Between Two Loves. Amelia E. Barr

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СКАЧАТЬ does ta understand what I want thee to do to-night?"

      "Thou made it plain enough for an infant-school. Thou wants me to come to the class-meeting, and I tell thee I can't do it."

      "Thou hes been as unrestful as a shuttle in t' sheath lately. Whativer is the matter, then?"

      "I may tell thee that I hev heard Aske isn't as kind to my daughter as he ought to be, and I'm bound to find out whether he's doing right by her or not."

      "Stay at home and t' news will find thee. I niver knew any good come o' melling between a man and his wife. Women take a deal o' ​training, Jonathan. You can't make a good wife by putting a gold ring on her finger, any more than you can make a good joiner by buying him a box of tools."

      "I'd speak about something I understood, if I was thee, Ben Holden. Women are a bit beyond thee."

      Jonathan was standing by his harnessed gig as he talked, and as soon as he had given his friend this bit of advice, he drove out of the big gates and took the straight road to his home. There were few rich men in the county who had a more beautiful home. Burley House was no spick-and-span new dwelling, gorgeous with paint and gilding and gay upholstery. It was a fine pile of solid stone, that had been a favorite residence of the Somers family for centuries. It stood in the midst of a wooded park, and before it was a fair, old-fashioned garden, smelling of all the scents of Paradise. When Jonathan bought the place, people expected that he would be proud to continue the old name, and to call himself Burley of Somers Court. But he had rather resented the expectation. "It is not Somers Court now," he said, "it belongs to me, and it is Burley House for the future. The ​Somers have been wasters, and drinkers, and dicers, and I won't call my home after their name. Why should I?"

      He drove rapidly until he entered the park; then he walked the horse under the great elms, and let his thoughts wander back to the village, back to the beautiful woman who had become so dear to his heart. The brooding darkness on his brow cleared as he remembered the light and peace of Sarah's face, and when he lifted his eyes to his many-windowed, stately home, he thought of her as its mistress, and felt that his life without the hope would be a very sombre one indeed.

      As he entered the door his daughter came slowly forward to meet him. She was an exceedingly lovely woman, tall, radiantly fair, exquisitely formed, and with a swaying, easy grace in all her movements that was very attractive. She had on a long, flowing dress of violet satin, and many ornaments of gleaming gold. As she walked slowly down the dim hall, the amber light of its stained windows filing all over her, she made a picture so fair that Jonathan paused to look at her. His heart was swelling with affection and pride as he took her ​hands and stooped forward to kiss her lifted face.

      But he saw trouble in it, even with his first glance, and as soon as they were in the closed parlor she began to complain of her husband's indifference and tyranny. "You are father and mother both," she sobbed, with her arms around his neck; and what father under such circumstances would not have been inclined to espouse his child's quarrel? Yet he knew something of Eleanor's temper, and he knew the world well enough to counsel submission and to discourage any positive act of rebellion.

      "I am thy father, Eleanor," he said tenderly—"I am thy father, and I'll take thy part as far as iver I can, my dear, but listen to me, the world will go with thy husband, right or wrong, it will go with him, if thou takes one step it thinks thou ought not to take. It is a varry hard world on wives, sometimes. Doesn't ta think that thou may hev been a bit wrong, too?"

      "Father, I am not going to be ordered about as if I was a slave, bought with his money—"

      "Nay, nay, my lass. He got fifty thousand ​pounds with thee. If it comes to money, we can put down more brass than he can—ay, than he can. But thou art his wife, Eleanor, and thou must try and get thy happiness out of him. And thou won't get happiness out of Anthony Aske by fighting him. If iver thou means to be a woman, thy first and hardest battles must be with thyself."

      "I thought he loved me better than everything. He said so often, and now love seems to be quite forgotten."

      "He loves thee, I am sure of that; but men hev many a thing to think of. Don't thee set too much store on love, or expect more happiness from it than iver it gives either to men or women."

      "He has such a wilful, do-as-I-tell-you temper, father, and you know I hev not been used to call any man lord or master."

      "Sarah called Abraham lord."

      "Sarah had a great many faults, and that was one of the worst of them. I am not going to imitate Sarah. Besides, Sarah would not think of doing such a thing if she lived in England in the nineteenth century."

      ​"Well, well, Eleanor, it's a wife's place to submit a bit. A high temper in a woman doesn't do varry much harm if she's an old maid; but if she hes a husband it's a different thing. Go home and do thy duty, and—"

      "I always do my duty, father."

      "Then do more than thy duty. It's a poor wife that stops at duty, and measures her life by that rule. Give love and patience and something higher still, self-forgetfulness. Anthony Aske isn't a bad sort, but he'll pay thee in thy own coin; most men do that. Nay, nay, my dear lass, don't thee cry, now!"

      For Eleanor had hid her face in the satin cushion of the sofa on which she sat, and was weeping bitterly, and Jonathan's heart was hot and angry within him, as he moodily paced up and down the splendid room. He longed to comfort his child, to comfort her whether she deserved comfort or not, and he felt as if there would be a solid gratification in some unequivocal abuse of Anthony Aske. For it was hardly likely that Eleanor was altogether in the wrong, and she was so young, so beautiful and inexperienced, that the father thought, naturally, ​allowances of many kinds ought to be readily made for her.

      Upon the whole it was a very sorrowful conference, and Jonathan's heart ached when he folded the rich carriage robes about his unhappy, angry daughter, and watched her drive away through the evening shadows to her own home. He sat thinking and smoking until very late, full of uncertainty and annoyance. He felt as if Squire Aske had deceived him, and that was a wrong hard to forgive. As a lover he had been so attentive and affectionate. No service had then appeared too great. He had been at Eleanor's side constantly, and ever on the alert to gratify her slightest wish. All who knew the young couple had regarded the marriage as particularly suitable, full of the promise of happiness.

      But Aske was an English squire of the old order, and he held in the main their ideas about women. They were to be faithful and obedient wives, careful, busy mistresses, and loving mothers of children. Eleanor's efforts to establish an autocracy of her own at Aske Hall, to rule it as she had done her father's house, to fill it with company of her own selecting, and order ​its life according to her social tastes and ideas, were resisted by Anthony from the beginning.

      At first his opposition was pleasantly expressed. "She might queen it over him, but he would be her deputy over the household; and as for filling the hall with company, he was jealous of her society, and would not share it with a crowd of foolish men and women." In such flattering words he veiled his authority, for he was deeply in love with his beautiful bride, although he would not surrender to her the smallest of his privileges as her husband and as master of Aske Manor and Hall. Indeed, even in the first days of their married life many things had shared his heart with her; his estate, his horses and dogs, and hunting affairs, country matters and politics.

      And Eleanor, undisciplined and inexperienced, could not accept this divided homage. Her father had always given in to her desires and humored all her wishes. Her teachers had found it profitable never to contradict her. Her servants had obeyed her implicitly. Her beauty, youth, and wealth had made her СКАЧАТЬ