Part 6 (2/2)
When he saw Aspatria he bowed, and advanced rapidly to the altar. She had loosened her cloak and flung back her hood, and she watched his approach with eyes that seemed two separate souls of love and sorrow.
One glance from them troubled him to the seat of life. He motioned to the waiting clergyman, and took his place beside his bride. There was a dead stillness in the church, and a dead stillness outside; the neighing of a horse sounded sharp, imperative, fateful. A ripple of a smile followed; it was a lucky omen to hear a horse neigh. Brune glanced at his sister, but she had not heeded it. Her whole being was swallowed up in the fact that she was standing at Ulfar's side, that she was going to be his wife.
The aged clergyman was fumbling with the Prayer Book: ”The Form of Solemnization of Matrimony” seemed hard to find. And so vagrant is thought, that while he turned the leaves Aspatria remembered the travelling-chariot, and wondered whether Ulfar meant to carry her away in it, and what she would do for proper clothing. Will ought to have told her something of the future. How cruel every one had been! It took but a moment for these and many other thoughts to invade Aspatria's heart, and spread dismay and anxiety and again the sense of resentment.
Then she heard the clergyman begin. His voice was like that of some one speaking in a dream, till she sharply called herself together, hearing also Ulfar's voice, and knowing that she too would be called upon for her a.s.sent. She glanced up at Ulfar, who was dressed with great care and splendour and looking very handsome, and said her ”I will” with the glance. Ulfar could not receive it unmoved; he looked steadily at her, and then he saw the ruin of youth that his faithlessness had made. Remorse bit him like a serpent, but remorse is not repentance. Then William Anneys gave his sister to his enemy; and the gift was like death to him, and the look accompanying the gift filled Ulfar's heart with a contemptuous anger fatal to all juster or kinder feelings.
When the service was ended, Fenwick turned to Aspatria and offered her his hand. She put hers into his, and so he led her down the aisle, and through the churchyard, to her own carriage. William had followed close. He wondered if Fenwick meant to take his wife with him, and he resolved to give him the opportunity to do so. But as soon as he perceived that the bridegroom would carry out his threat, and desert his bride at the church gates, he stepped forward and said,--
”That is enough, Sir Ulfar Fenwick. I have made you keep your word. I will care for your wife. She shall neither bear your name nor yet take anything from your bounty.”
Fenwick paid no heed to his brother-in-law. He looked at Aspatria. She was whiter than snow; she had the pallor of death. He lifted his hat and said,--
”Farewell, Lady Fenwick. We shall meet no more.”
”Sir Ulfar,” she answered calmly, ”it is not my will that we met here to-day.”
”And as for meeting no more,” said Brune, with pa.s.sionate contempt, ”I will warrant that is not in your say-so, Ulfar Fenwick.”
As he spoke, Fenwick's friend handed Will Anneys a card; then they drove rapidly away. Will was carefully wrapping his sister for her solitary ride back to Seat-Ambar; and he did this with forced deliberation, trying to appear undisturbed by what had occurred; for, since it had happened, he wished his neighbours to think he had fully expected it. And while so engaged he found opportunity to whisper to Aspatria: ”Now, my little la.s.s, bear up as bravely as may be. It is only one hour. Only one hour, dearie! Don't you try to speak. Only keep your head high till you get home, darling!”
So the sad procession turned homeward, Aspatria sitting alone in her carriage, William and Brune riding on either side of her, the squires and dames bidden to the ceremony following slowly behind. Some talked softly of the affair; some pa.s.sionately a.s.sailed William Anneys for not felling the villain where he stood. Gradually they said good-by, and so went to their own homes. Aspatria had to speak to each, she had to sit erect, she had to bear the wondering, curious gaze not only of her friends, but of the hinds and peasant-women in the small hamlets between the church and Seat-Ambar; she had to endure her own longing and disappointment, and make a poor attempt to smile when the children flung their little posies of late flowers into the pa.s.sing carriage.
To the last moment she bore it. ”A good, brave girl!” said Will, as he left her at her own room door. ”My word! it is better to have good blood than good fortune: good blood never was beat! Aspatria is only a little la.s.s, but she is more than a match for yon villain! A big villain he is, a villain with a latchet!”
The miserable are sacred. All through that wretched afternoon no one troubled Aspatria. Will and Brune sat by the parlour fire, for the most part silent. The rain, which had barely held off until their return from the church, now beat against the window-panes, and drenched and scattered even the hardy Michaelmas daisies. The house was as still as if there had been death instead of marriage in it. Now and then Brune spoke, and sometimes William answered him, and sometimes he did not.
At last, after a long pause, Brune asked: ”What was it Fenwick's friend gave you? A message?”
”A message.”
”You might as well say what, Will.”
”Ay, I might. It said Fenwick would wait for me a week at the Sceptre Inn, Carlisle.”
”Will you go to Carlisle?”
”To be sure I will go. I would not miss the chance of 'throwing'
him,--no, not for ten years' life!”
”Dear me! what a lot of trouble has come with just taking a stranger in out of the storm!”
”Ay, it is a venturesome thing to do. How can any one tell what a stranger may bring in with him?”
CHAPTER IV.
FOR MOTHER'S SAKE.
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