CHAPTER XII.
BURLEY AND ASKE.
"We followed Him
At other times in sunshine. Summer days
And moonlight nights He led us over paths
Bordered with pleasant flowers; but when His steps
Were on the mighty waters—when we went
With trembling hearts through nights of pain and loss,
His smile was sweeter, and His love more dear."
Jonathan had suffered in more than one way by his self-willed passion. Not only had his business fallen off, his good name had also suffered. Sykes had said many unfair things of him, and had insinuated still worse. In these days it is not hard to shrug away a man's credit, and Burley had been made to frequently smart over wrongs too intangible for a denial, even if denial had been wise. But hard as it was to do, he had generally followed Ben Holden's advice, and Ben always said, "Never thee chase a lie, Jonathan. It will chase itself to death. Thou can work out a good name far better than Sykes can lie thee out of it."
And fortunately, in this world, men are not sharply divided into sheep and goats; the good are not all good, and the evil are not all evil, for Christianity is a more complex thing than the exuberant satisfaction of Hebrew prophecy, and it touches deeper, tenderer, and more far-sounding chords of human experience. Sad and anxious as life was to Jonathan at this time, it had its glimpses of hope and its hours of happiness, and though Aske and Sykes had been hard to bear, their contrariness had only strengthened Ben Holden's friendship, and drawn to him not only the sympathy and help of Jonas Shuttleworth, but also, in lesser degrees, of many others.
In a way scarcely to be explained, Jonathan realized these facts, and applied them to his own experience as he sat up that night waiting for the answer to his prayer. He had told the servants to go to bed, but none of them had done so. The two men sat with the two women in the kitchen; and they had "a bit of something warm," and as they ate, they talked, not without some genuine pity, of the young squire lying at death's door. Jonathan walked up and down his chamber, solemnly, strangely happy, and softly praying at intervals. He could not help feeling that at any moment Aske might pass beyond even his pity and forgiveness, and he was so afraid of letting any selfish thoughts influence him at that hour that he would not suffer his memory to look back a moment.
About two o'clock in the morning the message for which he had been waiting came. Aske had been conscious; he had recognized his wife; the physicians thought his final recovery was now probable. When Jonathan read the bit of paper a great wave of gratitude came over his heart, and he said, fervently, "Thank God! thank God!" Then he laid it down and stood and looked at it He had not yet got over the miracle of his own changed feelings. And another miracle was, that he found it difficult to recall that terrible interval during which passion had been his master instead of his slave; his memory passed it at a bound, and lingered rather among the sunshiny days of Eleanor's courtship, days in which he had thought there never was a young man so kind, and withal so prudent in his affairs and positions, as Anthony Aske.
His next thought was, "Poor Eleanor!" And, indeed, Eleanor needed his sympathy. She had had to go through hours of sore trial, the very nature of which Jonathan hardly understood, and of a kind which can only be inflicted by women. On her return home she had been met by Mrs, Parsons, her house-keeper, with a polite but extreme coldness, and, though that personage scrupulously obeyed her orders, Eleanor could feel that the service was given under mental protest.
And oh, how the familiar rooms reproached her! She remembered with what loving lavishness Anthony had adorned them for her reception. And though she had so wickedly abandoned her home and duty he had permitted nothing of hers to be disturbed. Her rich and beautiful clothing hung in the wardrobes as she had left it. The jewels and laces she had been wearing were still lying loosely scattered over her dressing-table. Alas, alas, what sorrow and shame, what anxiety and loss, what heart-burnings and heartaches, that night's sinful passion had caused!
She took her place by her husband's sick-bed at once, and she remained there through all kinds of unspoken disapproval. Her sleepless service, her patient love, her never-wearying watch, were all doubtfully regarded. Not a servant on the place pitied her exhaustion, or believed in her affection or repentance.
"It's her jointure and her widow's right she's watching," said Mrs. Parsons, indignantly.
