CHAPTER I.

THE WILD ROSE IS THE SWEETEST.

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 10 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 11 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; 12 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 13 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 15 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[1] 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 17 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 18 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 19 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 20 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 21 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 22 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. 23 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,—

Aspatria was different from all. He whispered her strange name on his lips, and he thought it must have wandered 24 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 25 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 26 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 27 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, 28 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 29 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,—

He had also a fresh, pressing anxiety to see his sister, who was Lady of Redware Manor. Seven years—and much besides 30 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 31 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.”