A Rose of a Hundred Leaves: A Love Story

To be sure, she had not the perfect regularity of feature that distinguished some of her associates, that exact beauty which Titian’s Venus possesses, and which makes no man’s heart beat a throb the faster. Her face had rather the mobile irregularity of Leonardo’s Mona Lisa, the charming face that men love passionately, the face that men can die for.

At the close of the third year she refused all invitations for the summer holidays, and went back to Seat-Ambar. There had not been much communication between Will and herself. He was occupied with his land and his sheep, his wife and his two babies. People then took each other’s affection as a matter of course, without the daily assurance of it. About twice a year Will had sent her a few strong words of love, and a bare description of any change about the home, or else Alice had covered a sheet with pretty nothings, written in the small, pointed, flowing characters then fashionable.

But the love of Aspatria for her home depended on no such trivial, accidental tokens. It was in her blood; her personality was knotted to Seat-Ambar by centuries of inherited affection; she could test it by the fact that it would have killed her to see it pass into a stranger’s hands. When once she had turned her face northward, it seemed impossible to travel quickly enough. Hundreds of miles away she felt the cool wind blowing through the garden, and the scent of the damask rose was on it. She heard the gurgling of the becks and the wayside streams, and the whistling of the boys in the barn, and the tinkling of the sheep-bells on the highest fells. The raspberries were ripe in their sunny corner; she tasted them afar off. The dark oak rooms, their perfume of ancient things, their air of homelike comfort, – it was all so vivid, so present to her memory, that her heart beat and thrilled, as the breast of a nursing mother thrills and beats for her longing babe.

She had told no one she was coming; for, the determination made, she knew that she would reach home before the Dalton postman got the letter to Seat-Ambar. The gig she had hired she left at the lower garden gate; and then she walked quickly through the rose-alley up to the front door. It stood open, and she heard a baby crying. How strange the wailing notes sounded! She went forward, and opened the parlour door; Alice was washing the child, and she turned with an annoyed look to see the intruder.

Of course the expression changed, but not quickly enough to prevent Aspatria seeing that her visit was inopportune. Alice said afterward that she did not recognize her sister-in-law, and, as Will met her precisely as he would have met an entire stranger, Alice’s excuse was doubtless a valid one. There were abundant exclamations and rejoicings when her identity was established, but Will could do nothing all the evening but wonder over the changes that had taken place in his sister.

However, when the first joy of reunion is over, it is a prudent thing not to try too far the welcome that is given to the home-comer who has once left home. Will and Alice had grown to the idea that Aspatria would never return to claim the room in Seat-Ambar which was hers legally so long as she lived. It had been refurnished and was used as a guest-room. Aspatria looked with dismay on the changes made. Her very sampler had been sent away, – the bit of canvas made sacred by her mother’s fingers holding her own over it. She could remember the instances connected with the formation of almost every letter of its simple prayer, —

Jesus, permit thy gracious name to standAs the first effort of my infant hand;And, as my fingers on the sampler move,Engage my tender heart to seek thy love.With thy dear children may I have a part,And write thy Name, thyself, upon my heart.

And it was gone! She went into the lumber-room, and picked it out from under a pile of old prints and shabbily framed certificates for prize cattle.

With a sad heart Aspatria regarded the other changes. Her little tent-bed, with its white dimity curtains, had been given to baby’s nurse. The vase her father had bought her at Kendal fair was broken. Her small mirror and dressing-table had been removed for a fine Psyche in a gilded frame. Nothing, nothing was untouched, but the big dower-chest into which she had flung her wretched wedding-clothes. She stood silently before it, reflecting, with excusable ill-nature, that neither Will nor Alice knew the secret of its spring. Her mother had taught it to her, and that bit of knowledge she determined to keep to herself.

After some hesitation she tried the spring: it answered her pressure at once; the lid flew back, and there lay the unhappy white satin dress, the wreath, and veil, and slippers, just as she had tumbled them in. The bitter hour came sharply back to her; she thought and gazed, and thought and gazed, until she felt herself to be weeping. Then she softly closed the lid, and, as she did so, a smile parted her lips, – a smile that denied all that her tears said; a smile of hope, of good presage, of coming happiness.

