The Squire of Sandal-Side, Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr [the reading list book TXT] 📗

Kendal, and next week I am going to Bradford to learn all about spinning and weaving and machinery. But what is success without you? If I make every dream come to pass, and have not Charlotte, my heart will keep telling me, night and day, 'All for nothing, all for nothing.'"

"Do not be so impatient. You are making trouble, and forespeaking disappointment. Before you have learned all about manufacturing, and built your mill, before you are really ready to begin your life's work, many a change may have taken place in Sandal-Side. When Julius comes at Christmas I think he will ask Sophia to marry him, and I think Sophia will accept his offer. That marriage would open the way for our marriage."

"Only partly I fear. I can see that squire Sandal has taken a dislike, and your mother was a little high with me when I saw her last."

"Partly your own fault, sir. Why did you give up the ways of your fathers? The idea of mills and trading in these dales is such a new one."

"But a man must move with his own age, Charlotte. There is no prospect of another Stuart rebellion. I cannot do the queen's service, and get rewarded as old Christopher Sandal did. And I want to go to Parliament, and can't go without money. And I can't make money quick enough by keeping sheep and planting wheat. But manufacturing means money, land, influence, power."

"Father does not see these things as you do, Steve. He sees the peaceful dales invaded by white-faced factory-hands, loud-voiced, quarrelling, disrespectful. All the old landmarks and traditions will disappear; also simple ways of living, calm religion, true friendships. Every good old sentiment will be gauged by money, will finally vanish before money, and what the busy world calls 'improvements.' It makes him fretful, jealous, and unhappy."

"That is just the trouble, Charlotte. When a man has not the spirit of his age, he has all its unhappiness. But my greatest fear is, that you will grow weary of waiting for our hour."

"I have told you that I shall not. There is an old proverb which says, 'Trust not the man who promises with an oath.' Is not my simple word, then, the best and the surest hope?"

Then she nestled close to his side, and began to talk of his plans and his journey, and to anticipate the time when he would break ground upon Silver Beck, and build the many-windowed factory that had been his dream ever since he had began to plan his own career. The wind rose, the rain fell in a down-pour before they reached the park-gates; but there was a certain joy in facing the wet breeze, and although they did not loiter, yet neither did they hurry. In both their hearts there was a little fear of the squire, but neither spoke of it. Charlotte would not suppose or suggest any necessity for avoiding him, and Steve was equally sensitive on the subject.

When they arrived at Seat-Sandal the main entrance was closed, and Stephen stood with her on the threshold until a man-servant opened slowly its ponderous panels. There was a bright fire burning in the hall, and lights were in the sconces on the walls. Charlotte asked Steve to come in and rest a while. She tried to avoid showing either fear or hurry, and Steve was conscious of the same effort on his own part; but yet he knew that they both thought it well none of the family were aware of her return, or of his presence. She watched him descend the dripping steps into the darkness, and then went towards the fire. An unusual silence was in the house. She stood upon the hearthstone while the servant rebolted the door, and then asked,--

"Is dinner served, Noel?"

"It be over, Miss Charlotte."

So she went to her own room. It was chilly and dreary. The fire had been allowed to die down, and had only just been replenished. It was smoking also, and the candles on her toilet-table burned dimly in the damp atmosphere. She hurriedly changed her gown, and was going down-stairs, when a movement in Sophia's room arrested her attention. It was very unusual for Sophia to be up-stairs at that hour, and the fact struck her significantly. She knocked at the door, and was told rather irritably to "Come in."

"Dear me, Sophia! what is the matter? It feels as if there were something wrong in the house."

"I suppose there is something wrong. Father got a letter from Harry by the late post, and he left his dinner untouched; and mother is in her room crying, of course. I do think it is a shame that Harry is allowed to turn the house upside down whenever he feels like it."

"Perhaps he is in trouble."

"He is always in trouble, for he is always busy making trouble. His very amusements mean trouble for all who have the misfortune to have any thing to do with him. Julius told me that no man in the 'Cameronians' had a worse name than Harry Sandal."

"Julius! The idea of Julius talking badly about our Harry, and to you! I wonder you listened to him. It was a shabby thing to do; it was that."

"Julius only repeated what he had heard, and he was very sorry to do so. He felt it to be conscientiously his duty."

"Bah! God save me from such a conscience! If Julius had heard any thing good of Harry, he would have had no conscientious scruples about silence; not he! I dare say Julius would be glad if poor Harry was out of his way."

"Charlotte Sandal, you shall not say such very unladylike, such unchristianlike, things in my room. It is quite easy to see whose company you have been in."