And it was not only the servants who held this opinion. In one form or other all of the squire's friends and retainers were sure of his wife's selfishness. Had he died, it was not improbable that they would have felt still harder towards her, and put a still darker interpretation on her devotion by his sick-bed. The Bashpooles honestly regarded her presence as suspicious and dangerous, and if the unhappy wife's positive orders and determination had not been steadily supported by the attending physicians, Squire Bashpoole would very likely have made an active and unpleasant interference.
When Anthony came to himself it was about an hour after midnight. He had been in a profound sleep for fourteen hours, and Eleanor had suffered no foot to enter the corridor in which he lay. She was cold, she was hungry, she was on the point of exhaustion, but she stirred not In a large chair by his side she sat motionless, waiting for life or death. At length she noticed him breathe more audibly. The gray shadow gradually passed like a cloud from his face. Slowly he opened his eyes, slowly and wonderingly, as if he were just coming into a new world. They rested upon the eager, loving, sorrowful face, breathlessly watching him. A faint smile parted his lips, and he whispered, "Eleanor!"
"Anthony!"
She bent to his wasted hands and kissed them. He felt her tears dropping upon his face. There was no need of words. In that supreme moment their souls met and understood each other.
And in less than an hour the nurse on duty had let the whole household know that Master and Missis were friends. Then the cold cloud of doubt and suspicion in which she had dwelt so wretchedly began to part, and Eleanor soon found that the squire's pardon included that of his household. And it was pleasant to be again served with smiles and good wishes, to be sympathized with in her weariness, to have even Mrs. Parsons bring her dainty dishes of strengthening food, and insist on her taking little rests, to be, in short, thoroughly forgiven and taken into favor again.
Anthony was, for many days after his awakening, only just alive. He had been somewhere out of this real life, not there, not here, but into an awful land, a land of the shadow of death, "a land that no man passed through, and where no man dwelt:"
"But while he lay at death's door, two strong angels took him,
And swung him in a hammock made of cloud;
With an undulating motion, from the west to east they shook him,
Lying plastic, and in mist, as in a shroud.
"They towered above the earth, as do elms above the grasses,
And even-handed, swung him to and fro;
He felt the vibrant life, and the sharp, contending
Of streams of air which grapple as they flow.
"The angels swung him over seas, whose sounding drums did thrill him,
And back above the homes of sleeping men;
They swung him over mountains that their piney breath might fill him,
They swept an arc from stars to stars again.
"The man lay at death's door. But the cradle of here-after
Rocked slowly—slowly settled from its sweep,
'He has caught a broader life,' said the angels, with soft laughter;
'Let him sleep! Let him sleep! Let—him—sleep!'"
And so sleeping, he came back to earth, to health, to happiness. And never in all her life had Eleanor spent more calmly blissful hours than those in which she sat by her husband's side, watching this marvellous return.
The subject of the brutal attack on Aske, as the cause of his illness, was not named to him, and for some time after consciousness returned he did not allude to it. If remembered at all, the memory was only a part of all the hideous phantoms which had peopled the period of his delirium.
One day about the middle of February, he was moved to a couch near the window. He had promised to sleep, and Eleanor left him alone and went to make some change in her dress. But he glanced out of the window, and suddenly the desire for sleep left him. Between the leafless trees he saw the broad, white spaces of Aske Common, and the spire of the church. In some way they touched a key of memory, which gave him back the whole scene of Christmas-eve.
Quick and vivid as a dream every circumstance passed before him. The faces of the men who attacked him, their voices, their dress, the seizure of his horse, the dreadful blow from behind, his effort to turn, to steady himself, his fall, the bitter cold, the slow, agonizing return to consciousness, the bending face of Burley, the drops of water, the encouraging words, and the strong arms whose embrace was bis last remembrance, all these things he lived over again. He had been tormented and haunted by unreal and impossible visions; but these things he knew were realities. He made an effort, and carried his memory further back, to that lonely lane, and the sad-faced woman he had met in it, and from whom he had fled in such a whirl of passions as made him a ready prey for the two cowardly assassins who had been waiting behind the wall for him. Back a little further, and with a great rush of hot blood came a vivid, chafing remembrance of his quarrel with Burley, and of the evil fruit it had brought forth.
