I tell again the oldest and the newest
story of all the world,-the story of Invincible
Love!
This tale divine-ancient
as the beginning of things, fresh and young as the
passing hour-has forms and names various
as humanity. The story of Aspatria Anneys is
but one of these,-one leaf from all the
roses in the world, one note of all its myriad of songs.
Aspatria was born at Seat-Ambar, an
old house in Allerdale. It had Skiddaw to shelter
it on the northwest; and it looked boldly out across
the Solway, and into that sequestered valley in Furness
known as “the Vale of the Deadly Nightshade.”
The plant still grew there abundantly, and the villagers
still kept the knowledge of its medical value taught
them by the old monks of Furness. For these curious,
patient herbalists had discovered the blessing hidden
in the fair, poisonous amaryllis, long before
modern physicians called it “belladonna.”
The plant, with all its lovely relations,
had settled in the garden at Seat-Ambar. Aspatria’s
mother had loved them all: the girl could still
remember her thin white hands clasping the golden jonquils
in her coffin. This memory was in her heart,
as she hastened through the lonely place one evening
in spring. It ought to have been a pleasant spot,
for it was full of snowdrops and daffodils, and many
sweet old-fashioned shrubs and flowers; but it was
a stormy night, and the blossoms were plashed and
downcast, and all the birds in hiding from the fierce
wind and driving rain.
She was glad to get out of the gray,
wet, shivery atmosphere, and to come into the large
hall, ruddy and glowing with fire and candle-light.
Her brothers William and Brune sat at the table.
Will was counting money; it stood in small gold and
silver pillars before him. Brune was making fishing-flies.
Both looked up at her entrance; they did not think
words necessary for such a little maid. Yet both
loved her; she was their only sister, and both gave
her the respect to which she was entitled as co-heir
with them of the Ambar estate.
She was just sixteen, and not yet
beautiful. She was too young for beauty.
Her form was not developed; she would probably gain
two or three inches in height; and her face, though
exquisitely modelled, wanted the refining which comes
either from a multitude of complex emotions or is
given at once by some great heart-sorrow. Yet
she had fascination for those capable of feeling her
charm. Her large brown eyes had their childlike
clearness; they looked every one in the face with
its security of good-will. Her mouth was a tempting
mouth; the lips had not lost their bow-shape; they
were red and pouting, but withal ever ready to part.
She might have been born with a smile. Her hair,
soft and dark, had that rarest quality of soft hair,-a
tendency to make itself into little curls and tendrils
and stray down the white throat and over the white
brow; yet it was carefully parted and confined in
two long braids, tied at the ends with a black ribbon.
She wore a black dress. It was
plainly made, and its broad ruffle around the open
throat gave it an air of simplicity almost childlike
in effect. Her arms below the elbows were uncovered,
and her hands were small and finely formed, as patrician
hands should be. There was no ring upon them,
and no bracelet above them. She wore neither brooch
nor locket, nor ornament of any kind about her person;
only a daffodil laid against the snowy skin of her
bosom. Even this effect was not the result of
coquetry; it was a holy and loving sentiment materialized.
Altogether, she was a girl quite in
keeping with the antique, homelike air of the handsome
room she entered; her look, her manner, and even her
speech had the local stamp; she was evidently a daughter
of the land. Her brothers resembled her after
their masculine fashion. They were big men, whom
nature had built for the spaces of the moors and mountains
and the wide entrances of these old Cumberland homes.
They would have been pushed to pass through narrow
city doorways. A fine open-air colour was in
their faces; they had that confident manner which
great physical strength imparts, and that air of conscious
pride which is born in lords of the soil.
Indeed, William and Brune Anneys made
one understand how truthfully popular nomenclature
has called an Englishman “John Bull.”
For whoever has seen a bull in its native pastures-proud,
obstinate, conscious of his strength, and withal a
little surly-must understand that there
is a taurine basis to the English character, finely
expressed by the national appellation.
