The Squire of Sandal-Side Part 25

"Charlotte, what a shameful thing to say!"

"Precisely what you have just said to mother."

"Supposing Julius dead! I never heard such a cruel thing. I dare say it would delight you."

"No, it would not; for Julius is not fit to die."

"Mother, I will not be insulted in my own house in such a way. Speak to Charlotte, or I must tell Julius."

"What have you come to say, Sophia?"

"I came to talk pleasantly, to see you, and"--

"You saw me an hour or two since, and were very rude and unkind. But if you regret it, my dear, it is forgiven."

"I do not know what there is to forgive. But really, Charlotte and you seem so completely unhappy and dissatisfied here, that I should think you would make a change."

"Do you mean that you wish me to go?"

"If you put words into my mouth."

"It is not worth while affecting either regret or offence, Sophia. How soon do you wish us to leave?"

The dowager mistress of Sandal-Side had stood up as she asked the question. She was quite calm, and her manner even cold and indifferent.

"If you wish us to go to-day, it is still possible. I can walk as far as the rectory. For your father's sake, the rector will make us welcome.--Charlotte, my bonnet and cloak!"

"Mother! I think such threats very uncalled for. What will people say?

And how can poor Julius defend himself against two ladies? I call it taking advantage of us."

"'Taking advantage?' Oh, no! Oh, no!--Charlotte, my dear, give me my cloak."

The little lady was not to be either frightened or entreated; and she deigned Julius--who had been hastily summoned by Sophia--no answer, either to his arguments or his apologies.

"It is enough," she cried, with a slight quiver in her voice, "it is enough! You turn me out of the home he gave me. Do you think that the dead see not? know not? You will find out, you will find out." And so, leaning upon Charlotte's arm, she walked slowly down the stairway, and into the dripping, soaking, gloomy afternoon. It was indeed wretched weather. A thick curtain of mist filled all the atmosphere, and made of daylight only a diluted darkness, in which it was hard to distinguish the skeletons of the trees which winter had stripped. The mountains had disappeared; there was no sky; a veil of chilling moisture and depressing gloom was over every thing. But neither Charlotte nor her mother was at that hour conscious of such inoffensive disagreeables.

They were trembling with anger and sorrow. In a moment such a great event had happened, one utterly unconceived of, and unprepared for. Half an hour previous, the unhappy mother had dreaded the breaking away from her old life, and had declined to discuss with Charlotte any plan tending to such a consummation. Then, suddenly, she had taken a step more decided and unusual than had ever entered Charlotte's mind.

The footpath through the park was very wet and muddy. Every branch dropped water. They were a little frightened at what they were doing, and their hearts were troubled by many complex emotions. But fortunately the walk was a short one, and the shortest way to the rectory lay directly through the churchyard. Without a word Mrs. Sandal took it; and without a word she turned aside at a certain point, and through the long, rank, withered gra.s.ses walked straight to the squire's grave. It was yet quite bare; the snow had melted away, and it had a look as desolate as her own heart. She stood a few minutes speechless by its side; but the painfully tight clasp in which she held Charlotte's hand expressed better than any words could have done the tension of feeling, the pa.s.sion of emotion, which dominated her. And Charlotte felt that silence was her mother's safety. If she spoke, she would weep, perhaps break down completely, and be unable to reach the shelter of the rectory.

The rector was walking about his study. He saw the two female forms pa.s.sing through the misty graveyard, and up to his own front door; but that they were Mrs. Sandal and Charlotte Sandal, was a supposition beyond the range of his life's probabilities. So, when they entered his room, he was for the moment astounded; but how much more so, when Charlotte, seeing her mother unable to frame a word, said, "We have come to you for shelter and protection!"

Then Mrs. Sandal began to sob hysterically; and the rector called his housekeeper, and the best rooms were quickly opened and warmed, and the sorrowful, weary lady lay down to rest in their comfort and seclusion.

Charlotte did not find their friend as unprepared for the event as she supposed likely. Private matters sift through the public mind in a way beyond all explanation, and "There had been a general impression," he said, "that the late squire's widow was very ill done to by the new squire."

