Chapter Fifteen.
After All.
“For perhaps the dreaded future
Has less bitter than I think;
The Lord may sweeten the waters
Before I stoop to drink;
Or if Marah must be Marah,
He will stand beside the brink.”
All was ready for the reception of the newcomers. The hall at Enville Court was gay with spring flowers, and fresh rushes were strewn over the floor. Sir Thomas and Dick had gone so far as Kirkham to meet the visitors. Lady Enville, attired in her new kersey, which had cost the extravagant price of five shillings per yard, (Note 1) sat by the hall fire. Rachel, in the objectionable camlet, which had been declared too shabby to sweep the house in, stood near the door; while Clare and Blanche, dressed in their Sunday costume, were moving about the hall, giving little finishing touches to things as they saw them needed.
“There be the horses!” said Blanche excitedly.
She was very curious to see her new sister.
In about ten minutes Sir Thomas entered, leading a masked lady by the hand. Jack came lounging behind, his hands in his pockets, after his usual fashion.
“Our new daughter,—the Lady Gertrude Enville.” (A fictitious person.)
One glance, and Lady Enville almost fainted from pique. Lady Gertrude’s travelling costume was grander than her own very best new velvet. Violet velvet, of the finest quality, slashed in all directions, and the slashes filled with puffings of rich pale buff satin; yards upon yards of the costliest white lace, literally strewn upon the dress: rich embroidery upon the most delicate lawn, edged with deep lace, forming the ruff; a hood of black velvet, decorated with pearls and gold passementerie; white leather shoes, wrought with gold; long worked gloves of thick white kid,—muff, fan, mask—all complete. As the bride came up the hall, she removed her mask, and showed a long pale face, with an unpleasant expression. Her apparent age was about thirty.
“Give you good even, Madam!” she said, in a high shrill voice—not one of those which are proverbially “an excellent thing in woman.”
“These be your waiting gentlewomen?”
“These are my daughters,” said Lady Enville—stiffly, for her; the mistake had decidedly annoyed her.
“Ah!” And the bride kissed them. Then turning to Rachel,—“This, I account, is the lady mistress?”
(“That camlet!” said Lady Enville to herself, deeply vexed.)
Sir Thomas introduced her gravely,—“My sister.”
Lady Gertrude’s bold dark eyes scanned Rachel with an air of contempt. Rachel, on her part, quite reciprocated the feeling.
“You see, Niece, we keep our velvets for Sundays hereaway,” she said in her dry way.
The bride answered by an affected little laugh, a kiss, and a declaration that travelling ruined everything, and that she was not fit to be seen. At a glance from Lady Enville, Clare offered to show Gertrude to her chamber, and they went up-stairs together. Jack strolled out towards the stable.
“Not fit to be seen!” gasped poor Lady Enville. “Sir Thomas, what can we do? In the stead of eighty pound, I should have laid out eight hundred, to match her!”
“Bear it, I reckon, my dear,” said he quietly.
“Make thy mind easy, Orige,” scornfully answered Rachel. “I will lay my new hood that her father made his fortune in some manner of craft, and hath not been an Earl above these two years. Very ladies should not deal as she doth.”
Meanwhile, above their heads, the bride was putting Clare through her catechism.
“One of you maidens is not in very deed Sir John’s sister. Which is it?”
“Sir John?” repeated Clare in surprise.
“Of course. Think you I would have wedded a plain Master? I caused my father to knight him first.—Which is it?”
“That am I,” said Clare.
“Oh, you? Well, you be not o’er like him. But you look all like unto common country folk that had never been in good company.”
Though Clare might be a common country girl, yet she was shocked by Gertrude’s rudeness. She had been brought up by Rachel to believe that the quality of her dress was of less consequence than that of her manners. Clare thought that if Gertrude were a fair sample of “good company,” she did not wish to mix in it.