A great thing was to happen that hour,
and all three were as unconscious of the approaching
fate as if it was to be a part of another existence.
Squire William finished his accounts, and played a
game of chess with his brother. Aspatria walked
up and down the hall, with her hands clasped behind
her, or sat still in the Squire’s hearth-chair,
with her dress lifted a little in front, to let the
pleasant heat fall upon her ankles. She did not
think of reading or of sewing, or of improving the
time in any way. Perhaps she was not as dependent
on books as the women of this generation. Aspatria’s
mind was sensitive and observing; it lived very well
on its own ideas.
The storm increased in violence; the
rain beat against the windows, and the wind howled
at the nail-studded oak door, as if it intended to
blow it down. A big ploughman entered the room,
shyly pulled his front hair, and looked with stolid
inquiry into his master’s face. The Squire
pushed aside the chess-board, rose, and went to the
hearth-stone; for he was young in his authority, and
he felt himself on the hearth-stone to hold an impregnable
position.
“Well, Steve Bell, what is it?”
“Be I to sow the high land next, sir?”
“If you can have a face or back
wind, it will be best; if you have an elbow-wind,
you must give the land an extra half-bushel.”
“Be I to sow mother-of-corn on the east holme?”
“It is matterless. Is it going to be a
flashy spring?”
“A right season, sir,-plenty of manger-meat.”
“How is the weather?”
“The rain is near past; it will take up at midnight.”
As he spoke, Aspatria, who had been
sitting with folded hands and half-shut eyes, straightened
herself suddenly, and threw up her head to listen.
There was certainly the tramp of a horse’s feet,
and in a moment the door was loudly and impatiently
struck with the metal handle of a riding-whip.
Steve Bell went to answer the summons;
Brune trailed slowly after him. Aspatria and
the Squire heard nothing on the hearth but a human
voice blown about and away by the wind. But Steve’s
reply was distinct enough,-
“You be wanting Redware Hall,
sir? Cush! it’s unsensible to try for it.
The hills are slape as ice; the becks are full; the
moss will make a mouthful of you-horse
and man-to-night.”
The Squire went forward, and Aspatria
also. Aspatria lifted a candle, and carried it
high in her hand. That was the first glimpse of
her that Sir Ulfar Fenwick had.
“You must stay at Seat-Ambar
to-night,” said William Anneys. “You
cannot go farther and be sure of your life. You
are welcome here heartily, sir.”
The traveller dismounted, gave his
horse to Steve, and with words of gratitude came out
of the rain and darkness into the light and comfort
of the home opened to him. “I am Ulfar Fenwick,”
he said,-“Fenwick of Fenwick and
Outerby; and I think you must be William Anneys of
Ambar-Side.”
“The same, sir. This is
my brother Brune, and my sister Aspatria. You
are dreeping wet, sir. Come to my room and change
your clothing.”
Sir Ulfar bowed and smiled assent;
and the bow and the smile were Aspatria’s.
Her cheeks burned; a strange new life was in all her
veins. She hurried the housekeeper and the servants,
and she brought out the silver and the damask, and
the famous crystal cup in its stand of gold, which
was the lucky bowl of Ambar-Side. When Fenwick
came back to the hall, there was a feast spread for
him; and he ate and drank, and charmed every one with
his fine manner and his witty conversation.
They sat until midnight,-an
hour strange to Seat-Ambar. No one native in
that house had ever seen it before, no one ever felt
its mysterious influence. Sir Ulfar had been
charming them with tales of the strange lands he had
visited, and the strange peoples who dwelt in them.
He had not spoken much to Aspatria, but it was in her
face he had found inspiration and sympathy. For
her young eyes looked out with such eager interest,
with glances so seeking, so without guile and misgiving,
that their bright rays found a corner in his heart
into which no woman had ever before penetrated.
