complaints.

Sophia was fretful and sleepy, and not as sympathetic with "the soul that halved her own," as centuries of fellow-feeling might have claimed; but she had her special worries. She perceived, even thus early, that as long as the late squire's widow was in the Seat, her own authority would be imperfect. "Of course, she did not wish to hurry her mother; but she would feel, in her place, how much more comfortable for all a change would be. And mother had her dower-house in the village; a very comfortable home, quite large enough for Charlotte and herself and a couple of maids, which was certainly all they needed."

Where did such thoughts and feelings spring from? Were they lying dormant in her heart that summer when the squire drove home his harvest, and her mother went joyfully up and down the sunny old rooms, always devising something for her girls' comfort or pleasures? In those days how proud Sophia had been of her father and mother! What indignation she would have felt had one suggested that the time was coming when she would be glad to see a stranger in her father's place, and feel impatient to say to her mother, "Step down lower; I would be mistress in your room"! Alas! there are depths in the human heart we fear to look into; for we know that often all that is necessary to a.s.suage a great grief, or obliterate a great loss, is the inheritance of a fine mansion, or a little money, or a few jewels, or even a rich garment. And as soon as the squire was in his grave, Julius and Sophia began to discuss the plans which only a very shallow shame had made them reticent about before.

Indeed, it soon became necessary for others, also, to discuss the future. People soon grow unwelcome in a house that is not their own; and the new squire of Sandal-Side was eager to so renovate and change the place that it would cease to remind him of his immediate predecessors.

The Sandals of past centuries were welcome, they gave dignity to his claims; but the last squire, and his son Harry Sandal, only reminded him of circ.u.mstances he felt it more comfortable to forget. So, during the long, dreary days of midwinter, he and Sophia occupied themselves very pleasantly in selecting styles of furniture, and colors of draperies, and in arranging for a full suite of Oriental rooms, which were to perpetuate in pottery and lacquerware, Indian bronzes and mattings, Chinese screens and cabinets, the Anglo-Indian possessor of the old c.u.mberland estate.

Even pending these alterations, others were in progress. Every family arrangement was changed in some respect. The hour for breakfast had been fixed at what Julius called a civilized time. This, of course, delayed every other meal; yet the servants, who had grumbled at over-work under the old authority, had not a complaint to make under the new. For the present master and mistress of Sandal were not people who cared for complaints. "If you can do the work, Ann, you may stay," said Sophia to the dissatisfied cook; "if not, the squire will pay you your due wages.

He has a friend in London whose cook would like a situation in the country." After which explanation Ann behaved herself admirably, and never found her work hard, though dinner was two hours later, and the supper dishes were not sent in until eleven o'clock.

But, though Julius had succeeded in bringing his table so far within his own ideas of comfort, in other respects he felt his impotence to order events. Every meal-time brought him in contact with the widow Sandal and with Charlotte; and neither Sophia, nor yet himself, had felt able to request the late mistress to resign her seat at the foot of the table.

And Sophia soon began to think it unkind of her mother not to see the position, and voluntarily amend it. "I do really think mother might have some consideration for me, Julius," she complained. "It puts me in such a very peculiar position not to take my place at my own table; and it is so trying and perplexing for the servants,--making them feel as if there were two mistresses."

"And always the calm, scornful face of your sister Charlotte at her side. Do you notice with what ostentatious obedience and attention she devotes herself to your mother?"

"She thinks that she is showing me my duty, Julius. But people have some duties toward themselves."

"And towards their husbands."

"Certainly. I thank Heaven I have always put my husband first." And she really glanced upwards with the complacent air of one who expected Heaven to imitate men, and "praise her for doing well unto herself."

"This state of things cannot go on much longer, Sophia."

"Certainly it cannot. Mother must look after her own house soon."

"I would speak to her to-day, Sophia. She has had six weeks now to arrange her plans, and next month I want to begin and put the house into decent condition. I think I will write to London this afternoon, and tell Jeffcott to send the polishers and painters on the 15th of March."

"Mother is so slow about things, I don't think she will be ready to move so early."

"Oh, I really can't stand them any longer! I can't indeed, Sophia, and I won't. I did not marry your mother and sister, nor yet buy them with the place. Your mother has her recognized rights in the estate, and she has a dower-house to which to retire; and the sooner she goes there now, the better. You may tell her I say so."

"You may as well tell her yourself, Julius."

"Do you wish me to be insulted by your sister Charlotte again? It is too bad to put me in such a position. I cannot punish two women, even for such shameful innuendos as I had to take when she sat at the head of the table. You ought to reflect, too, that the rooms they occupy are the best rooms in the house,--the master's rooms. I am going to have the oak walls polished, in order to bring out the carvings; and I think we will choose green and white for the carpets and curtains. The present furniture is dreadfully old-fas.h.i.+oned, and horribly full of old memories."

"Well, then, I shall give mother to understand that we expect to make these changes very soon."

"Depend upon it, the sooner your mother and Charlotte go to their own house, the better for all parties. For, if we do not insist upon it, they will stay and stay, until that Latrigg young man has his house finished. Then Charlotte will expect to be married from here, and we shall have all the trouble and expense of the affair. Oh, I tell you, Sophia, I see through the whole plan! But reckoning without me, and reckoning with me, are different things."

