Between Two Loves. Amelia E. Barr

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СКАЧАТЬ of social queen. Was she to sink into the mistress of Aske Hall, and the wife of Squire ​Anthony? Surely she ought to rule, at least, the little world around it, just as she had ruled the little world of which Burley House was the centre.

      But the main circumstance of the two small worlds were widely different Jonathan Burley was an autocrat in his mill, and that power satisfied his ambition. He was very willing to resign all domestic power to the women who had charge of his home. On the contrary, Aske had no such outlet. His fine hall, his staff of servants, his farmers and tenants, were his business in life. He would not resign any of his authority over them. Eleanor soon found that if her orders agreed with the squires they were attended to; if not; her husband set them absolutely aside. She tried anger, sulking, tears; but if her way was not her husband's way, she never succeeded in getting it. Squire Anthony was not a man who would give in to an unreasonable woman, and whenever Eleanor's desires did not agree with his desires, he considered her unreasonable. In half a year a definite point had been reached. The squire announced his intentions; if his wife approved them he was ​glad, if not, he followed them out, quite regardless of any opposition she might offer.

      Here was a domestic element full of unhappiness, possibly full of tragedy. Jonathan sat through the long night hours, wakeful, anxious, and sorrowful. He was glad when morning came, and brought with it the open mill, and the mails, and the buyers and sellers. Yet in the fever and turmoil of business he was conscious of an aching, fretful pain, that would assert itself above all considerations about yarns and pieces. His daughter's face haunted his memory. He was angry at Aske, and yet he did not wish to quarrel with him. He had a conviction that it would be like the letting out of water; nobody could tell how far it would go, or in what way it would end.

      Early in the afternoon, when business had slacked a little, Burley was standing at the dusty window in his counting-room, looking into the mill-yard. The yard was full of big lorries, which giants in fustian and corduroy were busily loading. Usually, under such circumstances, he would have been mentally checking off the goods and commenting upon them, but at that hour, though his eyes followed every bale or ​box, he was not thinking of their contents. But as Ben Holden entered the room, he turned slowly, and said, "Sagar is a brute to his beasts, Ben, I'll not hev good cattle sworn at and struck for nothing in my yard; thou tell him I said so."

      "Ay, I will. He's a big bully. If t' poor brutes could talk back to him, he'd treat 'em better. He's got a mite of a woman for a wife, but, my word, he daren't oppen his lips to her."

      "Howiver does she manage him? I'd like to know."

      "Why, thou sees, she's got some brains, and Sagar, he's only so many pounds avoirdupois of flesh and blood. It's mind ruling matter, that's all. Thou doesn't look like thysen to-day. Is there anything wrong with thee?"

      "There is summat varry wrong, I can tell thee that."

      "Is it owt I can help thee in?"

      "Thou hes helped me through many a trouble, Ben, but this one is a bit above thy help. It is about my daughter. She and Aske hev got to plain up-and-down quarreling, and she came with her sorrow to me last night. My poor lass! She has no mother, thou sees, ​and, as she said, I hev to be father and mother both."

      "What was it about then?"

      "Well, thou sees, he told her he was going to meet the Towton hounds, and he said to her, 'Put on your habit and hev a gallop; it will do you good.' Now, Eleanor wanted to go, but, woman-like, she would not admit it; she looked to be coaxed a bit, happen, but he answered, 'Varry well, she could do as she liked, he would go for his cousin Jane.' Then t' poor lass cried a bit, and he whistled, and when she got varry bad and hysterical with it all, he sent a footman for t' doctor, and so left her by hersen, and went off to t' meet, as if nothing was."

      "I think he did just right, Jonathan."

      "Then thou knows nowt about it. A man that hes so little human nature in him as to bide a bachelor for more than forty years, like thou hes, isn't able to say a sensible word about womenfolk and their feelings; not he! There's plenty of husbands, Ben, who always say the right thing, and always do the right thing, and, for all that, they are worse to live with than Bluebeards. I can tell thee that."

      "St. Paul says—"

      ​"Don't thee quote St. Paul to me about women, and, for that matter, Paul had sense enough when writing about them to say he spoke 'by permission, and not of commandment.' If Jesus Christ hed to suffer with us before he could feel with us, it's a varry unlikely thing that St. Paul could advise about women on instinct. Nineteen hundred years hes made a deal o' difference in women and wives, Ben."

      "It's like it hes."

      "I hev a mind to go and see Aske. I'm all in t' dark, like, and I'm feared to speak or move for fear I make bad worse."

      "I'll tell thee what to do. Take wit with thy anger, and go thy ways to Aske Hall. Use thine own eyes and ears, and then thou wilt put t' saddle on t' right horse, I don't doubt. Aske's wool is a varry fine length, and we could do with all he hes of it. Tetterly got ahead of us last year, so go and speak to Aske for his next shearing, and when thou art on the ground thou can judge for thysen."

      "Ay, that will be a good plan, I'll do it." Then, as he hurriedly turned over his letters, "It's a great pity, I think, that I didn't marry ​again before this time o' day. If I hed a wife now, Eleanor could tell her all her troubles, and she'd give her advice a man niver thinks about."

      "But, then, t' wife thou is after, Jonathan, is varry little older than thy daughter; but she's a good lass. It's Sarah Benson, isn't it?"

      "Ay, it's Sarah. Dost thou think she'll hev me, Ben?"

      "I niver asked her. Ask her thysen. I'm nobbut a bachelor ta knows, and therefore varry ignorant about such inscrutable creatures as women. But nobody could be the worse o' Sarah Benson, and they happen might be the better. Only I'll tell thee one thing: Aske and his wife will be mad as iver was if thou does a thing like that. Thou art a mill-owner now, and a land-owner, too, and Sarah, poor lass, is nobbut a hand."

      "I was a hand mysen once, Ben, and ta knows I loved her mother before Sarah was born."

      "Varry good; but Squire Aske and Mistress Aske were niver hands; and they know nowt at all about Sarah Benson or her mother. And thou may make up thy mind to one thing, that is, that Sarah Benson isn't t' right kind of ​peace-maker in any quarrel o' Squire Anthony Aske's."

      Jonathan took up his letters again with a vexed face. We are not always pleased with the people who give us sensible advice; and Ben knew well that he had said words bitter as gall to the taste, however they might be by-and-by. Very soon afterwards, however, he saw Burley standing in the mill-yard, while the hostler was getting his gig ready.

      "He'll be for Aske Hall," thought Ben, and he went down to the gate and stood there. Six feet two, in a long, blue-checked pinafore and a cloth cap, might not strike people as a figure likely to command respect, but everything is in the circumstances and the surroundings, and Ben, among thousands similarly clad, was a very fine type of a man used to authority. Even Burley was conscious of his moral power, and although he was privately in a very bad temper, he said, "Ben, I'm going to Aske Hall; do whet thou thinks best about Shillingsworth's offer."

      "Ay, I'll do that for sure. Good-afternoon to thee."

      The Master of Aske

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