Chapter Eighteen.
Out of heart.
“Aunt Grena,” said Pandora Roberts, “if it stand with your pleasure, may I have leave to visit little Christabel Hall this fine morrow?”
“Thou shouldst, my dear heart, with my very good will,” was the kindly answer; “but misfortunately, at this time I am not in case to accompany thee.”
Pandora did not reply, but she looked greatly disappointed, when her aunt, Mistress Collenwood, suggested—
“Could not old Osmund go with her, Grena?”
“He might, if it were matter of grave concern,” replied Mistress Grena, in a tone which indicated that the concern would have to be very grave indeed.
“Well, Dorrie, thou mayest clear those troubled eyes,” said Mistress Collenwood with a smile: “for I myself will accompany thee to visit thy friend.”
“You, Aunt Francis? Oh, I thank you!” said Pandora joyfully, passing in a moment from distress to delight.
In half-an-hour the horses were at the door. Not much was said during the ride to Staplehurst, except that Pandora told her aunt that Christabel was an invalid child, and that her father was the manager at the cloth-works. Christie, who of course was always at home, was rejoiced to see her friend; and Mistress Collenwood inquired closely into her ailments, ending with the suggestion, which she desired might be conveyed to her father, that Christie should rub her limbs with oil of swallows, and take a medicine compounded of plantain water and “powder of swine’s claws.”
“Father’s in the house,” said Christie. “He had to return back for some papers the master desired.”
Roger Hall confirmed her words by coming into the room in a few minutes, with the papers in his hand which he had been sent to seek. He made a reverence to his master’s relatives.
“Master Hall,” said Mrs Collenwood, “I would gladly have a word with you touching your little maid’s ailments.”
Roger detected her desire to say something to him out of Christie’s hearing, and led her to the kitchen, which was just then empty, as Nell was busy in the wash-house outside.
“I pray you to bar the door,” said Mrs Collenwood.
Roger obeyed, rather wondering at the request. Mrs Collenwood shortly told him that she thought the oil of swallows might strengthen Christie’s limbs, and the medicine improve her general health, but she so quickly dismissed that subject that it was plain she had come for something else. Roger waited respectfully till she spoke.
Speech seemed to be difficult to the lady. Twice she looked up and appeared to be on the point of speaking; and twice her eyes dropped, her face flushed, but her voice remained silent. At last she said—
“Master Hall, suffer me to ask if you have friends in any other county?”
Roger was considerably surprised at the question.
“I have, my mistress,” said he, “a married sister that dwelleth in Norfolk, but I have not seen her these many years.”
He thought she must mean that Christie’s health would be better in some other climate, which was a strange idea to him, at a time when change of air was considered almost dangerous.
“Norfolk—should scarce serve,” said the lady, in a timid, hesitating manner. “The air of the Green Yard at Norwich (where stood the Bishop’s prison for heretics) is not o’er good. I think not of your little maid’s health, Master Hall, but of your own.”
Roger Hall was on the point of asserting with some perplexity and much amazement, that his health was perfect, and he required neither change nor medicine, when the real object of these faltering words suddenly flashed on him. His heart seemed to leap into his mouth, then to retreat to its place, beating fast.
“My mistress,” he said earnestly, “I took not at the first your kindly meaning rightly, but I count I so do now. If so be, I thank you more than words may tell. But I must abide at my post. My sister Alice is not yet found; and should I be taken from the child”—his voice trembled for a moment—“God must have care of her.”
“I will have a care of her, in that case,” said Mrs Collenwood. “Master Hall, we may speak freely. What you are, I am. Now I have put my life in your hands, and I trust you to be true.”
“I will guard it as mine own,” answered Roger warmly, “and I give you the most heartiest thanks, my mistress, that a man wot how to utter. But if I may ask you, be any more in danger? My brother, and Master White, and Mistress Final—”
“All be in danger,” was the startling answer, “that hold with us. But the one only name that I have heard beside yours, is mine hostess of the White Hart.”
“Mistress Final? I reckoned so much. I will have a word with her, if it may be, on my way back to Cranbrook, and bid her send word to the others. Alack the day! how long is Satan to reign, and wrong to triumph?”
“So long as God will,” replied Mrs Collenwood. “So long as His Church hath need of the cleansing physic shall it be ministered to her. When she is made clean, and white, and tried, then—no longer. God grant, friend, that you and I may not fail Him when the summons cometh for us—‘The Master calleth for thee.’”
“Amen!” said Roger Hall.
In the parlour Pandora said to Christabel—
“Dear child, thou mayest speak freely to me of thine Aunt Alice. I know all touching her.”
