Part 26 (2/2)
Just as they sat down to the tea-table, the wet, weary travellers reached Up-Hill. With a sigh of pleasure and content, Ducie once more pa.s.sed into its comfortable shelter; and never had it seemed to her such a haven of earthly peace. Her usually placid face bore marks of strong emotion; she was physically tired; and Stephen was glad to see her among the white fleeces of his grandfather's big chair, with her feet outstretched to the blazing warmth of the fire, and their cosey tea-service by her side. Always reticent with him, she had been very tryingly so on their journey. No explanation of it had been given; and he had been permitted to pa.s.s his time among the looms in Ireland's mill, while she and the lawyer were occupied about affairs to which even his signature was not asked.
As they sat together in the evening, she caught his glance searching her face tenderly; and she bent forward, and said, ”Kiss me, Stephen, my dear lad. I have seen this week how kind and patient, how honorable and trustful, thou art. Well, then, the hour has come that will try thy love to the uttermost. But wise or unwise, all that has been done has been done with good intent, and I look for no word to pain me from thy mouth.
Stephen, what is thy name?”
”Stephen Latrigg.”
”Nay, but it isn't.”
Stephen blushed vividly; his mother's face was white and calm. ”I would rather be called Latrigg than--the other name, than by my father's name.”
”Has any one named thy father to thee?”
”Charlotte told me what you and she said on the matter. She understood his name to be Pattison. We were wondering if our marriage could be under my adopted name, that was all, and things like it.”
Ducie was watching his handsome face as he spoke, and feeling keenly the eager deprecation of pain to herself, mingling with the natural curiosity about his own ident.i.ty, which the cloud upon his early years warranted. She looked at him steadily, with eyes s.h.i.+ning brightly through tears.
”Your name is not Pattison, neither is it Latrigg. When you marry Charlotte Sandal, it must be by your own true name; and that is Stephen Sandal.”
”Stephen Sandal, mother?”
”Yes. You are the son of Launcelot Sandal, the late squire's eldest brother.”
”Then, mother, then I am--What am I, mother?”
”You are squire of Sandal-Side and Torver. No living man but you has a right to the name, or the land, or to Seat-Sandal.”
”I should have known this before, mother.”
”I think not. We had, father and I, what we believed good reasons, and kind reasons, for holding our peace. But times and circ.u.mstances have changed; and, where silence was once true friends.h.i.+p and kindness, it is now wrong and cruelty. Many years ago, Stephen, when I was young and beautiful, Launcelot Sandal loved me. And my father and Launcelot's father loved each other as David and Jonathan loved. They were scarcely happy apart; and not even to please the proud mistress Charlotte, would the squire loosen the grip of heart and hand between them. But your father was more under his mother's influence: proud lad as he was, he feared her; and when she discovered his love for me, there was such a scene between them as no man will go through twice in his lifetime. I have no excuse to make for marrying him secretly except the old, old one, Stephen. I loved him, loved him as women have loved, and will love, from the beginning to the end of time.”
”Dear mother, there was no wrong in that. But why did you let the world think you loved a man beneath you? an uneducated shepherd like my reputed father? That wronged not only you, but those behind and those after you.”
”We were afraid of many things, and we wished to spare the friends.h.i.+p between our fathers. There were many other reasons, scarcely worth repeating now.”
”And what became of the shepherd?”
”He was not c.u.mberland born. He came from the Cheviot Hills, and was always fretting for the border life: so he gladly fell in with the proposal your father made him. One summer morning he said he was going to herd the lambs on Latrigg Fell, but he went to Egremont. Your father had gone there a week before; but he came back that night, and met me at Ravengla.s.s. We were married in Egremont church, by Parson Sellafield, and went to Whitehaven, where we lived quietly and happily for many a week. Pattison witnessed our marriage, and then, with gold in his pocket, took the border road. He went to Moffat and wed the girl he loved, and has been shepherding on Loch Fell ever since.”
”He is alive, then?”
”He is at the Salutation Inn at Ambleside to-night. So, also, is Parson Sellafield, and the man and woman with whom we staid in Whitehaven, and in whose house you were born and lived until your fourth year. They are called Chisholm, and have been at Up-Hill many times.”
”I remember them.”
”And I did not intend that they should forget you.”
”I have always heard that Launcelot Sandal was drowned.”
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