She stayed only a week at Seat-Ambar, though she had originally intended to remain until the harvest was over. The time was spent in public festivity; every one in Allerdale was invited to give her a fitting welcome. But the very formality of all this entertainment pained her. It was, after all, only a cruel evidence that Will and Alice did not care to take her into their real home-life. She would rather have sat alone with them, and talked of their hopes and plans, and been permitted to make friends of the babies.

So far away, so far away as she had drifted in three years from the absent living! Would the dead be kinder? She went to Aspatria Church and sat down in her mother’s seat, and let the strange spiritual atmosphere which hovers in old churches fill her heart with its supernatural influence. All around her were the graves of her fore-elders, strong elemental men, simple God-loving women. Did they know her? Did they care for her? Her soul looked with piteous entreaty into the void behind it, but there was no answer; only that dreadful silence of the dead, which presses upon the drum of the ear like thunder.

She went into the quiet yard around the church. The ancient, ancient sun shone on the young grass. Over her mother’s grave the sweet thyme had grown luxuriantly. She rubbed her hands in it, and spread them toward heaven with a prayer. Then peace came into her heart, and she felt as if eyes, unseen heavenly eyes, rained happy influence upon her. Thus it is that death imparts to life its most intense interest; for, kneeling in his very presence, Aspatria forgot the mortality of her parents, and did reverence to that within them which was eternal.

She returned to London, and was a little disappointed there also. Mrs. St. Alban had promised herself an absolute release from any outside element. She felt Aspatria a trifle in the way, and, though far too polite to show her annoyance, Aspatria by some similar instinct divined it. That is the way always. When we plan for ourselves, all our plans fail. Happy are they who learn early to let fate alone, and never interfere with the Powers who hold the thread of their destiny!

It was not until she had reached this mood, a kind of content indifference, that her good genius could work for her. She then sent Brune as her messenger, and Brune took his sister to meet her on Richmond Hill. On their way thither they talked about Seat-Ambar, and Will and Alice, until Aspatria suddenly noticed that Brune was not listening to her. His eyes were fixed upon a lovely woman approaching them. It was Sarah Sandys. Brune stood bareheaded to receive her salutation.

“I never should have known you, Lieutenant Anneys,” she said, extending her hand, and beaming like sunshine on the handsome officer, “had not your colonel Jardine been in Richmond to-day. He is very proud of you, sir, and said so many fine things of you that I am ambitious to show him that we are old acquaintances. May I know, through you, Mrs. Anneys also?”

“This is my sister, Mrs. Sandys, – my sister – ” Brune hesitated a moment, and then said firmly, “Miss Anneys.”

Then Sarah insisted on taking them to her house to lunch; and there she soon had them under her influence. She waited on them with ravishing smiles and all sorts of pretty offices. She took them in her handsome carriage to drive, she insisted on their remaining to dinner. And before the drive was over, she had induced Aspatria to extend her visit until the opening of Mrs. St. Alban’s school.

“We three are from the north country,” she said, with an air of relationship; “and how absurd for Miss Anneys to be alone at Mrs. St. Alban’s, where she is not wanted, and for me to be alone here, when I desire her society so much!”

Aspatria was much pleased to receive such a delightful invitation, and a messenger was sent at once for her maid. Mrs. St. Alban was quite ready to resign Aspatria, and the maid was as glad as her mistress to leave the lonely mansion. In an hour or two she had removed Aspatria’s wardrobe, and was arranging the pleasant rooms Mrs. Sandys had placed at her guest’s disposal.

Sarah was evidently bent on conquest. Her toilet was a marvellous combination of some shining blue and white texture, mingled with pink roses and gold ornaments. Her soft fair hair was loosened and curled, and she had a childlike manner of being carelessly happy. Brune sat at her right hand; she talked to him in smiles and glances, and gave her words to Aspatria. She was determined to please both sister and brother, and she succeeded. Aspatria thought she had never in all her life seen a woman so lovable, so amusing, so individual.

Brune was naturally shy and silent among women. Sarah made him eloquent, because she had the tact to discover the subject on which he could talk, – his regiment, and its sayings and doings. So Brune was delighted with himself; he had never before suspected how clever he was. Stimulated by Sarah’s and Aspatria’s laughter and curiosity, he found it easy to retail funny little bits of palace and mess gossip, and to describe the queer men and the vain men and the fine fellows that were his familiars.