“I have been alway bred up in the Court,” Gertrude went on, removing her hood. “I never was away thence afore. Of course I do conceive that I am descended to a lower point than heretofore—you have no coach, I dare wager? yet I looked not to find my new kin donned in sorry camlet and mean dowlas. Have you any waiting-maid?—or is that piece of civility (civilisation) not yet crept up into this far corner of the world?”
Clare summoned Jennet, and took her own seat in the further window. The vulgar, purse-proud tone of Gertrude’s remarks disgusted her exceedingly. She did not enter into all of them. Simple Clare could not see what keeping a carriage had to do with gentlemanliness.
Jennet came in, and dropped a “lout” to the bride, whom she was disposed to regard with great reverence as a real lady. At that time, “lady” was restricted to women of title, the general designation being “gentlewoman.”
“Here, woman!” was Gertrude’s peremptory order. “Untwist my hair, and dress it o’er again.”
Jennet quickly untwisted the hair, which was elaborately curled and frizzed; and when it was reduced to smoothness, asked,—“What mun (must) I do wi’ ’t?”
“Eh?” said Gertrude.
“I’m ill set (I find it difficult) to make thore twirls and twists,” explained Jennet. “Mun I curl ’t, or ye’ll ha’ ’t bred?” (Braided, plaited.)
“What means the jade?” demanded Gertrude with an oath.
Clare was horrified. She had heard men swear when they were in a passion, and one or two when they were not; but that a woman should deliberately preface her words with oaths was something new and shocking to her. Lady Enville’s strongest adjurations were mild little asseverations “by this fair daylight,” or words no nearer profanity. However, startled as she was, Clare came out of her corner to mediate.
“How should it like you dressed?”
“Oh! with the crisping-pins. ’Twill take as short time as any way.”
“Wi’ whatten a thingcum?” (with what sort of a thing) stared Jennet.
“I am afeared, Sister, we have no crisping-pins,” said Clare.
“No crisping-pins!” cried Gertrude, with another oath. “Verily, I might have come to Barbary! Are you well assured?”
“Be there any manner of irons, Jennet, for crisping or curling the hair?”
“Nay, Mistress Clare, we’re Christians here,” said Jennet in her coolest manner, which was very cool indeed. “We known nought about French ways, nor foreigners nother. (In Lancashire, strangers to the locality, if only from the next county, are termed foreigners.) There’s been no such gear i’ this house sin’ I come—and that’s eighteen year come Lady Day.”
“Good sonties! (Little saints!) do’t as thou wilt,” sneered Gertrude. “I would I had brought all my gear withal. Whate’er possessed yon jade Audrey to fall sick, that I was like to leave her behind at Chester!—Truly, I knew not what idiots I was coming amongst—very savages, that wist not the usages of decent folk!”
“Bi’ th’ mass!” (not yet obsolete) cried Jennet in burning wrath, resorting to her strongest language, “but I’m no more an idiot nor thee, my well-spoken dame,—nay, nor a savage nother. And afore I set up to dress thy hure again, thou may ask me o’ thy bended knees—nor I’ll none do’t then, I warrant thee!”
And setting down the brush with no light hand, away stalked Miss Jennet, bristling with indignation. Gertrude called her back angrily in vain, looked after her for a moment with parted lips, and then broke forth into a torrent of mingled wrath and profanity. She averred that if one of her fathers servants had thus spoken, she would have had her horsewhipped within an inch of her life. Clare let her run on until she cooled down a little, and then quietly answered that in that part of the world the people were very independent; but if Gertrude would allow her, she would try to dress her hair as well as she could. That it would be of no use to ask Jennet again, Clare well knew; and she shrank from exposing her dear old Barbara to the insolent vulgarity of Gertrude.
“You may as well,” said Gertrude coolly, and without a word of thanks. “You be meet for little else, I dare say.”
