Part 10 (2/2)
Unfortunately, Will did not return that night from the Frosthams'; for in the morning the two men were to go together to Dalton very early.
Will heard nothing there, but Mrs. Frostham was waiting at her garden gate to tell him when he returned. He had left Squire Frostham with his son-in-law, and was alone. Mrs. Frostham made a great deal of the information, and broke it to Will with much consideration. Will heard her sullenly. He was getting a few words ready for Aspatria, as Mrs.
Frostham told her tale, but they were for her alone. To Mrs. Frostham he adopted a tone she thought very ungrateful.
For when the whole affair, real and consequential, had been told, he answered: ”What is there to make a wonder of? Cannot a woman talk and walk a bit with her own husband? Maybe he had something very particular to say to her. I think it is a shame to bother a little la.s.s about a thing like that.”
And he folded himself so close that Mrs. Frostham could neither question nor sympathize with him longer. ”Good-evening to you,” he said coldly; and then, while visible, he took care to ride as if quite at his ease. But the moment the road turned from Frostham he whipped his horse to its full speed, and entered the farmyard with it in a foam of hurry, and himself in a foam of pa.s.sion.
Aspatria met him with the confession on her lips. He gave her no time.
He a.s.sailed her with affronting and injurious epithets. He pushed her hands and face from him. He vowed her tears were a mockery, and her intention of confessing a lie. He met all her efforts at explanation, and all her attempts to pacify him, at sword-point.
She bore it patiently for a while; and then Will Anneys saw an Aspatria he had never dreamed of. She seemed to grow taller; she did really grow taller; her face flamed, her eyes flashed, and, in a voice authoritative and irresistible, she commanded him to desist.
”You are my worst enemy,” she said. ”You are as deaf as the village gossips. You will not listen to the truth. Your abuse, heard by every servant in the house, certifies all that malice dares to think. And in wounding my honour you are a parricide to our mother's good name! I am ashamed of you, Will!”
From head to foot she reflected the indignation in her heart, as she stood erect with her hands clasped and the palms dropped downward, no sign of tears, no quiver of fear or doubt, no retreat, and no submission, in her face or att.i.tude.
”Why, whatever is the matter with you, Aspatria?”
At this moment Brune entered, and she went to him, and put her hand through his arm, and said: ”Brune, speak for me! Will has insulted mother and father, through me, in such a way that I can never forgive him!”
”You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Will Anneys!” And Brune put his sister gently behind him, and then marched squarely up to his brother's face. ”You are as pa.s.sionate as a brute beast, Will, and that, too, with a poor little la.s.s that has her own troubles, and has borne them like--like a good woman always does.”
”I do not want to hear you speak, Brune.”
”Ay, but I will speak, and you shall hear me. I tell you, Aspatria is in no kind to blame. The man came on her sudden, out of the plantation. She did not take his hand, she did not listen to him. She sent him about his business as quick as might be.”
”Lottie Patterson saw her,” said Will, dourly.
”Because Aspatria called Lottie Patterson to her; and if Lottie Patterson says she saw anything more or worse than ought to be, I will pretty soon call upon Seth Patterson to make his sister's words good.
Cus.h.!.+ I will that! And what is more, Will Anneys, if you do not know how to take care of your sister's good name, I will teach you,--you mouse of a man! You go and side with that Frostham set against Aspatria! Chaff on the Frosthams! It is a bad neighbourhood where a girl like Aspatria cannot say a word or two on the king's highway at broad noonday, without having a _sisserara_ about it.”
”I did not side with the Frosthams against Aspatria.”
”I'll be bound you did!”
”Let me alone, Brune! Go your ways out of here, both of you!”
”To be sure, we will both go. Come, Aspatria. When you are tired of ballooning, William Anneys, and can come down to common justice, maybe then I will talk to you,--not till.”
Now, good honest anger is one of the sinews of the soul; and he that wants it when there is occasion has but a maimed mind. The hot words, the pa.s.sionate atmosphere, the rebellion of Aspatria, the decision of Brune, had the same effect upon Will's senseless anger as a thunder-storm has upon the hot, heavy, summer air. Will raged his bad temper away, and was cool and clear-minded after it.
At the same hour the same kind of mental thunder-storm was prevailing over all common-sense at Redware Hall. Ulfar, after a long and vain watch for another opportunity to speak to Aspatria, returned there in a temper compounded of anger, jealousy, disappointment, and unsatisfied affection. He heard Lady Redware's story of his own danger and of Brune's consideration with scornful indifference. Brune's consideration he laughed at. He knew very well, he answered, that Brune Anneys hated him, and would take the greatest delight in such a hubbub as he pretended was in project.
”But he came to please Aspatria,” continued Lady Redware. ”He said he came only to please Aspatria.”
”So Aspatria wishes me to leave Allerdale? I will not go.”
”Sarah, he will not go,” cried Lady Redware, as her friend entered the room. ”He says he will not go.”
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