“And pray how do you amuse yourself, Lieutenant? Do you drink wine, and gamble, and go to the races, and bet your purse empty?”

“I was never brought up in such ways,” Brune answered, “and, I can tell you, I wouldn’t make believe to like them. There are a good many dalesmen in my company, and none of us enjoy anything more than a fair throw or an in-lock.”

“A throw or an in-lock! What do you mean, Lieutenant? You must explain yourself to Miss Anneys and myself.”

“Aspatria knows well enough. Did you ever see north-country lads wrestling, madam? No? Then you have as fine a thing in keeping for your eyes as human creatures can show you. I’ll warrant that! Why-a! wrestling brings all men to their level. When Colonel Jardine is ugly-tempered, and top-heavy with his authority, a few sound throws over Timothy Sutcliffe’s head does bring him to level very well. I had a little in-play with him yesterday; for in the wrestling-ring we be all equals, though out of it he is my colonel.”

“Now for the in-play. Tell me about it, for I see Miss Anneys is not at all interested.”

“Colonel Jardine is a fine wrestler; a fair match he would be even for brother Will. Yesterday he said he could throw me; and I took the challenge willingly. So we shook hands, and went squarely for the throw. I was in good luck, and soon got my head under his right arm, and his head close down to my left side. Then it was only to get my right arm up to his shoulder, and lift him as high as my head, and, when so, lean backward and throw him over my head: we call it the Flying Horse.”

“Oh, I can see it very well. No wonder Rosalind fell in love with Orlando when he threw the wrestler Charles.”

“Were they north-country or Cornish men?”

She was far too kindly and polite to smile; indeed, she gave Aspatria a pretty, imperative glance, and answered, in the most natural manner, “I think they were Italians.”

“Oh!” said Brune, with some contempt. “Chaff on their ways! The Devonshire wrestlers are brutal; the Cornish are too slow; but the Cumberland men wrestle like gentlemen. They meet square and level in the ring, and the one who could carry ill-will for a fair throw would very soon find himself out of all rings and all good fellowship.”

“You said ‘even brother Will.’ Is your brother a better wrestler than you?”

“My song! he is that! Will has his match, though. We had a ploughman once, – Aspatria remembers him, – Robert Steadman, an upright, muscular young fellow, civil and respectful as could be in everything about his work and place; but on wet days when we were all, masters and servants, in the barn together, it was a sight to see Robert wrestling with Will for the mastery, and Will never so ready to say, ‘Well done!’ nor the rest of us so happy, as when we saw Will’s two brawny legs going handsomely over Robert’s head.”

“If I were a man, I should try to be a fine wrestler.”

“It is a great comfort,” said Brune. “If you have a quarrel of any kind, it is a deal more satisfactory to meet your man, and throw him a few times over your head, than to go to law with him. It puts a stop to unpleasantness very quickly and very good-naturedly.”

Then Sarah rose and opened the piano, and from its keys dashed out a lilting, hurrying melody, like the galloping of horses and shaking of bridles; and in a few moments she began to sing, and Brune went to her side, and, because she looked so steadily into his eyes, he could remember nothing at all of the song but its dashing refrain, —

“For he whom I wedMust be north country bred,And must carry me back to the North Countrie.”

Then Aspatria played some wonderful music on her harp, and Sarah and Brune sat still and listened to their own hearts, and sent out shy glances, and caught each other in the act, and Brune was made nervous, and Sarah gay, by the circumstance.

By and by they began to talk of schools, and of how much Aspatria had learned; and so Brune regretted his own ignorance, and wished he had been more attentive to his schoolmaster.

Sarah laughed at the wish. “A knowledge of Shakspeare and the musical glasses and the Della Cruscans,” she said, “is for foolish, sentimental women. You can wrestle, and you can fight, and I suppose you can make money, and perhaps even make love. Is there anything else a soldier needs?”

“Colonel Jardine is very clever,” continued Brune, regretfully; “and I had a good schoolmaster – ”

“Nonsense, Lieutenant!” said Sarah. “None of them are good. They all spoil your eyes, and seek to lay a curse on you; that is the confusion of languages.”

“Still, I might have learned Latin.”

“It was the speech of pagans and infidels.”

“Or logic.”