And reseating herself before the mirror, she submitted her hair to Clare’s inexperienced handling. For a first attempt, however, the result was tolerably satisfactory, though Clare had never before dressed any hair but her own; and Gertrude showed her gratitude by merely asserting, without anger or swearing, that she was right thankful no ladies nor gentlemen should behold her thus disfigured, as she would not for all the treasures of the Indies that they should. With this delicate compliment to her new relatives, she rustled down into the hall, Clare following meekly. Gertrude had not changed her dress; perhaps she did not think it worth while to honour people who dressed in say and camlet. Sir Thomas received her with scrupulous deference, set her on his right hand, and paid all kindly attention to her comfort. For some time, however, it appeared doubtful whether anything on the supper-table was good enough for the exacting young lady. Those around her came at last to the conclusion that Gertrude’s protestations required considerable discount; since, after declaring that she “had no stomach,” and “could not pick a lark’s bones,” she finished by eating more than Clare and Blanche put together. Jack, meanwhile, was attending to his own personal wants, and took no notice of his bride, beyond a cynical remark now and then, to which Gertrude returned a sharp answer. It was evident that no love was lost between them.
As soon as supper was over, the bride went up to her own room, declaring as she went that “if yon savage creature had the handling of her gowns”—by which epithet Clare guessed that she meant Jennet—“there would not be a rag left meet to put on”—and commanding, rather than requesting, that Clare and Blanche would come and help her. Sir Thomas looked surprised.
“Be these the manners of the great?” said he, too low for Jack to hear.
“Oh ay!” responded his wife, who was prepared to fall down at the feet of her daughter-in-law, because she was Lady Gertrude. “So commanding is she!—as a very queen, I do protest. She hath no doubt been used to great store of serving-maidens.”
“That maketh not our daughters serving-maids,” said Sir Thomas in an annoyed tone.
“I would have thought her mother should have kept her in order,” said Rachel with acerbity. “If that woman were my daughter, she had need look out.”
Rachel did not know that Gertrude had no mother, and had been allowed to do just as she pleased ever since she was ten years old.
Meanwhile, up-stairs, from trunk after trunk, under Gertrude’s directions—she did not help personally—Clare and Blanche were lifting dresses in such quantities that Blanche wondered what they could have cost, and innocent Clare imagined that their owner must have brought all she expected to want for the term of her natural life.
“There!” said Gertrude, when the last trunk which held dresses was emptied. “How many be they? Count. Seventeen—only seventeen? What hath yon lither hilding (wicked girl) Audrey been about? There should be nineteen; twenty, counting that I bear. I would I might be hanged if she hath not left out, my cramoisie! (crimson velvet!) the fairest gown I have! And”—with an oath—“if she hath put in my blue taffata, broidered with seed-pearl, I would I might serve as a kitchener!”
Rachel walked in while Gertrude was speaking.
“Surely you lack no more!” said Blanche. “Here be seven velvet gowns, and four of satin!”
“Enow for you, belike!” answered Gertrude, with a sneer.
“Enow for any Christian woman, Niece, and at the least ten too many,” said Rachel severely.
“Lack-a-daisy!—you have dwelt so long hereaway in this wilderness, you wit not what lacketh for decency in apparel,” returned Gertrude irreverently, greatly scandalising both her sisters-in-law by her disrespect to Aunt Rachel. “How should I make seventeen gowns serve for a month?”
“If you don a new every second day,” said Rachel, “there shall be two left over at the end thereof.”
Gertrude stared at her for a moment, then broke into loud laughter.
“Good heart, if she think not they be all of a sort! Why, look you here—this is a riding gown, and this a junketing gown, and this a night-gown (evening dress). Two left over, quotha!”
“I would fain, Niece,” said Rachel gravely, “you had paid as much note unto the adorning of your soul as you have to that of your body. You know ’tis writ—but may be ’tis not the fashion to read God’s Word now o’ days?”
“In church, of course,” replied Gertrude. “Only Puritans read it out of church.”
“You be no Puritan, trow?”
“Gramercy! God defend me therefrom!”