“O Mistress Pandora! wot you where she is?”
Pandora was grieved to find from Christie’s eager exclamation that she had, however innocently, roused the child’s hopes only to be disappointed.
“No, my dear heart,” she said tenderly, “not that, truly. I did but signify that I knew the manner of her entreatment, and where she hath been lodged.”
“Father can’t find her anywhere,” said Christie sorrowfully. “He went about two whole days, but he could hear nothing of her at all.”
“Our Father in Heaven knows where she is, my child. He shall not lose sight of her, be well assured.”
“But she can’t see Him!” urged Christie tearfully.
“Truth, sweeting. Therefore rather ‘blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.’ Consider how hard the blessed Paul was tried, and how hard he must have found faith, and yet how fully he did rely on our Saviour Christ.”
“I don’t think Saint Paul was ever tried this way,” said Christie in her simplicity. “And his sister’s son knew where he was, and could get at him. They weren’t as ill off as me and Father.”
“Poor old Jacob did not know where Joseph was,” suggested Pandora.
“Well, ay,” admitted Christie. “But Jacob was an old man; he wasn’t a little maid. And Joseph came all right, after all. Beside, he was a lad, and could stand things. Aunt Alice isn’t strong. And she hasn’t been nobody’s white child (favourite) as Joseph was; I am sure Uncle Edward never made her a coat of many colours. Mistress Pandora, is it very wicked of me to feel as if I could not bear to look at Uncle Edward, and hope that he will never, never, never come to see us any more?”
“’Tis not wicked to hate a man’s sinful deeds, dear heart; but we have need to beware that we hate not the sinner himself.”
“I can’t tell how to manage that,” said Christie. “I can’t put Uncle Edward into one end of my mind, and the ill way he hath used dear Aunt Alice into the other. He’s a bad, wicked man, or he never could have done as he has.”
“Suppose he be the very worst man that ever lived, Christie—and I misdoubt if he be so—but supposing it, wouldst thou not yet wish that God should forgive him?”
“Well; ay, I suppose I would,” said Christie, in a rather uncertain tone; “but if Uncle Edward’s going to Heaven, I do hope the angels will keep him a good way off Aunt Alice, and Father, and me. I don’t think it would be so pleasant if he were there.”
Pandora smiled.
“We will leave that, sweet heart, till thou be there,” she said.
And just as she spoke Mrs Collenwood returned to the parlour. She chatted pleasantly for a little while with Christie, and bade her not lose heart concerning her Aunt Alice.
“The Lord will do His best for His own, my child,” she said, as they took leave of Christabel; “but after all, mind thou, His best is not always our best. Nay; at times it is that which seems to us the worst. Yet I cast no doubt we shall bless Him for it, and justify all His ways, when we stand on the mount of God, and look back along the road that we have traversed. ‘All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep His covenant and his testimonies.’”
Some such comfort as those words of God can give was sorely needed by Roger Hall. To use a graphic expression of his day, he was “well-nigh beat out of heart.” He had visited all the villages within some distance, and had tramped to and fro in Canterbury, and could hear nothing. He had not as yet hinted to any one his own terrible apprehension that Alice might have been removed to London for trial. If so, she would come into the brutal and relentless hands of Bishop Bonner, and little enough hope was there in that case. The only chance, humanly speaking, then lay in the occasional visits paid by Cardinal Pole to Smithfield, for the purpose of rescuing, from Bonner’s noble army of martyrs, the doomed who belonged to his own diocese. And that was a poor hope indeed.
There were two important holy-days left in February, and both these Roger spent in Canterbury, despite the warning of his impending arrest if he ventured in that direction. On the latter of these two he paid special attention to the cathedral precincts. It was possible that Alice might be imprisoned in the house of one of the canons or prebendaries; and if so, there was a faint possibility that she might be better treated than in the gaol. Everywhere he listened for her voice. At every window he gazed earnestly, in the hope of seeing her face. He saw and heard nothing.
As he turned away to go home, on the evening of Saint Matthias’, it struck him that perhaps, if he were to come very early in the morning, the town would be more silent, and there might be a better likelihood of detecting the sound of one voice among many. But suppose she were kept in solitary confinement—how then could he hope to hear it?
Very, very down-hearted was Roger as he rode home. He met two or three friends, who asked, sympathetically, “No news yet, Master Hall?” and he felt unable to respond except by a mournful shake of the head.
“Well, be sure! what can have come of the poor soul?” added Emmet Wilson. And Roger could give no answer.
What could have become of Alice Benden?