When Eleanor returned to him, radiant in ruby-colored silk and fine lace, she was almost frightened at the expression on his face; it was so solemn and so full of purpose. Burley had saved his life; and yet he knew not what wrongs had been done Burley while he had been unconscious. Why had his father-in-law not been to see him? It must be because he was still suffering from the oppressions he had inaugurated. How ungrateful Burley must have thought him! And ingratitude is one of those mean sins, the very suspicion of which makes a fine spirit burn with shame and resentment.
"Eleanor," he said, gravely, "I want to see your father. Has he ever called here since that night?"
"Oh yes, he came every morning to ask after you, until you were out of danger."
"But not since?"
"He thought it better not, dear Anthony."
"Yes, he thought I might not like to see the man who saved my life! My dear wife, am I so mean and contemptible? I had forgotten, that was all. This hour everything has been brought to my remembrance. Write to your father in my name. Tell him I want to see him. Tell him that I would have gone to him if I had been able."
When Burley got the note he was just about to leave the mill. The day was nearly over, and it had been one of those fretful days, which are made thoroughly unpleasant and unprofitable by a series of small inabilities and little worries. It must be acknowledged that Jonathan was cross, and that Ben Holden was cross at him for being so.
"Here is come Aske's groom with a letter for thee."
"Aske's groom! Now then, what trouble is up next?"
"I don't know, I'm sure, Jonathan. But thou hes been making trouble all t' day; happen it will do thee good to hev some ready-made," and he laid the letter down at his side, and left the office.
In a few minutes Jonathan called to him. "I do believe, Ben, thou would have liked me to hev a bit o' fresh worry, but, my word, thou is out this time. My Eleanor says Aske remembered me this afternoon, and he wants to see me, and says he would hev come here if he hed been strong enough to do it. What does ta think of that? Now I'm going to Aske, and we'll see what will come of it."
"Good will come of it, if thou can only put a bridle on thy tongue, and not expect to get more than thy share of thy own way."
"Thou art as cross as two sticks, Ben. Does ta think thou hes got my share o' good-sense as well as thy own? I wouldn' be as hard to get along with as thou art, for a good deal."
But in spite of sharp words, Ben helped Jonathan into his gig; and Jonathan, ere he passed out of his big gates, looked back and nodded to Ben. And as Ben trailed his long legs up the weary flights of stone steps once more, he said to himself, "Poor Jonathan! He's hed a deal to make him grumpy. If he hedn't a sweet nature he'd be sour as crab-apples by this time."
Eleanor's note had thoroughly pleased her father. Burley longed for peace, not because he had turned weak-hearted or had lost faith in himself and his claims, but because he loved Aske. Yes! he loved the man who had been driving him to ruin and despair for nearly four years. He longed to see him again. He longed to clasp his hand, and to make him feel how completely he had forgiven him.
The evening was not unlike the one on which he had seen him last, wounded, bleeding, dying. The snow still lay white and unbroken in Aske Park, the sky was flecked with cold, feathery clouds, and through the mist stealing over the landscape the lights of the many-windowed mills gleamed steadily through the bare trees on every side.
Burley had not really been astonished at Aske's message. He had expected it. He knew Aske's heart by his own. He was certain that he would be as ready to acknowledge a kindness as he was prompt to resent an injury. Still, he felt that the interview was one requiring not only great kindness, but also great prudence. Under the pressure of circumstances, calling forth all the tenderness of his heart, he must not be tempted to resign the smallest claim of justice. "There's things he'll hev to hear, sick or not sick," he said to himself; "where I hev been wrong I'll say so, but I'll not give in where I hev been right."
Eleanor met him at the door, and his face glowed with pleasure to see her. This beautiful woman in silk and lace and jewels, with servants at her bidding, and the light of love and happiness on her face, was indeed his daughter. He put his memory of the white, sorrowful Eleanor, clothed in worn black garments, behind her for evermore. The entrance hall was in itself a beautiful apartment, with an enormous fire burning at one end, and silver sconces, filled with wax-lights, illuminating the pictures and cabinets and curiously carved old chairs with which it was furnished.