“Good lack! ’tis the first time I heard ever a woman—without she were a black Papist—pray God defend her from reading of His Word. Well, Niece, may be He will hear you. Howbeit, ’tis writ yonder that a meek spirit and a quiet is of much worth in His sight. I count you left that behind at Chester, with Audrey and the two gowns that lack?” (That are wanting.)
“I would you did not call me Niece!” responded Gertrude in a querulous tone. “’Tis too-too (exceedingly) ancient. No parties of any sort do now call as of old (Note 2),—‘Sister,’ or ‘Daughter,’ or ‘Niece’.”
“Dear heart! Pray you, what would your Ladyship by your good-will be called?”
“Oh, Gertrude, for sure. ’Tis a decent name—not an ugsome (ugly) old-fashioned, such as be Margaret, or Cicely, or Anne.”
“’Tis not old-fashioned, in good sooth,” said Rachel satirically; “I ne’er heard it afore, nor know I from what tongue it cometh. Then—as I pick out of your talk—decent things be new-fangled?”
“I want no mouldy old stuff!—There! Put the yellow silk on the lowest shelf.”
“’Tis old-fashioned, I warrant you, to say to your sister, ‘An’ it please you’?”
“And the murrey right above.—Oh, stuff!”
The first half of the sentence was for Clare; the second for Rachel.
“’Tis not ill stuff, Niece,” said the latter coolly, as she left the room.
“And what thinkest of Gertrude?” inquired Sir Thomas of his sister, when she rejoined him and Lady Enville.
“Marry!” said Rachel in her dryest manner, “I think the goods be mighty dear at the price.”
“I count,” returned her brother, “that when Gertrude’s gowns be paid for, there shall not be much left over for Jack’s debts.”
“Dear heart! you should have thought so, had you been above but now. To see her Grace (for she carrieth her like a queen) a-counting of her gowns, and a-cursing of her poor maid Audrey that two were left behind, when seventeen be yet in her coffers!”
“Seventeen!” repeated the Squire, in whose eyes that number was enough to stock any reasonable woman for at least half her life.
“Go to—seventeen!” echoed Rachel.
“Well-a-day! What can the lass do with them all?” wondered Sir Thomas.
“Dear hearts! Ye would not see an earl’s daughter low and mean?” interposed Lady Enville.
“If this Gertrude be not so, Orige,—at the least in her heart,—then is Jennet a false speaker, and mine ears have bewrayed me, belike. Methinks a woman of good breeding might leave swearing and foul talk to the men, and be none the worse for the same: nor see I good cause wherefore she should order her sisters like so many Barbary slaves.”
“Ay so!—that marketh her high degree,” said Lady Enville.
“I wis not, Orige, how Gertrude gat her degree, nor her father afore her,” answered Rachel: “but this I will tell thee—that if one of the ‘beggarly craftsmen’ that Jack loveth to snort at, should allow him, before me, in such talk as I have heard of her, I would call on Sim to put him forth with no more ado. Take my word for it, she cometh of no old nor honourable stock, but is of low degree in very truth, if the truth were known.”
Rachel’s instinct was right. Lady Gertrude’s father was a parvenu, of very mean extraction. Her great-uncle had made the family fortune, partly in trade, but mostly by petty peculations; and her father, who had attracted the Queen’s eye when a young lawyer, had been rapidly promoted through the minor grades of nobility, until he had reached his present standing. Gertrude was not noble in respect of anything but her title.
Lady Enville, with a smile which was half amusement and half contempt, rose and retired to her boudoir. Sir Thomas and Rachel sat still by the hall fire, both deeply meditating: the former with his head thrown back, gazing—without seeing them—at the shields painted on the ceiling; while the latter leaned forward towards the fire, resting her chin on both hands.
“What saidst, Tom?” asked Rachel in a dreamy voice.
“I spake not to know it, good Sister: but have what I said, an’ thou so wilt. I was thinking on that word of Paul—‘Not many noble are called.’ I thought, Rachel, how far it were better to be amongst the called of God, than to be of the noble.”
