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Page 47
In the mean time, Julius spent his time between Oxford and Sandal-Side.
Every visit was distinguished by some rich or rare gift to his bride,
and he always felt a pleasure in assuring himself that Charlotte was
consumed with envy and regret. He was very much in love with Sophia, and
quite glad she was going to marry him; and yet he dearly liked to think
that he made Charlotte sorry for her rejection of his love, and
wistfully anxious for the rings and bracelets that were the portion of
his betrothed. Sophia soon found out that this idea flattered and
pleased him, and it gave her neither shame nor regret to indorse it. She
loved no one but Julius, and she made a kind of merit in giving up every
one for him. The sentiment sounded rather well; but it was really an
intense selfishness, wearing the mask of unselfishness. She did not
reflect that the daily love and duty due to others cannot be sinlessly
withheld, or given to some object of our own particular choice, or that
such a selfish idolatry is a domestic crime.
It was a very unhappy time to Charlotte. Her mother was weary with many
unusual cares, her father more silent and depressed than she had ever
before seen him. The sunny serenity of her happy home was disturbed by a
multitude of new elements, for an atmosphere of constant expectation
gave a restless tone to its usual placid routine. And through all and
below all, there was that feeling of money perplexity, which, where it
exists, is no more to be hid than the subtle odor of musk, present
though unseen.
This year the white winter appeared to Charlotte interminable in length.
The days in which it was impossible to go out, full of Sophia's sewing
and little worries and ostentations; the windy, tempestuous nights, that
swept the gathering drifts away; the cloudless moonlight nights, full of
that awful, breathless quiet that broods in land-locked dales,--all of
them, and all of Nature's moods, had become inexpressibly, monotonously
wearisome before the change came. But one morning at the end of March,
there was a great west wind charged with heavy rains, and in a few hours
the snow on all the fells had been turned into rushing floods, that came
roaring down from every side into the valley.
"'Oh, wind!
If winter comes, can spring be far behind?'"
quoted Charlotte, as she stood watching the white cascades.
"It will be cuckoo time directly my dear; and the lambs will be bleating
on the fells, and the yellow primroses blowing under all the hedges. I
want to see the swallows take the storm on their wings badly this year.
Eh? What, Charlotte?"
"So do I, father. I never was so tired of the house before."
"There's a bit of a difference lately, I think. Eh? What?"
Charlotte looked at him; there was no need to speak. They both
understood and felt the full misery of household changes that are not
entirely happy ones; changes that bring unfaithfulness and ingratitude
on one side, and resentful, wounded love on the other. And the worst of
it all was, that it might have been so different. Why had the lovers set
themselves apart from the family, had secrets and consultations and
interests they refused to share? How had it happened that Sophia had
come to consider her welfare as apart from, and in opposition to, that
of the general welfare of Seat-Sandal? And when this feeling existed, it
seemed unjust to Charlotte that they should still expect the whole house
and household to be kept in turmoil for the furtherance of their plans,
and that every one should be made to contribute to their happiness.
"After all, maybe it is a bit natural," said the squire with a sad air
of apology. "I have noticed even the robins get angry if you watch them
building their nests."
"But they, at least, build their own nest, father. The cock-robin does
not go to his parents, and the hen robin to her parents, and say, 'Give
us all the straw you can, and put it down at the foot of our tree; but
don't dare to peep into the branches, or offer us any suggestions about
the nest, or expect to have an opinion about our housekeeping.'
Selfishness spoils every thing, father. I think if a rose could be
selfish it would be hideous."
"I don't think a lover would make my Charlotte forget her father and
mother, and feel contempt for her home, and all in and about it that she
does not want for herself. Why, a stranger would think that Sophia was
never loved by any human heart before! They would think that she never
had been happy before. Nay, then, she sets more store by the few
nick-nacks Julius has given her than all I have bought her for twenty
years. When yonder last bracelet came, she went on as if she had never
seen aught of the kind in all her born days. Yet I have bought her one
or two that cost more money, and happen more love, than it did. Eh?
What, Charlotte?"
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