Charlotte did not spare the new squire. All his petty ways of annoying her mother and herself and Stephen; all his small economies about their fire and food and comforts; all his scornful contempt for their household ways and traditions; all that she knew regarding his purchase of Harry's rights, and its ruthless revelation to her dying father,--all that she knew wrong of Julius, she told. It was a relief to do it. While he had been their guest, and afterwards while they had been his guests, her mouth had been closed. Week after week she had suffered in silence.

The long-restrained tide of wrong flowed from her lips with a strange, pathetic eloquence; and, as the rector held her hands, his own were wet with her fast-falling tears. At last she laid her head against his shoulder, and wept as if her heart would break. "He has been our ruin,"

she cried, "our evil angel. He has used Harry's folly and father's goodness and Sophia's love--all of them--for his own selfish ends."

"He is a bad one. He should be hanged, and cheap at it! Hear him, talking of having lived so often! G.o.d have mercy! He is not worthy of one life, let alone of two."

At this juncture, Julius himself entered the room. Neither of its occupants had heard his arrival, and he saw Charlotte in the abandon of her grief and anger. She would have risen, but the rector would not let her. "Sit still, Charlotte," he said. "He has done his do, and you need not fear him any more. And dry your tears, my dearie; learn while you are young to squander nothing, not even grief." Then he turned to Julius, and gave him one of those looks which go through all disguises into the shoals and quicksands of the heart; such a look as that with which the tamer of wild beasts controls his captive.

"Well, squire, what want you?"

"I want justice, sir. I am come here to defend myself."

"Very well, I am here to listen."

Self-justification is a vigorous quality: Julius spoke with eloquence, and with a superficial show of right. The rector heard him patiently, offering no comment, and permitting no disputation. But, when Julius was finished, he answered with a certain stern warmth, "Say what you will, squire, you and I are of two ways of thinking. You are in the wrong, and you will be hard set to prove yourself in the right; and that is as true as gospel."

"I am, at least, a gentleman, rector; and I know how to treat gentlewomen."

"Gentle-man! Gentle-sinner, let me say! Will Satan care whether you be a peasant, or a star-and-garter gentleman? Tut, tut! in my office I know nothing about gentlemen. There are plenty of gentlemen with Beelzebub; and they will ring all eternity for a drop of water, and never find a servant to answer them."

"Sir, though you are a clergyman, you have no right to speak to me in such a manner."

"Because I am a clergyman, I have the right. If I see a man sleeping while the Devil rocks his cradle, have I not the right to say to him, 'Wake up, you are in danger'? Let me tell you, squire, you have committed more than one sin. Go home, and confess them to G.o.d and man.

Above all, turn down a leaf in your Bible where a fool once asked, 'Who is my neighbor?' Keep it turned down, until you have answered the question better than you have been doing it lately."

"None of my neighbors can say wrong of me. I have always done my duty to them. I have paid every one what I owe"--

"Not enough, squire; not enough. Follow on, as Hosea says, to love them.

Don't always give them the white, and keep the yolk for yourself. You know your duty. Haste you back home, then, and do it."

"I will not be put off in such a way, sir. You must interfere in this matter: make these silly women behave themselves. I cannot have the whole country-side talking of my affairs."

"Me interfere! No, no! I am not in your livery, squire; and I won't fight your quarrels. Sir, my time is engaged."

"I have a right"--

"My time is engaged. It is my hour for reading the Evening Service. Stay and hear it, if you desire. But it is a bad neighborhood, where a man can't say his prayers quietly." And he stood up, walked slowly to his reading-desk, and began to turn the leaves of the Book of Common Prayer.

Then Julius went out in a pa.s.sion, and the rector muttered, "The Devil may quote Scripture, but he does not like to hear it read. Come, Charlotte, let us thank G.o.d, thank him twice, nay, thrice, not alone for the faith of Christ Jesus, but also for the legacy of Christ Jesus.

Oh, child, amid earth's weary restlessness and noisy quarrels, how rich a legacy,"--

"'Peace I leave with you. My peace I give unto you.'"

CHAPTER XI.

SANDAL AND SANDAL.

"Time will discover every thing; it is a babbler, and speaks even when no question is put."

"Run, spindles! Run, and weave the threads of doom."