“’Tis not the first, time that I have thanked the Lord I am not noble,” said Rachel without changing her attitude. “’Tis some comfort to know me not so high up that any shall be like to take thought to cut my head off. And if Gertrude be noble—not to say”—Rachel’s voice died away. “Tom,” she said in a moment later, “we have made some blunders in our lives, thou and I.”
“I have, dear Rachel,” said Sir Thomas sighing: “what thine may be I wis not.”
“God knoweth!” she replied in a low voice. “And I know of one—the grandest of all blunders. Thou settedst out for Heaven these few months gone, Tom. May be thou shalt find more company on the road than thou wert looking for.”
“Dear Rachel!”
“Clare must be metely well on by this time,” she continued in the dry tone with which she often veiled her deepest feelings, “and Blanche is tripping in at the gate, or I mistake. I would not by my goodwill have thee lonely in the road, Tom: and I suppose—there shall be room for more than two a-breast, no’ will?” (Will there not?)
During all this time, the once close intercourse between the Court and the parsonage had been somewhat broken off. Arthur had never been in the Squire’s house since the day when Lucrece jilted him; and Clare was shy of showing herself in his vicinity. Blanche visited Mrs Tremayne occasionally, and sometimes Lysken paid a return visit; but very much less was seen of all than in old times. When, therefore, it became known at Enville Court that Arthur had received holy orders at the Bishop’s last ordination, the whole family as it were woke with a start to the recollection that Arthur had almost passed out of their sphere. He was to be his father’s curate for the present—the future was doubtful; but in an age when there were more livings than clergy to fill them, no difficulty need be expected in the way of obtaining promotion.
Just after Jack and Gertrude had returned to London (to the great relief of every one, themselves not excepted), in his usual unannounced style, Mr John Feversham made his appearance at Enville Court. Blanche greeted him with a deep blush, for she felt ashamed of her former unworthy estimate of his character. John brought one interesting piece of news—that his uncle and aunt were well, and Lucrece was now the mother of a little boy.
Lady Enville looked up quickly. Then John was no longer the heir of Feversham Hall. It might therefore be necessary—if he yet had any foolish hopes—to put an extinguisher upon him. She rapidly decided that she must issue private instructions to Sir Thomas. That gentleman, she said to herself, really was so foolish—particularly of late, since he had fallen into the pit of Puritanism—that if she did not look sharply after him, he might actually dream of resigning his last and fairest daughter to a penniless and prospectless suitor. If any such idea existed in the mind of Sir Thomas, of John Feversham, or of Blanche,—and since John had saved Blanche’s life, it was not at all unlikely,—it must be nipped in the bud.
Accordingly, on the first opportunity, Lady Enville began.
“Of course you see now, Sir Thomas, how ill a match Master John Feversham should have been for Blanche.”
“Wherefore?” was the short answer.
“Sith he is no longer the heir.” (Sith and since are both contractions of sithence.)
“Oh!—ah!” said Sir Thomas, as unpromisingly as before.
“Why, surely you would ne’er dream of so monstrous a thing?”
Sir Thomas, who had been looking out of the window, came across to the fire, and took up the master’s position before it—standing just in the middle of the hearth with his back to the fire.
“Better wait, Orige, and see whereof John and Blanche be dreaming,” said he calmly.
“What reckoneth he to do now, meet for livelihood?”
It would be difficult to estimate the number of degrees by which poor John had fallen in her Ladyship’s thermometer, since he had ceased to be the expected heir of Feversham Hall.
“He looketh,” said Sir Thomas absently, as if he were thinking of something else, “to receive—if God’s good pleasure be—holy orders.”
“A parson!” shrieked Lady Enville, in her languid style.
“A parson, Orige. Hast aught against the same?”
“Oh no!—so he come not anear Blanche.”
“Wilt hold him off with the fire-fork?”
“Sir Thomas, I do beseech you, consider this matter in sober sadness. Only think, if Blanche were to take in hand any fantasy for him, after his saving of her!”