“Logic hath nothing to say in a good cause.”

“Or philosophy.”

“Philosophy is curiosity. Socrates was very properly put to death for it.”

They were all laughing together, when Sarah condemned Socrates, and the evening passed like a happy dream away.

It was succeeded by weeks of the same delight. Aspatria soon learned to love Sarah. She had never before had a woman friend on whom she could rely and to whom she could open her heart. Sarah induced her to speak of Ulfar, to tell her all her suffering and her plans and hopes, and she gave her in return a true affection and a most sincere sympathy. Nothing of the past that referred to Ulfar was left untold; and as the two women sat together during the long summer days, they grew very near to each other, and there was but one mind and one desire between them.

So that when the time came for Aspatria to go back to Mrs. St. Alban’s, Sarah would not hear of their separation. “You have had enough of book-learning,” she said. “Remain with me. We will go to Paris, to Rome, to Vienna. We will study through travel and society. It is by rubbing yourself against all kinds of men and women that you acquire the finest polish of life; and then when Ulfar comes back you will be able to meet him upon all civilized grounds. And as for the South Americans, we will buy all the books about them we can find. Are they red or white or black, I wonder? Are they pagans or Christians? I seem to remember that when I was at school I learned that the Peruvians worshipped the sun.”

“I think, Sarah, that they are all descendants of Spaniards; so they must be Roman Catholics. And I have read that their women are beautiful and witty.”

“My dear Aspatria, nothing goes with Spaniards but gravity and green olives.”

Aspatria was easily persuaded to accept Sarah’s offer; she was indeed very happy in the prospect before her. But Brune was miserable. He had spent a rapturous summer, and it was to end without harvest, or the promise thereof. He could not endure the prospect, and one night he made a movement so decided that Sarah was compelled to set him back a little.

“Were you ever in love, Mrs. Sandys?” poor Brune asked, with his heart filling his mouth.

She looked thoughtfully at him a moment, and then slowly answered: “I once felt myself in danger, and I fled to France. I consider it the finest action of my life.”

Aspatria felt sorry for her brother, and she said warmly: “I think no one falls in love now. Love is out of date.”

Sarah enjoyed her temper. “You are right, dear,” she answered. “Culture makes love a conscious operation. When women are all feeling, they fall in love; when they have intellect and will, they attach themselves only after a critical examination of the object.”

Later, when they were alone, Aspatria took her friend to task for her cruelty: “You know Brune loves you, Sarah; and you do love him. Why make him miserable? Has he presumed too far?”

“No, indeed! He is as adoring and humble as one could wish a future lord and master to be.”

“Well, then?”

“I will give our love time to grow. When we come back, if Brune has been true to me in every way, he may fall to blessing himself with both hands;” and then she began to sing, —

“Betide, betide, whatever betide,Love shall be Lord of Sandy-Side!”

“Love is a burden two hearts carry very easily together, but, oh, Sarah! I know how hard it is to bear it alone. Therefore I say, be kind to Brune while you can.”

“My dear, your idea is a very pretty one. I read the other day a Hindu version of it that smelled charmingly of the soil, —

‘A clapping is not made with one hand alone:Your love, my beloved, must answer my own.’”

But in spite of such reflections, Sarah’s will and intellect were predominant, and she left poor Brune with only such hope as he could glean from the lingering pressure of her hand and the tears in her eyes. Aspatria’s pleading had done no good. Perhaps it had done harm; for the very nature of love is that it should be spontaneous.

CHAPTER VII.

“A ROSE OF A HUNDRED LEAVES.”

One morning in spring Aspatria stood in a balcony overlooking the principal thoroughfare of Rome, – the Rome of papal government, mythical, mystical, mediæval in its character. A procession of friars had just passed; a handsome boy was crying violets; some musical puppets were performing in the shadow of the opposite palace; a party of brigands were going to the Angelo prison; the spirit of Cæsar was still abroad in the black-browed men and women, lounging and laughing in their gaudy, picturesque costumes; and the spirit of ecclesiasticism lifted itself above every earthly object, and touched proudly the bells of a thousand churches. Aspatria was weary of all.