A groom was waiting for his gig, a footman in livery received his hat and overcoat; ere he was aware of it, he had fallen into the spirit of the surroundings, and, after tenderly kissing his daughter, he offered her his arm up the great staircase. It seemed a natural thing to do there, and he did it without ever reminding himself how little ceremony had been shown to Eleanor when she was a refugee wife under a cloud of social disapproval.
The squire had soon wearied of the couch and was in bed when Jonathan entered his room. He turned his large gray eyes, hollow and with the look of anguish still in them, upon him. The strong man was inexpressibly shocked at the change which had taken place. "My lad! my lad!" he said, with a pitiful solemnity, for he saw a face with the shadow of the grave yet on it, and the hand Aske stretched out was far too weak to return Jonathan's clasp.
Aske did not speak, but he looked in the broad, rosy face of his antagonist, and there was something so pathetic in the look that Burley could not resist it mute appeal.
"I am varry sorry, Aske. I am that."
"I am very sorry also, and very grateful, Burley. You saved my life."
"I am right glad I saved it."
"I have wronged you, robbed you and wronged you!"
"Ay, thou hes. That is t' truth about it."
"I want to remedy the wrong as far as it is possible. Will you drop the suit? I will pay all expenses."
"Thou can stop it to-morrow. I'll be right glad to hev it stopped."
"As for the damages—"
"To be sure. They hev to be considered. I hev lost a deal o' money."
"I will give up the new mill, with all pertaining to it."
"Why, ta sees I hevn't money to run both mills. If I rent it to a stranger I'll hev trouble again."
"Eleanor has something to say to you, father. I hope you will let her do what she wishes. It is hard to be sorry and have no tangible way to show regret in."
"Father, I brought all this trouble on you and on Anthony."
"Thou did. I'm glad thou hes found it out, and I forgive thee with all my heart."
"I have made you lose more than the fifty thousand pounds you gave me as a marriage-portion."
"I think thou hes."
"Take the fifty thousand pounds back. If I prove myself worthy of it you can restore it when you are more able to do so."
"Well, my lass, I like this in thee. If Aske is willing, I am. With my uncle Shuttleworth to back me and thy fifty thousand pounds I can run both mills until they run themselves. Neither Aske nor thee will lose by it in t' end."
"Burley, shake hands with me. From this hour it shall be 'Burley & Aske.' In all that is to be for your welfare, I'll put my foot against yours. I am sure you will be true to the life you saved."
"Before God, I will, Aske. Thou shalt be my son and my younger brother, and the man that touches thee to harm thee will hev to answer for it to Jonathan Burley."
"I will have the proper papers made out as soon as possible. Is there anything I can do now?"
"Could thou write thy name?"
"I think I could."
"Well, then, I'll write an order to Sykes to give up all in Aske mill to me, to-morrow, and thou can sign it. He hes been saying some things about me not to be borne, and I want him out of t' reach of my hand. I came varry near striking him only this afternoon."
"It is right he should go. Write the order, and I will sign it."
It would be foolish to say that Jonathan had no personal feeling in the matter. He had. He was really glad to get the better of an enemy so mean and so wicked, and it did give him a most keen pleasure to say to Ben Holden in the morning.
"Ben, get Lawyer Newby to go with thee to Sykes. Show him that bit o' paper, and give him my compliments, nay, thou needn't make any compliments about it Just tell him Jonathan Burley says to get out o' his mill as quick as iver he can."
"My word, Jonathan! Does ta know what thou art talking about? Is ta thysen this morning?"
"I am. I am more mysen then I hev been for about four years. Man, I feel as if I hed dropped old Satan's ball and chain. It is to be 'Burley & Aske' now; now, and always, 'Burley & Aske.'"
"I am glad thou hes come to thy senses, Jonathan. God bless thee!"
"Thou always hes a snap, Ben. But don't thee be losing time. I'm in a bit of a hurry about Sykes's business. I hevn't heard t' music of my own looms for t' clatter o' his in a long time. Dear me, Ben, such a day as we are heving."