Part 15 (1/2)
”Life is too short to discuss Aspatria. I remember one day at Redware being sharply requested to keep silence on that subject. The wheel of retribution has made a perfect circle as regards Aspatria! I shall certainly tell Ria that you have made her the heroine of your disagreeable matrimonial romance.”
”No, no, Sarah! Do not say a word to her. I must wait until nine, I suppose? And I am so anxious and so fearful, Sarah.”
”You must wait until nine. And as for the rest, I know very well that in the present age a lover's cares and fears have
Dwindled to the smallest span.
Do go to your hotel, and get clothed and in your right mind. You are most unbecomingly dressed. Good-by, old friend, good-by!” And she left him with an elaborate courtesy.
Ulfar was now in a vortex. Things went around and around in his consciousness; and whenever he endeavoured to examine events with his reason, then feeling advanced some unsupported conviction, and threw him back into the same senseless whirl of emotion.
He had failed to catch the point which would have given him the clew to the whole mystery,--the ident.i.ty of Brune with the splendidly accoutred officer Sarah avowed to be her intended husband. Without taking special note of him, Ulfar had seen certain signs of birth, breeding, and a.s.sured position. In his mind there was a great gulf between the haughty-looking soldier and the simple, handsome, but rather boorish-looking young Squire of Ambar-Side.
The two individualities were as far apart in social claims as the north and south poles are apart physically.
And if this beautiful woman were indeed Aspatria, how could he reconcile the fact with her education at St. Alban's, her friends.h.i.+p with such exalted families, her relations.h.i.+p to an officer of evident birth and position? When he thought thus, he acknowledged the impossibility; but then no sooner had he acknowledged it than his heart pa.s.sionately denied the deduction, with the simple iteration, ”It is Aspatria! It is Aspatria!”
Aspatria or not, he told himself that he was at last genuinely in love. Every affair before was tame, pale, uninteresting. If it was not Aspatria, then the first Aspatria was the shadow of the second and real one; the preface to love's glorious tale; the prelude to his song; the gray, sweet dawn to his perfect day. He could not eat, nor sit still, nor think reasonably, nor yet stop thinking. The sun stood still; the minutes were hours; at four o'clock he wished to fling the timepiece out of the window.
Aspatria had the immense strength of certainty. She knew. Also, she had Sarah to advise with. Still better, she had the conviction that Ulfar loved her. Perhaps Sarah had exaggerated Ulfar's desperate condition; if so, she had done it consciously, for she knew that as soon as a woman is sure of her power she puts on an authority which commands it. She was now only afraid that Ulfar would not be kept in suspense long enough, that Aspatria would forgive him too easily.
”Do make yourself as puzzling as you can, for this one night, Aspatria,” she urged. ”Try to outvie and outdo and even affront that dove-like simplicity he used to adore in you, and into which you are still apt to relapse. He told me once that you looked like a Quakeress when he first saw you.”
”I was just home from Miss Gilpin's school in Kendal. It was a Quaker school. I have always kept a black gown ready, like the one he saw me first in.”
”No black gown to-night. I have a mind to stay here and see that you turn the Quakeress into a princess.”
”I will do all you wish. To-night you shall have your way; but poor Ulfar must have suffered, and--”
”Poor Ulfar, indeed! Be merry; that is the best armour against love.
What ruins women? Revery and sentimentality. A woman who does not laugh ought to be watched.”
But though she lectured and advised Aspatria as to the ways of men and the ways of love, Sarah had not much faith in her own counsels. ”No one can draw out a programme for a woman's happiness,” she mused; ”she will not keep to its lines. Now, I do wonder whether she will dress gorgeously or not? What did Solomon in all his glory wear? If Aspatria only knew how dress catches a man's eye, and then touches his vanity, and then sets fire to his imagination, and finally, somehow, someway, gets to his heart! If she only knew,--
'All thoughts, all pa.s.sions, all delights, Whatever stirs this mortal frame, Are but the ministers of Love, And feed his sacred flame!'”
A little before nine, Ulfar entered Sarah's drawing-room. It was lighted with wax candles. It was sweet with fresh violets, and at the farther end Aspatria stood by her harp. She was dressed for Lady Chester's ball, and was waiting her chaperon; but there had been a little rebellion against her leaving without giving her admirers one song. Every person was suggesting his or her favourite; and she stood smiling, uncertain, listening, watching, for one voice and face.
Her dazzling bodice was clasped with emeralds; her draperies were of damasked gauze, shot with gold and silver, and abloom with flowers.
Her fair neck sparkled with diamonds; and the long white fingers which touched the strings so firmly glinted with flas.h.i.+ng gems. The moment Ulfar entered, she saw him. His eyes, full of fiery prescience, forced her to meet their inquiry; and then it was that she sat down and filled the room with tinkling notes, that made every one remember the mountains, and the merry racing of the spring winds, and the trickling of half-hidden fountains.
Sarah advanced with him. She touched Aspatria slightly, and said: ”Hus.h.!.+ a moment. This is my friend Sir Ulfar Fenwick, Ria.”
Ria lifted her eyes sweetly to his eyes; she bowed with the grace and benignity of a queen, and adroitly avoided speech by turning the melody into song:--
”I never shall forget The mountain maid that once I met By the cold river's side.
I met her on the mountain-side; She watched her herds unnoticed there: 'Trim-bodiced maiden, hail!' I cried.
She answered, 'Whither, Wanderer?
For thou hast lost thy way.'”