The Squire of Sandal-Side Part 12

"If there is any slight between Julius and me, father, I gave it; for he asked me to marry him, and I plainly told him no."

"Hear--you--but. I _am_ glad. You refused him? Come, come, that's a bit of pleasure I would have given a matter of five pounds to have known a day or two since. It would have saved me a few good ratings. Eh? What?"

"Why, father! Who has been rating you?"

"Myself, to be sure. You can't think what set-downs I have given William Sandal. Do you mind telling me about that refusal, Charlotte? Eh? What?"

"Not a bit. It was in the harvest-field. He said he loved me, and I told him gentlemen did not talk that way to girls who had never given them the least encouragement; and I said I did not love him, and never, never could love him. I was very firm, father, perhaps a little bit cross; for I did not like the way he spoke. I don't think he admires me at all now."

"I dare be bound he doesn't. 'Firm and a little bit cross.' It wouldn't be a nice five minutes for Julius. He sets a deal of store by himself;"

and then, as if he thought it was his duty not to show too much gratification, he added, "I hope you were very civil, Charlotte. A good asker should have a good nay-say. And you refused him? Well, I _am_ pleased. Mother never heard tell of it? Eh? What?"

"Oh, no; I have told no one but you. At the long end you always get at my secrets, father."

"We've had a goodish few together,--fis.h.i.+ng secrets, and such like; but I must tell mother this one, eh? She _will_ go on about it. In the harvest-field, was it? I understand now why he walked himself off a day or two before the set day. And he is all for Sophia now, is he? Well, I shouldn't wonder if Sophia will 'best' him a little on every side. You _have_ given me a turn, Charlotte. I didn't think of a son-in-law yet,--not just yet. Dear me! How life does go on! Ever since the sheep-shearing it has been running away with me. Life is a road on which there is no turning round, Charlotte. Oh, if there only were! If you could just run back to where you made the wrong turning! If you could only undo things that you have done! Eh? What?"

"Not even G.o.d can make what has been, not to have been. When a thing is done, if it is only the taking of a walk, the walk is taken to all eternity."

At the word "eternity," they stood on the brow of the hill which they had been climbing, and the squire said it again very solemnly.

"Eternity! How dreadful to spend it in repentance which can undo nothing! That is the most awful conception of the word 'eternity.' Eh?

What?"

They were silent a moment, then Sandal turned and looked westward. "It is mizzling already, Charlotte; the snow will turn into rain, and we shall have a downpour. Had we not better go home?"

But Charlotte painted in such glowing colors Ducie's fireside, and the pipe, and the cosey, quiet dinner they would be sure to get there, that the squire could not resist the temptation. "For all will be at sixes and sevens at home," he commented, "and no peace for anybody, with greens and carols and what not. Eh? What?"

"And very likely, as it is Christmas Eve, you may be asked to give Sophia away. So a nice dinner, and a quiet smoke, and an hour's nap will help you through to-night." And the thought in each heart, beyond this one, was "Perhaps Harry will be at home."

n.o.body missed the fugitives. Mrs. Sandal was sure Harry would come, and she was busy preparing his room with her own hands. The brightest fire, the gayest greens, the whitest and softest and best of every thing, she chose for Harry's room.

Certainly they were not missed by Julius and Sophia. They were far too much interested in themselves and in their own affairs. From the first hour of his return to Seat-Sandal, Sophia had understood that Julius was her lover, and that the time for his declaration rested in the main with herself. When the Christmas bells were ringing, when the house was bright with light and evergreens, and the very atmosphere full of happiness, she had determined to give him the necessary encouragement.

But the clock of Fate cannot be put back. When the moment arrives, the word is spoken or the deed done. Both of them were prepared for the moment, and yet not just then prepared; for Love still holds his great surprise somewhat in reserve.

They were in the drawing-room. The last vase had been filled, the last wreath hung; and Sophia looked at her beautiful hands, marked with the rim of the scissors, and stained with leaves and berries, in a little affected distress. Julius seated himself on the sofa beside her. She trembled, but he looked at her almost triumphantly. Over Sophia's heart he knew his power. With the questioning, unwinking gaze of love his eyes sought hers, and he tenderly spoke her name, "_Sophia_." She could answer only by her conscious silence.

"My wife! Mine in lives long forgotten."

"O Julius!"

"Always mine; missed in some existences, recovered in others, but bringing into every life with you my mark of owners.h.i.+p. See here."

Then he lifted her hand, and opening its palm upward, he placed his own in the same att.i.tude beside it. "Look into them both, Sophia, and see how closely our line of fortune is alike. That is something, but behold." And he showed her a singular mark, which had in his own palm its precise counterpart.

"Is it not also in Charlotte's palm? In others?"

"No, indeed. Among all the women on earth, only yours has this facsimile of my own. It is the soul mark upon the body. Every educated Hindoo can trace it; and all will tell you, that, if two individuals have it precisely alike, they are twin souls, and nothing can prevent their union."

"Did they explain it to you, Julius?"

"An Oriental never explains. They apprehend what is too subtle for words. They know best just what they have never been told. Sophia, this hand of yours fits mine. It is the key to it; the interpreter of my fate. Give me my own, darling."

To Charlotte he would never have spoken in such a tone. She would have resented its claim and authority, and perceived that it was likely to be the first encroachment of a tyranny she did not intend to bow to. But Sophia was easily deceived on this ground. She liked the mystical air it gave to the event; the gray sanction of unknown centuries to the love of to-day.