She had that morning an imperative nostalgia. She could see nothing but the mountains of Cumberland, and the white sheep wandering about their green sides. Through the church-bells she heard the sheep-bells. Above the boy crying violets she heard the boy whistling in the fresh-ploughed furrow. As for the violets, she knew how the wild ones were blowing in Ambar wood, and how in the garden the daffodil-beds were aglow, and the sweet thyme humbling itself at their feet, because each bore a chalice. Oh for a breath from the mountains and the sea! The hot Roman streets, with their ever-changing human elements of sorrow and mirth, sin and prayer, riches and poverty, made her sad and weary.

Sarah came toward her with a letter in her hand. “Ria,” she said, “this is from Lady Redware. Your husband will be in England very shortly.”

It was the first time Sarah had ever called Ulfar Aspatria’s husband. In conversation the two women had always spoken of him as “Ulfar.” The change was significant. It implied that Sarah thought the time had come for Aspatria to act decisively.

“I shall be delighted to go back to England. We have been twenty months away, Sarah. I was just feeling as if it were twenty years.”

Sarah looked critically at the woman who was going to cast her last die for love. She was so entirely different from the girl who had first won that love, how was it possible for her to recapture the same sweet, faithless emotion? She had a swift memory of the slim girl in the plain black frock whom she had seen sitting under the whin-bushes. And then she glanced at Aspatria standing under the blue-and-red awning of the Roman palace. She was now twenty-six years old, and in the very glory of her womanhood, tall, superbly formed, graceful, calm, and benignant. Her face was luminous with intellect and feeling, her manner that of a woman high-bred and familiar with the world. Culture had done all for her that the lapidary does for the diamond; travel and social advantages had added to the gem a golden setting. She was so little like the sorrowful child whom Ulfar had last seen in the vicar’s meadow that Sarah felt instantaneous recognition to be almost impossible.

After some hesitation, Aspatria agreed to accept Sarah’s plan and wait in Richmond the development of events. At first she had been strongly in favour of a return to Seat-Ambar. “If Ulfar really wants to see me,” she said, “he will be most likely to seek me there.”

“But then, Ria, he may think he does not want to see you. Men never know what they really do want. You have to give them ‘leadings.’ If Ulfar can look on you now and have no curiosity about your identity, I should say the man was not worth a speculation from any point. See if you have hold sufficient on his memory to pique his curiosity. If you have, lead him wherever you wish.”

“But how? And where?”

“Do I carry a divining-cup, Ria? Can I foresee the probabilities of a man so impossible as Ulfar Fenwick? I only know that Richmond is a good place to watch events from.”

And of course the Richmond house suited Brune. His love had grown to the utmost of Sarah’s expectations, and he was no longer to be put off with smiles and pleasant words. Sarah had promised him an answer when she returned, and he claimed it with a passionate persistence that had finally something imperative in it. To this mood Sarah succumbed; though she declared that Brune had chosen the morning of all others most inconvenient for her. She was just leaving the house. She was going to London about her jewels. Brune had arrested the coachman by a peremptory movement, and he looked as if he were quite prepared to lift Sarah out of the carriage.

So Aspatria went alone. She was glad of the swift movement in the fresh air, she was glad that she could be quiet and let it blow passively upon her. The restlessness of watching had made her feverish. She had the “strait” of a strong mind which longs to meet her destiny. For her love for her husband had grown steadily with her efforts to be worthy of that love, and she longed to meet him face to face and try the power of her personality over him. The trial did not frighten her; she felt within her the ability to accomplish it; her feet were on a level with her task; she was the height of a woman above it.

Musing on this subject, letting her mind shoot to and fro like a shuttle between the past and the present, she reached Piccadilly, and entered a large jeweller’s shop. The proprietor was talking to a gentleman who was exhibiting a number of uncut gems. Aspatria knew him instantly. It was Ulfar Fenwick, – the same Ulfar, older, and yet distinctly handsomer. For the dark hair slightly whitened, and the thin, worn cheeks, had an intensely human aspect. She saw that he had suffered; that the sum of life was on his face, – toil, difficulty, endurance, mind, and also that pathetic sadness which tells of endurance without avail.

She went to the extreme end of the counter, and began to examine the jewels which Sarah had sent to be reset. Some were finished; others were waiting for the selection of a particular style, and Aspatria looked critically at the models shown her. The occupation gave her an opportunity to calm and consider herself; she could look at the jewels a few moments without expressing an opinion.