“Well, Orige—what if so?”
“I cannot bring you to a right mind, Sir Thomas!” said his wife pettishly. “Blanche,—our fairest bud and last!—to be cast away on a poor parson—she who might wed with a prince, and do him no disgrace! It were horrible!”
“Were it?” was the dry response.
“I tell you,” said Lady Enville, sitting up in her chair—always with her a mark of agitation—“I would as soon see the child in her coffin!”
“Hush, Orige, hush thee!” replied her husband, very seriously now.
“It were as little grief, Sir Thomas! I would not for the world—nay, not for the whole world—that Blanche should be thus lost. Why, she might as well wed a fisherman at once!”
“Well, the first Christian parsons were fishermen; and I dare be bound they made not ill husbands. Yet methinks, Orige, if thou keptest thy grief until the matter came to pass, it were less waste of power than so.”
“‘Forewarned is forearmed,’ Sir Thomas. And I am marvellous afeared lest you should be a fool.”
“Marry guep!” (probably a corruption of go up) ejaculated Rachel, coming in. “‘Satan rebuketh sin,’ I have heard say, but I ne’er listed him do it afore.”
After all, Lady Enville proved a true prophet. Mr John Feversham was so obtuse, so unreasonable, so unpardonably preposterous, as to imagine it possible that Blanche Enville might yet marry him, though he had the prospect of a curacy, and had not the prospect of Feversham Hall.
“I told you, Sir Thomas!” said the prophetess, in the tone with which she might have greeted an earthquake. “Oh that you had listed me, and gat him away hence ere more mischief were done!”
“I see no mischief done, Orige,” replied her husband quietly. “We will call the child, and see what she saith.”
“I do beseech you, Sir Thomas, commit not this folly! Give your own answer, and let it be, Nay. Why, Blanche may be no wiser than to say him ay.”
“She no may,” (she may not) said Sir Thomas dryly.
But he was determined to tell her, despite the earnest protestations of his wife, who dimly suspected that Blanche’s opinion of John was not what it had been, and was afraid that she would be so wanting in worldly wisdom as to accept his offer. Lady Enville took her usual resource—an injured tone and a handkerchief—while Sir Thomas sent for Blanche.
Blanche, put on her trial, faltered—coloured—and, to her mother’s deep disgust, pleaded guilty of loving John Feversham at last. Lady Enville shed some real tears over the demoralisation of her daughter’s taste.
“There is no manner of likeness, Blanche, betwixt this creature and Don John,” she urged.
“Ay, mother, there is no likeness,” said Blanche calmly.
“I thank Heaven for that mercy!” muttered Rachel.
“Likeness!” repeated Sir Thomas. “Jack Feversham is worth fifty Don Johns.”
“Dear heart! how is the child changed for the worser!” sobbed her disappointed mother, who saw the coronet and fortune, on which she had long set her heart for Blanche, fading away like a dissolving view.
“Orige, be not a fool!” growled Rachel suddenly. “But, dear heart! I am a fool to ask thee.”
There was a family tempest. But at last the minority succumbed; and Blanche became the betrothed of John Feversham.
From the day of Jack’s departure from Enville Court with Gertrude, Sir Thomas never heard another word of his debts. Whether Jack paid them, or compounded for them, or let them alone, or how the matter was settled, remained unknown at Enville Court. They only heard the most flourishing accounts of everything connected with Jack and Gertrude. They were always well; Jack was always prospering, and on the point of promotion to a higher step of the social ladder. Sir Thomas declared drily, that his only wonder was that Jack was not a duke by this time, considering how many steps he must have advanced. But Lady Gertrude never paid another visit to Enville Court; and nobody regretted it except Jack’s step-mother. Jack’s own visits were few, and made at long intervals. His language was always magniloquent and sanguine: but he grew more and more reserved about his private affairs, he aged fast, and his hair was grey at a time of life when his father’s had been without a silver thread. Sir Thomas was by no means satisfied with his son’s career: but Jack suavely evaded all inquiries, and he came to the sorrowful conclusion that nothing could be done except to pray for him.