And she was equally subjugated by his more modern
orbs,-orbs with that steely point of brilliant
light, generated by large experience and varied emotion,-electric
orbs, such as never shone in the elder world.
When the clock struck twelve, Squire
Anneys rose with amazement. “Why, it is
strike of midnight!” he said. “It
is past all, how the hours have flown! But we
mustn’t put off sleeping-time any longer.
Good-night heartily to you, sir. It will be many
a long day till I forget this night. What doings
you have seen, sir!”
He was talking thus to his guest,
as he led him to the guest-room. Aspatria still
stood by the dying fire. Brune rose silently,
stretched his big arms, and said: “I’ll
be going likewise. You had best remember the
time of night, Aspatria.”
“What do you think of him, Brune?”
“Fenwick! I wouldn’t
think too high of him. One might have to come
down a peg or two. He sets a good deal of store
by himself, I should say.”
“You and I are of two ways of judging, Brune.”
“Never mind; time will let light into all our
ways of judging.”
He went yawning upstairs and Aspatria
slowly followed. She was not a bit sleepy.
She was wider awake than she had ever been before.
Her hands quivered like a swallow’s wings; her
face was rosy and luminous. She removed her clothing,
and unbraided her hair and shook it loose over her
slim shoulders. There was a smile on her lips
through all these preparations for sleep,-a
smile innocent and glad. Suddenly she lifted
the candle and carried it to the mirror. She desired
to look at herself, and she blushed deeply as she
gratified the wish. Was she fair enough to please
this wonderful stranger?
It was the first time such a query
had ever come to her heart. She was inclined
to answer it honestly. Holding the light slightly
above her head, she examined her claims to his regard.
Her expressive face, her starry eyes, her crimson,
pouting lips, her long dark hair, her slight, virginal
figure in its gown of white muslin scantily trimmed
with English thread-lace, her small, bare feet, her
air of childlike, curious happiness,-all
these things, taken together, pleased and satisfied
her desires, though she knew not how or why.
Then she composed herself with intentional
earnestness. She must “say her prayers.”
As yet it was only saying prayers with Aspatria,-only
a holy habit. A large Book of Common Prayer stood
open against an oaken rest on a table; a cushion of
black velvet was beneath it. Ere she knelt, she
reflected that it was very late, and that her Collect
and Lord’s Prayer would be sufficient.
Youth has such confidence in the sympathy of God.
She dropped softly on her knees and said her portion.
God would understand the rest. The little ceremony
soothed her, as a mother’s kiss might have done;
and with a happy sigh she put out the light.
The old house was dark and still, but her guardian
angel saw her small hands loose lying on the snowy
linen, and heard her whisper, “Dear God! how
happy I am!” And this joyous orison was the acceptable
prayer that left the smile of peace upon her sleeping
face.
In the guest-chamber Ulfar Fenwick
was also holding a session with himself. He had
come to his room very wide awake; midnight was an
early hour to him. And the incidents he had been
telling filled his mind with images of the past.
He could not at once put them aside. Women he
had loved and left visited his memory,-light
loves of a season, in which both had declared themselves
broken-hearted at parting, and both had known that
they would very soon forget. Neither was much
to blame: the maid had long ceased to remember
his vows and kisses; he, in some cases, had forgotten
her name. Yet, sitting there by the glowing oak
logs, he had visions of fair faces in all kinds of
surroundings,-in lighted halls, in moon-lit
groves under the great stars of the tropics, on the
Shetland seas when the aurora made for lovers an enchanted
atmosphere and a light in which beauty was glorified.
Well, they had passed as April passes, and now,-
As a glimpse of a burnt-out ember
Recalls a regret of the sun,
He remembered, forgot, and remembered
What love saw done and undone.
Aspatria was different from all.
He whispered her strange name on his lips, and he
thought it must have wandered from some sunny southern
clime into these northern solitudes. His eyes
shone; his heart beat. He said to it: “Make
room for this innocent little one! What a darling
she is! How clear, how candid, how beautiful!