They speculated and supposed, and were supremely happy. The usual lover wanders in the dreams of the future: they sought each other through the phantom visions of the past. And they were so charmed with the occupation, that they quite forgot the exigencies and claims of the present existence until the rattle of wheels, the stamping of feet, and a joyful cry from Mrs. Sandal recalled them to it.

"It is Harry," said Sophia. "I must go to him, Julius."

He held her very firmly. "I am first. Wait a moment. You must promise me once more: 'My life is your life, my love is your love, my will is your will, my interest is your interest; I am your second self.' Will you say this Sophia, as I say it?" And she answered him without a word. Love knows how such speech may be. Even when she had escaped from her lover, she was not very sorry to find that Harry had gone at once to his own room; for he had driven through the approaching storm, and been thoroughly drenched. She was longing for a little solitude to bethink her of the new position in which she found herself; for, though she had a dreamy curiosity about her pre-existences, she had a very active and positive interest in the success and happiness of her present life.

Suddenly she remembered Charlotte, and with the remembrance came the fact that she had not seen her since the early forenoon. But she immediately coupled the circ.u.mstance with the absence of the squire, and then she reached the real solution of the position in a moment. "They have gone to Up-Hill, of course. Father always goes the day before Christmas; and Charlotte, no doubt, expected to find Steve at home. I must tell Julius about Charlotte and Steve. Julius will not approve of a young man like Steve in our family, and it ought not to be. I am sure father and mother think so."

At this point in her reflections, she heard Charlotte enter her own room, but she did not go to her. Sophia had a dislike to wet, untidy people, and she was not in any particular flurry to tell her success.

Indeed, she was rather inclined to revel for an hour in the sense of it belonging absolutely to Julius and herself. She was not one of those impolitic women, who fancy that they double their happiness by imparting it to others.

She determined to dress with extraordinary care. The occasion warranted it, surely; for it was not only Christmas Eve, it was also her betrothal eve. She put on her richest garment, a handsome gown of dark blue silk and velvet. A spray of mistletoe-berries was in her black hair, and a glittering necklace of fine sapphires enhanced the beauty and whiteness of her exquisite neck and shoulders. She was delighted with the effect of her own brave apparel, and also a little excited with the course events had taken, or she never would have so far forgotten the privileges of her elder birth as to visit Charlotte's room first on such an important personal occasion.

Charlotte was still wrapped in her dressing-gown, lazily musing before the crackling, blazing fire. Her hands were clasped above her head, her feet comfortably extended upon the fender, her eyes closed. She had been a little tired with buffeting the storm; and the hot tea, which Mrs.

Sandal had insisted upon as a preventative of cold, had made her, as she told Sophia, "deliciously dozy."

"But dinner will be ready in half an hour, and you have to dress yet, Charlotte. How do I look?"

"You look charming. How bright your eyes are, Sophia! I never saw you look so well. How much Julius will admire you to-night!"

"As to that, Julius always admires me. He says he used to dream about me, even before he saw me."

"Oh, you know that is nonsense! He couldn't do that. I dare say he dreams about you now, though. I should think he would like to."

"You will have to hurry, Charlotte."

"I can dress in ten minutes if I want to."

"I will leave you now." She hesitated a moment at the door, but she could not bring herself to speak of her engagement. She saw that Charlotte was in one of her "no-matter-every-thing-right" moods, and knew she would take the important news without the proper surprise and enthusiasm. In fact, she perceived that Harry's visit occupied her whole mind; for, as she stood a moment or two irresolute as to her own desires, Charlotte talked eagerly of her brother.

"Well, I hope if Harry is of so much importance in your eyes, you will dress decently to meet him. The rector is coming to dinner also."

"I shall wear my blue gown. If I imitate you, I cannot be much out of the way. Heigh-ho! Heigh-ho! I hope Harry will have a pleasant visit. We must do our best, Sophia, to make him happy."

"O Charlotte, if you have nothing to talk about but Harry, Harry, Harry, I am going! I am very fond of Harry, but I don't pretend to be blind to Harry's faults. Remember how many disagreeable hours he has given us lately. And I must say that I think he was very ungrateful about the hundred and eighty pounds I gave him. He never wrote me a line of thanks."

"You did not give it to Harry, you loaned it to me. Be just Sophia. I have paid you fifteen pounds of it back already, and I shall not buy a single new dress until it is all returned. You will not lose a s.h.i.+lling, Sophia."

"How Quixotic you can be! However, it is no use exciting ourselves to-night. One likes to keep the peace at Yule-tide, and so I will bow down to your idol as much as I can conscientiously."

Charlotte made no answer. She had risen hastily, and with rather unnecessary vigor was rattling the ewer and basin, and plas.h.i.+ng out the water. Sophia came back into the room, arranged the gla.s.s at the proper angle to give her a last comprehensive review of herself; and this being quite satisfactory, she went away with a smiling complacency, and a subdued excitement of manner, which in some peculiar way revealed to Charlotte the real position of affairs between her sister and Julius Sandal.

"She might have told me." She dashed the water over her face at the implied complaint; and it was easy to see, from the impatient way in which she subsequently unbound her hair, and pulled the comb through it, and from the irritability of all her movements, that she felt the omission to be a slight, not only indicating something not quite pleasant in the past, but prefiguring also she knew not what disagreeable feelings for the future.

"It is not Sophia's fault," she muttered; "Julius is to blame for it. I think he really hates me now. He has said to her, 'There is no need to tell Charlotte, specially; it will make her of too much importance. I don't approve of Charlotte in many ways.' Oh, I know you, sir!" and with the thought she pulled the string of her necklace so impatiently that it broke; and the golden beads fell to her feet, and rolled hither and thither about the room.