It was late in the autumn, and the evening of Blanche’s departure from home after her marriage. John Feversham’s clerical labours were to lie in the north of Cheshire, so Blanche would not be far away, and might be expected to visit at the Court more frequently than Lucrece or Jack. By the bride’s especial request, the whole family from the parsonage were present at the ceremony, and Lysken was one of the bridesmaids.
The guests had been dancing in the hall; they were now resting, standing or sitting in small groups, and conversing,—when Clare stole out of the garden-door, and made her way to the arbour.
She could not exactly tell why she felt so sad. Of course, she was sorry to lose Blanche. Such an occasion did not seem to Clare at all proper for mirth and feasting: on the contrary, it felt the thing next saddest to a funeral. They would see Blanche now and then, no doubt; but she was lost to them on the whole: she would never again be, what she had always been till now, one of themselves, an integral part of the home. And they were growing fewer; only four left now, where there had once been a household of eight. And Clare felt a little of the sadness—felt much more deeply by some than others—of being, though loved by several, yet first with none. Well, God had fixed her lot: and it was a good one, she whispered to herself, as if to repel the sadness gathering at her heart—it was a good one. She would always live at home; she would grow old, ministering to father and mother and aunt—wanted and looked for by all three; not useless—far from it. And that was a great deal. What if the Lord had not thought her meet for work in His outer vineyard?—was not this little home-corner in His vineyard still?—She was not a foundation-stone, not a cornice, not a pillar, in the Church of God. Nay, she thought herself not even one of the stones in the wall: only a bit of mortar, filling up a crevice. But the bit of mortar was wanted, and was in its right place, because the Builder had put it there. That was a great deal—oh yes, it was everything.
“And yet,” said Clare’s heart,—“and yet!—”
For this was not an unlabelled sorrow. Arthur Tremayne’s name was written all over it. And Clare had to keep her heart stayed on two passages of Scripture, which she took as specially for her and those in her position. It is true, they were written of men: but did not the grammar say that the masculine included the feminine? If so, what right had any one to suppose (as Lady Enville had once said flippantly) that “there were no promises in the Bible to old maids?”
Were there not these glorious two?—the one promise of the Old Covenant, the one promise of the New.
“Even unto them will I give in Mine house and within My walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters; I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off.” (Isaiah sixteen verse 5.)
“These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. These were redeemed from among men, being the first-fruits unto God and to the Lamb. And in their mouth was found no guile; for they are without fault before the throne of God.” (Revelations fourteen verses 4, 5.)
So Clare was content. Yet it was a sorrowful sort of content, after all—for Clare was human, too.
She was absently pulling off some dead leaves from the arbour, and the sudden jump which she gave showed how much she was startled.
“May I come in, Clare?” asked a voice at the entrance.
“Oh, ay—come in,” said Clare, in a flutter, and trembling all over.
“I did not mean to fright you,” said Arthur, with a smile, as he came inside and sat down. “I desired speech of you, on a matter whereof I could not well touch save in private. Clare,—may I speak,—dear Clare?”
But of course, dear reader, you know all about it.
So Clare was first with somebody, after all.
Note 1. A price which, about sixty years before, a vice-queen had thought sufficient in presenting a new year’s gift to Queen Anne Boleyn. John Husee writes to his mistress, Honour Viscountess Lisle, in 1534, that he has obtained the kersey for her gift to the Queen, eleven and a quarter yards at 5 shillings the yard, “very fine and very white.” (Lisle Papers, twelve 90.) A few weeks later he writes, “The Queen’s grace liketh your kersey specially well.” (Lisle Papers, eleven 112.)
Note 2. The disuse of this custom in England really dates from a rather later period. ‘Sister’ has somewhat resumed its position, but ‘Daughter’ and ‘Niece,’ in the vocative, are never heard amongst us now.