Oh, to be loved by such a woman! Oh, to kiss
her!-to feel her kiss me!” He set
his mouth tightly; the soft dreamy look in his face
changed to one of purpose and pleasure.
“I shall win her, or die for
it,” he said. “By Saint George!
I would rather die than know that any other man had
married her.”
Yet the thought of marriage somewhat
sobered him. “I should have to give up
my voyage to the Spanish Colonies,-and I
am very much interested in their struggle. I
could not take her to Mexico, I suppose,-there
is nothing but fighting there; and I could not-no,
I could not leave her. If she were mine, I should
hate to have any one else breathe the same air with
her. I could not endure that others should speak
to her. I should want to strike any man who touched
her hand. Perhaps I had better go away in the
morning, and ride this road no more. I have made
my plans.”
And fate had made other plans.
Who can fight against his destiny? When he saw
Aspatria in the morning, every plan that did not include
her seemed unworthy of his consideration. She
was ten times lovelier in the daylight. She had
that fresh invincible charm which women of culture
and intellect seldom have: she was inspired by
her heart. It taught her a thousand delightful
subjugating ways. She served his breakfast with
her own fair hands; she offered him the first sweet
flowers in the garden; she fluttered around his necessities,
his desires, his intentions, with a grace and a kindness
nothing but love could have taught her.
He thanked her with marvellous glances,
with smiles, with single words dropped only for her
ears, with all the potent eloquence which passion
and experience teach. And he had to pay the price,
as all men must do. The lesson he taught he also
learned. “Aspatria!” he said, in soft,
penetrating accents; and when she answered his call
and came to his side, her dress trailing across his
feet bewitched him. They were in the garden,
and he clasped her hand, and went down the budding
alleys with her, speechless, but gazing into her face
until she dropped her tremulous, transparent lids
before her eyes; they were too full of light and love
to show to any mortal.
The sky was white and blue, the air
fresh and sweet; the swallows had just come, and were
chattering with the starlings; hundreds of daffodils
“danced in the wind” and lighted the ground
at their feet; troops of celandines starred the brook
that babbled by the bee-skips; the southernwood, the
wall-flower, the budding thyme and sweet-brier,-a
thousand exhalations filled the air and intensified
that intoxication of heart and senses which makes the
first stage of love’s fever delirious.
Fenwick went away in the afternoon,
and his adieus were mostly made to the Squire.
He had done his best to win his favour, and he had
been successful. He left Seat-Ambar under an
engagement to return soon and try his skill in wrestling
and pole-leaping with Brune. Aspatria knew he
would return: a voice which Fenwick’s voice
only echoed told her so. She watched him from
her own window across the meadows, and up the mountain,
until he was lost to her vision.
She was doubtless very much in love,
though as yet she had not admitted the fact to herself.
The experience had come with a really shocking swiftness.
Her heart was half angry and half abashed by its instantaneous
surrender. Two circumstances had promoted this
condition. First, the singular charm of the man.
Ulfar Fenwick was unlike any one she had ever seen.
The squires and gentlemen who came to Seat-Ambar were
physically the finest fellows in England, but noble
women look for something more than mere bulk in a man.
Sir Ulfar Fenwick had this something more. Culture,
travel, great experience with women, had added to
his heroic form a charm flesh and sinew alone could
never compass. And if he had lacked all other
physical advantages, he possessed eyes which had been
filled to the brim with experiences of every kind,-gray
eyes with pure, full lids thickly fringed,-eyes
always lustrous, sometimes piercingly bright.
Secondly, Aspatria had no knowledge which helped her
to ward off attack or protract surrender. In
a multitude of lovers there is safety; but Fenwick
was Aspatria’s first lover.
He rode hard, as if he would ride
from fate. Perhaps he hoped at this early stage
of feeling to do as he had often done before,-
To love-and then ride away.
