Amelia Barr - I, Thou, and the Other One - A Love Story

“I should say it was,” he replied with conscious diplomacy. “Now what part of it pleased thee best?”

“Well, Mr. North’s visit was of course wonderful; and Lord Exham’s visit was very pleasant. I enjoyed both; but Mr. North’s news was so very surprising.”

“To be sure. What dost thou think of it?”

“Of course, Edgar is on the other side, Father. In some respects that is a pity.”

“It is a shame! It is a great shame!”

“Nay, nay, Father! We won’t have ‘shame’ mixed up with Edgar. He is in dead earnest, and he has taken luck with him. Just think of our Edgar being one of Lord Durham’s favourites, of him speaking all over England and Scotland for Reform. Mr. North says there is no one like him in the drawing-rooms of the Reform ladies; and no one like him on the Reform platforms; and he was made a member of the new Reform Club in London by acclamation. And Earl Grey will get him a seat in Parliament next election.”

“Who is this Mr. North?”

“Why, Father! You heard him speak, and you ‘threw’ him down on the Green, you know.”

“ Oh! Him! Dost thou believe all this palaver on the word of a travelling mountebank?”

“He is not a travelling mountebank. I am sure he is a gentleman. You shouldn’t call a man names that you have ‘thrown’ fairly. You know better than that.”

“I know nothing about the lad. And he does not seem to have told thee anything about himself. As for thy mother–” and then he hesitated, and looked at Kate meaningly and inquiringly.

“Mother liked him. She liked him very much indeed. He brought both mother and me a ring from Edgar,” and she put out her hand and showed the Squire the little gold circle.

“Trumpery rubbish!” he said scornfully. “It didn’t cost half a crown. Give it to me, and I will get thee a ring worth wearing,–sapphires or rubies.”

“I would not part with it for loops and hoops of sapphires and rubies. Edgar sent it as a love-token; he wants his money for nobler things than rubies–but, dear me! you can’t buy love for any money. Oh, Father! I do wish you would be friends with Edgar.”

“My little lass, I cannot be friends with any one if he goes against the land, and the King, and the Constitution. I am loyal straight through; up and down to-day, and to-morrow, and every day; and I can’t bear traitors,–men that would sell their country for a bit of mob power or mob glory. All of Edgar’s friends and neighbours are for the King and the Laws; and it shames me and pains me beyond everything to have a rascal and a Radical in my family. The Duke and his son are finger and thumb, buckle and belt; and Edgar and I ought to be the same. And it stands to reason that a father knows more than his own lad of twenty-six years old. What dost thou think of Lord Exham?”

The question was asked at a venture; but Kate had no suspicion, and she answered frankly, “I think very well of him. He talked mostly of politics; but every one does that. It was pleasant to see him at our tea-table again.”

“To be sure. So he stayed to tea?”

“Yes; did not mother tell you?”

“Nay, we were talking of other things. What does he look like?”

“I think he is much improved.”

“Well, he ought to be. He must have learned a little, and he has seen a lot since we saw him. Come, let us go and find out what kind of a breakfast mother can give us. I am hungry enough for two.”

So Kate lifted the herbs which she had cut into her garden apron, and cruddling close to her father’s side, they went in together, with the smell of the thyme and marjoram all about them. Mrs. Atheling drew it in as they entered the parlour, and then turned to them with a smile. The Squire went to her side, and promptly kissed her. It was one of his ways to ignore their little tiffs; and this morning Mrs. Atheling was also agreeable. She looked into his eyes, and said:

“Why, John! are you really awake. You lay like the Seven Sleepers when I got up, and I said to myself, ‘John will sleep the clock round,’ so Kate and I will have our breakfasts.”

“Nay, I have too much to look after, Maude.” Then he turned the conversation to the farms, and talked of the draining to be done, and the meadows to be left for grass; but he eschewed politics altogether, and, greatly to Mrs. Atheling’s wonder, never alluded to the information she had given him about their son Edgar. Did he really think she had been telling him a made-up story? She could not otherwise understand this self-control in her curious lord. However, sometime during the morning, Kate told her about the conversation in the herb garden; then she was content. She knew just where she had her husband; and the little laugh with which she terminated the conversation was her expression of conscious power over him, and of a retaliation quite within her reach.

There is always in every life some little part which even those dearer than life to us cannot enter. Kate had become conscious of this fact. She hoped her mother would not talk of Lord Exham; for she did not as yet understand anything about the feelings his return had evoked. She would have needed the uncertain, enigmatical language which comes in dreams to explain the “yes” and the “no” of the vague, trembling memories, prepossessions, and hopes which fluttered in her breast.

Fortunately Mrs. Atheling had some dim perception of this condition, and without analysing her reasons, she was aware “it was best not to meddle” between two lives so surrounded by contradictious circumstances as were those of her daughter and Lord Exham. Besides, as she said to her husband, “It was no time for love-making, with the King dying, and the country on the quaking edge of revolution, and starvation and misery all over the land.” And the Squire answered: “Exham has not one thought of love-making. He is far too much in with a lot of men who have the country and their own estates to save. He won’t bother himself with women-folk now, whatever he may do in idle times.”

They had both forgotten, or their own love affair had been of such Arcadian straightness and simplicity that they had never learned Love’s ability to domineer all circumstances that can stir this mortal frame. Exham had indeed enlisted himself with passionate earnestness in the cause of his class, which he called the cause of his country–but as the drop of

“lucent sirup tinct with cinnamon”

is forever flavoured and perfumed by the spice, so Exham’s life was coloured and prepossessed by the thought of the sweet girl who had been blended with so many of his purest and happiest hours.

It was then of Kate he thought as he wandered about the stately rooms and beautiful gardens of Exham Hall. He was not oblivious of his engagements with the Duke and the tenants; but he was considering how best to keep these engagements, and yet not miss a visit to her. The dying King, the riotous land, were accidentals of his life and condition; his love for Kate Atheling was at the root of his existence; it was a fundamental of the past and of the future. For five years of constant change and movement, it had lain in abeyance; but old love is a dangerous thing to awaken; and Piers Exham found in doing this thing that every event of the past strengthened the influence of the present, and fixed his heart more passionately on the girl he had first found fair; the

that had sung and swung herself into his affection when she was only twelve years old.

He was however quite aware that any proposal to marry Kate Atheling would meet with prompt opposition from his family; indeed the Duke had already mentioned a very different alliance; and in that case, he did not doubt but that Squire Atheling would be equally resolved never to allow his daughter to enter a home where she would be regarded by any member of it as an intruder. But he put all such considerations for the present behind him. He said to himself, “The first thing to do, is to win Kate’s love; with that sweet consciousness, I shall be ready for all opposition.” For his heart kept assuring him that every trouble and obstacle has an hour in which it may be conquered,–an hour when Fate and Will become One, and are then as irresistible as a great force of Nature. He was sure the hour for this conflict had not yet come. It was the day for a different fight. His home, his estate, his title, and all the privileges of his nobility were in danger. When they were placed beyond peril, then he would fight for the wife he wanted, and win her against all opposition. And who could tell in what way the first conflict would bring forth circumstances to insure victory to the last?