"I have been with Ducie. Can you find me a sweeter or better soul?"

"Or a handsomer young man than her son?"

"I mean that also, certainly. Handsome, energetic, enterprising, kind, religious."

"Spare me the balance of your adjectives. We all know that Steve is square on every side, and straight in every corner. Don't be so earnest; you fatigue me to-night. I am on the verge of a nervous headache, and I really think you had better leave me." She turned her chair towards the fire as she spoke, and hardly palliated this act of dismissal by the faint "excuse me," which accompanied it. And Charlotte made no remark, though she left her sister's room, mentally promising herself to keep away from it in the future.

She went next to the parlor. The squire's chair was empty, and on the little stand at its side, the "Gentleman's Magazine" lay uncut. His slippers, usually assumed after dinner, were still warming on the white sheepskin rug before the fire. But the large, handsome face, that always made a sunshiny feeling round the hearth, was absent; and the room had a loneliness that made her heart fear. She waited a few minutes, looking with expectation towards a piece of knitting which was Mrs. Sandal's evening work. But the ivory needles and the colored wools remained uncalled for, and she grew rapidly impatient, and went to her mother's room. Mrs. Sandal was lying upon her couch, exhausted with weeping; and the squire sat holding his head in his hands, the very picture of despondency and sorrow.

"Can I come and speak to you, mother?"

The squire answered, "To be sure you can, Charlotte. We are glad to see you. We are in trouble, my dear."

"Is it Harry, father?"

"Trouble mostly comes that way. Yes, it is Harry. He is in a great strait, and wants five hundred pounds, Charlotte; five hundred pounds, dear, and he wants it at once. Only six weeks ago he wrote in the same way for a hundred and fifty pounds. He is robbing me, robbing his mother, robbing Sophia and you."

"William, I wouldn't give way to temper that road; calling your own son and my son a thief. It's not fair," said Mrs. Sandal, with considerable asperity.

"I must call things by their right names, Alice. I call a cat, a cat; and I call our Harry a thief; for I don't know that forcing money from a father is any better than forcing it from a stranger. It is only using a father's love as a pick-lock instead of an iron tool. That's all the difference, Alice; and I don't think the difference is one that helps Harry's case much. Eh? What?"

"Dear me! it is always money," sighed Charlotte.

"Your father knows very well that Harry must have the money, Charlotte. I think it is cruel of him to make every one ill before he gives what is sure to be given in the end. Sophia has a headache, I dare say, and I am sure I have."

"But I cannot give him this money, Alice. I have not realized on my wool and wheat yet. I cannot coin money. I will not beg or borrow it. I will not mortgage an acre for it."

"And you will let your only son the heir of Sandal-Side, go to jail and disgrace for five hundred pounds. I never heard tell of such cruelty. Never, never, never!"

"You do not know what you are saying, Alice. Tell me how I am to find five hundred pounds. Eh? What?"

"There must be ways. How can a woman tell?"

"Father, have I not got some money of my own?"

"You have the accrued interest on the thousand pounds your grandmother left you. Sophia has the same."

"Is the interest sufficient?"

"You have drawn from it at intervals. I think there is about three hundred pounds to your credit."

"Sophia will have nearly as much. Call her, father. Surely between us we can arrange five hundred pounds. I shall be real glad to help Harry. Young men have so many temptations now, father. Harry is a good sort in the main. Just have a little patience with him. Eh, father?"

And the squire was glad of the pleading voice. Glad for some one to make the excuses he did not think it right to make. Glad to have the little breath of hope that Charlotte's faith in her brother gave him. He stood up, and took her face between his hands and kissed it. Then he sent a servant for Sophia; and after a short delay the young lady appeared, looking pale and exceedingly injured.

"Did you send for me, father?"

"Yes, I did. Come in and sit down. There is something to be done for Harry, and we want your help, Sophia. Eh? What?"

She pushed a chair gently to the table, and sat down languidly. She was really sick, but her air and attitude was that of a person suffering an extremity of physical anguish. The squire looked at her and then at Charlotte with dismay and self-reproach.

"Harry wants five hundred pounds, Sophia."

"I am astonished he does not want five thousand pounds. Father, I would not send him a sovereign of it. Julius told me about his carryings-on."

She could hardly have said any words so favorable to Harry's cause. The squire was on the defensive for his own side in a moment.

"What has Julius to do with it?" he cried. "Sandal-Side is not his property, and please God it never will be. Harry is one kind of a sinner, Julius is another kind of a sinner. God Almighty only knows which kind of sinner is the meaner