This conversation took place after a most unpleasant lunch. Julius had come to it in a fretful, hypercritical mood. He had been calculating what his proposed changes would cost, and the sum total had given him a slight shock. He was like many extravagant people, subject to pa.s.sing spells of almost contemptible economy; and at that hour the proposed future outlay of thousands did not trouble him so much as the actual penny-half-penny value of his mother-in-law's lunch.

He did not say so, but in some way the feeling permeated the table. The widow pushed her plate aside, and sipped her gla.s.s of wine in silence.

Charlotte took a pettish pleasure in refusing what she felt she was unwelcome to. Both left the table before Julius and Sophia had finished their meal; and both, as soon as they reached their rooms, turned to each other with faces hot with indignation, and hearts angry with a sense of shameful unkindness.

Charlotte spoke first. "What is to be done, mother? I cannot see you insulted, meal after meal, in this way. Let us go at once. I have told you it would come to this. We ought to have moved immediately,--just as soon as Julius came here as master."

"My house in the village has been empty for three years. It is cold and damp. It needs attention of every kind. If we could only stay here until Stephen's house was finished: then you could be married."

"O mother dear, that is not possible! You know Steve and I cannot marry until father has been dead at least a year. It would be an insult to father to have a wedding in his mourning year."

"If your father knows any thing, Charlotte, he knows the trouble we are in. He would count it no insult."

"But all through the Dales it would be a shame to us. Steve and I would not like to begin life with the ill words or ill thoughts of our neighbors."

"What shall I do? Charlotte, dear, what shall I do?"

"Let us go to our own home. Better to brave a little damp and discomfort than constant humiliation."

"This is my home, my own dear home! It is full of memories of your father and Harry."

"O mother, I should think you would want to forget Harry!"

"No, no, no! I want to remember him every hour of the day and night. How could I pray for him, if I forgot him? Little you know how a mother loves, Charlotte. His father forgave him: shall I be less pitiful?--I, who nursed him at my breast, and carried him in my arms."

Charlotte did not answer. She was touched by her mother's fidelity, and she found in her own heart a feeling much akin to it. Their conversation reverted to their unhappy position, and to the difficulty of making an immediate change. For not only was the dower-house in an untenantable state, but the weather was very much against them. The gray weather, the gloomy sky, the monotonous rains, the melting snow, the spiteful east wind,--by all this enmity of the elements, as well as by the enmity in the household, the poor bereaved lady was saddened and controlled.

The wretched conversation was followed by a most unhappy silence. Both hearts were brooding over their slights and wrongs. Day by day Charlotte's life had grown harder to bear. Sophia's little flaunts and dissents, her astonishments and corrections, were almost as cruel as the open hatred of Julius, his silence, his lowering brows, and insolence of proprietors.h.i.+p. To these things she had to add the intangible contempt of servants, and the feeling of constraint in the house where she had been the beloved child and the one in authority. Also she found the insolence which Stephen had to brave every time he called upon her just as difficult to bear as were her own peculiar slights. Julius had ceased to recognize him, had ceased to speak of him except as "that person." Every visit he made Charlotte was the occasion of some petty impertinence, some unmistakable a.s.surance that his presence was offensive to the master of Seat-Sandal.

All these things troubled the mother also, but her bitterest pang was the cruelty of Sophia. A slow, silent process of alienation had been going on in the girl ever since her engagement to Julius: it had first touched her thoughts, then her feelings; now its blighting influence had deteriorated her whole nature. And in her mother's heart there were sad echoes of that bitter cry that comes down from age to age, "Oh, my son Absalom, Absalom! My son, my son!"

"O Sophia! oh, my child, my child! How can you treat me so? What have I done?" She was murmuring such words to herself when the door was opened, and Sophia entered. It was characteristic of the woman that she did not knock ere entering. She had always jealously guarded her rights to the solitude of her own room; and, even when she was a school-girl, it had been an understood household regulation that no one was to enter it without knocking. But now that she was mistress of all the rooms in Seat-Sandal, she ignored the simple courtesy towards others.

Consequently, when she entered, she saw the tears in her mother's eyes.

They only angered her. "Why should the sorrows of others darken her happy home?" Sophia was one of those women whom long regrets fatigue. As for her father, she reflected, "that he had been well nursed, decorously buried, and that every propriety had been attended to. It was, in her opinion, high time that the living--Julius and herself--should be thought of." The stated events of life--its regular meals, its trivial pleasures--had quite filled any void in her existence made by her father's death. If he had come back to earth, if some one had said to her, "He is here," she would have been far more embarra.s.sed than delighted. The worldly advantages built upon the extinction of a great love! Sophia could contemplate them without a blush.

She came forward, s.h.i.+vering slightly, and stirred the fire. "How cold and dreary you are! Mother, why don't you cheer up and do something? It would be better for you than moping on the sofa."

"Suppose Julius had died six weeks ago, would you think of 'cheering up,' Sophia?"