He had also a fresh, pressing anxiety
to see his sister, who was Lady of Redware Manor.
Seven years-and much besides years-had
passed since they met. She was his only sister,
and ten years his senior. She loved him as mothers
love, unquestioningly, with miraculous excuses for
all his shortcomings. She had been watching for
his arrival many hours before he appeared.
“Ulfar! how welcome you are!”
she cried, with tears in her eyes and her voice.
“Oh, my dear! how happy I am to see you once
more!”
She might have been his only love,
he kissed and embraced and kissed her again so fondly.
Oh, wondrous tie of blood and kinship! At that
moment there really seemed to Ulfar Fenwick no one
in the whole world half so dear as his sister Elizabeth.
He told her he had lost his way in
the storm and been detained by Squire Anneys; and
she praised the Squire, and said that she would evermore
love him for his kindness. “I met him once,
at the Election Ball in Kendal. He danced with
me; ‘we neighbour each other,’ you see;
and they are a grand old family, I can tell you.”
“There is a younger brother, called Brune.”
“I never saw him.”
“A sister also,-a
child yet, but very handsome. You ought to see
her.”
“Why?”
“You would like her. I do.”
“Ulfar, there is a ‘thus
far’ in everything. In your wooing and
pursuing, the line lies south of Seat-Ambar. To
wrong a woman of that house would be wicked and dangerous.”
“Why should I wrong her?
I have no intention to do so. I say she is a
lovely lady, a great beauty, worthy of honest love
and supreme devotion.”
“Such a rant about love and
beauty! Nine tenths of the men who talk in this
way do but blaspheme Love by taking his name in vain.”
“However, Elizabeth, it is marriage
or the Spanish colonies for me. It is Miss Anneys,
or Cuba, New Orleans, and Mexico. Santa Anna is
a supreme villain; I have a fancy to see such a specimen.”
“You are then between the devil
and the deep sea; and I should say that the one-legged
Spaniard was preferable to the deep sea of matrimony.”
“She is so fair! She has
a virgin timidity that enchants me.”
“It will become matronly indecision,
or mental weakness of will. In the future it
will drive you frantic.”
“Her sweet sensibility-”
“Will crystallize into passionate
irritation or callous opposition. These childlike,
tender, clinging maidens are often capable of sudden
and dangerous action. Better go to Cuba, or even
to Mexico, Ulfar.”
“I suppose she has wealth.
You will admit that excellence?”
“She is co-heir with her brothers.
She may have two thousand pounds a year. You
cannot afford to marry a girl so poor.”
“I have not yet come to regard
a large sum of money as a kind of virtue, or the want
of it as a crime.”
“Your wife ought to represent
you. How can this country-girl help you in the
society to which you belong?”
“Society! What is society?
In its elemental verity it means toil, weariness,
loss of rest and health, useless expense, envy, disappointment,
heart-burnings,-all for the sake of exchanging
entertainments with A and B, C and D. It means chaff
instead of wheat.”
“If you want to be happy, Ulfar,
put this girl out of your mind. I am sure her
brothers will oppose your suit. They will not
let their sister leave Allerdale. No Anneys has
ever done so.”
“You have strengthened my fancy,
Elizabeth. There is a deal of happiness in the
idea of prevailing, of getting the mastery, of putting
hindrances out of the way.”
“Well, I have given you good advice.”
“There are many ‘counsels
of perfection’ nobody dreams of following.
To advise a man in love not to love, is one of them.”
“Love!” she cried scornfully.
“Before you make such a fuss about the Spanish
Colonies and their new-found freedom, free yourself,
Ulfar! You have been a slave to some woman all
your life. You are one of those men who are naturally
not their own property. A child can turn you
hither and thither; a simple country girl can lead
you.”
He laughed softly, and murmured,-
“There is a rose of a hundred leaves,
But the wild rose is the sweetest.”