Part 18 (2/2)
”I have not gone over to the Pope of Rome.”
”All the same, Harry; all the same. And you know how father feels about that. Father would fight for the Church quicker than he would fight for his own house and land. Why! the Sandals got all of their Millom Estate for being good Protestants; for standing by the Hanoverian line instead of those popish Stuarts. Father will think you have committed an act of treason against both church and state, and he will be ashamed to show his face among the Dale squires. It is too bad! too bad for any thing!”
and she covered her face, and cried bitterly.
”She is so lovely, so good”--
”Nonsense! Were there no lovely English girls? no good English girls?
Emily is ten times lovelier.”
”You know what you said.”
”I said it to please you.”
”Charlotte!”
”Yes, I did,--at least, in a great measure. It is easy enough to call a pretty girl an angel; and as for my promise to love your wife, of course I expected you would choose a wife suitable to your religion and your birth. Suppose you selected some outlandish dress,--an Italian brigand's, for instance,--what would the neighboring gentlemen think of you? It would be an insult to their national costume, and they would do right to resent it. Well, being who and what you are, you have no right to bring an Italian woman into Seat-Sandal. It is an insult to every woman in the county, and they will make you feel it.”
”I shall not give them the opportunity. Beatrice cannot live in this beastly climate.”
”The climate is wrong also? Naturally. It would follow the religion and the woman. Harry Sandal, I wish I had died, ere my ears had heard such a shame and sorrow for my father and mother! Where are you going to live, then?”
”In Florence. It is the birthplace of Beatrice the city a.s.sociated with all her triumphs.”
”G.o.d have mercy, Harry! Her triumphs! Is she, then, an actress?”
”She is a singer,--a wonderful singer; one to whom the world has listened with breathless delight.”
”A singing woman! And you have married her? It is an outrage on your ancestors, and on your parents and sisters.”
”I will not hear you speak in that way, Charlotte. Of course I married her. Did you wish me to ruin and debase her? _That_, I suppose, you could have forgiven. My sin against the Sandals and society is, that I married her.”
”No, sir; you know better. Your sin is in having any thing whatever to do with her. There is not a soul in Sandal that would have hesitated between ruin and marriage. If it had to be one or the other, then father and mother both, then I, then all your friends, would have said without hesitation, 'Marry the woman.'”
”I expected and hoped this would be your view of the situation. I could not give up Beatrice, and I could not be a scoundrel to her.”
”You might have thought of another woman besides Beatrice. Is a sin against a mother a less sin than one against a strange woman? A mother is something sacred. To wound her heart is to throw a stone at her. You have committed a sort of sacrilege. And you are married. No entreaties can prevent, and no repentance can avail. Oh, what a sorrow to darken all the rest of father's and mother's days! What right have you to spoil their lives, in order to give yourself a little pleasure? O Harry! I never knew that you were selfish before.”
”I deserve all you say, Charley, but I loved Beatrice so much.”
”Are you sure, even of that excuse? I heard you vow that you loved Eliza Pierson 'so much,' and f.a.n.n.y Ulloch 'so much,' and Emily Beverley 'so much.' Why did you not come home, and speak to me before it was too late? Why come at all now?”
”Because I want to talk to you about money. I have sold out.”
”Sold out? Is there any more bad news? Do you know what father paid for your commission? Do you know how it hampered him to do it? that, in fact, he has never been quite easy about ready money since?”
”I had to sell out. Did I not tell you that Beatrice could not live in this climate? She was very ill when she returned to Italy. Signor Lanza was in great trouble about her.”
”Signor Lanza? Her brother, I suppose.”
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