Chapter Seven.
A Spoke in the Wheel.
“All the foolish work
Of fancy, and the bitter close of all.”
Tennyson.
A few weeks after that conversation, Lucrece Enville sat alone in the bedroom which she shared with her sister Margaret. She was not shedding tears—it was not her way to weep: but her mortification was bitter enough for any amount of weeping.
Lucrece was as selfish as her step-mother, or rather a shade more so. Lady Enville’s selfishness was pure love of ease; there was no deliberate malice in it. Any person who stood in her way might be ruthlessly swept out of it; but those who did not interfere with her pleasure, were free to pursue their own.
The selfishness of Lucrece lay deeper. She not only sought her own enjoyment and aggrandisement; but she could not bear to see anything—even if she did not want it—in the possession of some one else. That was sufficient to make Lucrece long for it and plot to acquire it, though she had no liking for the article in itself, and would not know what to do with it when she got it.
But in this particular instance she had wanted the article: and she had missed it. True, the value which she set upon it was rather for its adjuncts than for itself; but whatever its value, one thought was uppermost, and was bitterest—she had missed it.
The article was Don Juan. His charm was twofold: first, he would one day be a rich man and a noble; and secondly, Blanche was in possession. Lucrece tried her utmost efforts to detach him from her sister, and to attach him to herself. And Don Juan proved himself to be her match, both in perseverance and in strategy.
Blanche had not the faintest suspicion that anything of the sort had been going on. Don Juan himself had very quickly perceived the counterplot, and had found it a most amusing episode in the little drama with which he was beguiling the time during his forced stay in England.
But nobody else saw either plot or counterplot, until one morning, when a low soft voice arrested Sir Thomas as he was passing out of the garden door.
“Father, may I have a minute’s speech of you?”
“Ay so, Lucrece? I was about to take a turn or twain in the garden; come with me, lass.”
“So better, Father, for that I must say lacketh no other ears.”
“What now?” demanded Sir Thomas, laughing. “Wouldst have money for a new chain, or leave to go to a merry-making? Thou art welcome to either, my lass.”
“I thank you, Father,” said Lucrece gravely, as they paced slowly down one of the straight, trim garden walks: “but not so,—my words are of sadder import.”
Sir Thomas turned and looked at her. Never until this moment, in all her four-and-twenty years, had his second daughter given him an iota of her confidence.
“Nay, what now?” he said, in a perplexed tone.
“I pray you, Father, be not wroth with me, for my reasons be strong, if I am so bold as to ask at you if you have yet received any order from the Queen’s Majesty’s Council, touching the disposing of Don John?”
“Art thou turning states-woman, my lass? Nay, not I—not so much as a line.”
“Might I take on me, saving your presence, Father, to say so much as—I would you would yet again desire the same?”
“Why, my lass, hath Don John offenced thee, that thou wouldst fain be rid of him? I would like him to tarry a while longer. What aileth thee?”
“Would you like him to marry Blanche, Father?”
“Blanche!—marry Blanche! What is come over thee, child? Marry Blanche!”
Sir Thomas’s tone was totally incredulous. He almost laughed in his contemptuous unbelief.
“You crede it not, Father,” said Lucrece’s voice—always even, and soft, and low. “Yet it may be true, for all that.”
“In good sooth, my lass: so it may. But what cause hast, that thou shouldst harbour such a thought?”
“Nought more than words overheard, Father,—and divers gifts seen—and—”
“Gifts! The child showed us none.”
“She would scantly show you, Father, a pair of beads of coral, with a cross of enamel thereto—”
“Lucrece, dost thou know this?”
Her father’s tone was very grave and stern now.
“I do know it, of a surety. And if you suffer me, Father, to post you in a certain place that I wot of, behind the tapestry, you shall ere long know it too.”
Lucrece’s triumphant malice had carried her a step too far. Her father’s open, upright, honest mind was shocked at this suggestion.
“God forbid, girl!” he replied, hastily. “I will not play the eavesdropper on my own child. Hast thou done this, Lucrece?”
Lucrece saw that she must make her retreat from that position, and she did so “in excellent order.”
“Oh no, Father! how could I so? One day, I sat in the arbour yonder, and they two walked by, discoursing: and another day, when I sat in a window-seat in the hall, they came in a-talking, and saw me not. I could never do such a thing as listen unknown, Father!”
“Right, my lass: but it troubled me to hear thee name it.”
Sir Thomas walked on, lost in deep thought. Lucrece was silent until he resumed the conversation.
“Beads, and a cross!” He spoke to himself.
“I could tell you of other gear, Father,” said the low voice of the avenger. “As, a little image of Mary and John, which she keepeth in her jewel-closet; and a book wherein be prayers unto the angels and the saints. These he hath given her.”
Lucrece was making the worst of a matter in which Don Juan was undoubtedly to blame, but Blanche was much more innocent than her sister chose to represent her. On the rosary Blanche looked as a long necklace, such as were in fashion at the time; and while the elaborate enamelled pendant certainly was a cross, it had never appeared to her otherwise than a mere pendant. The little image was so extremely small, that she kept it in her jewel-closet lest it should be lost. The book, Don Juan’s private breviary, was in Latin, in which language studious Lucrece was a proficient, whilst idle Blanche could not have declined a single noun. The giver had informed her that he bestowed this breviary on her, his best beloved, because he held it dearest of all his treasures; and Blanche valued it on that account. Lucrece knew all this: for she had come upon Blanche in an unguarded moment, with the book in her hand and the rosary round her neck, and had to some extent forced her confidence—the more readily given, since Blanche never suspected treachery.
“I can ensure you, Father,” pursued the traitress, with an assumption of the utmost meekness, “it hath cost me much sorrow ere I set me to speak unto you.”
“Hast spoken to Blanche aforetime?”
“Not much, Father,” replied Lucrece, in a voice of apparent trouble. “I counted it fitter to refer the same unto your better wisdom; nor, I think, was she like to list me.”
“God have mercy!” moaned the distressed father, thoroughly awake now to the gravity of the case.
“Maybe, Father, you shall think I have left it pass too far,” pursued Lucrece, with well-simulated grief: “yet can you guess that I would not by my goodwill seem to carry complaint of Blanche.”
“Thou hast well done, dear heart, and I thank thee,” answered her deceived father. “But leave me now, my lass; I must think all this gear over. My poor darling!”
Lucrece glided away as softly as the serpent which she resembled in her heart.
In half-an-hour Sir Thomas came back into the house, and sent Jennet to tell his sister that he wished to speak with her in the library. It was characteristic, not of himself, but of his wife, that in his sorrows and perplexities he turned instinctively to Rachel, not to her. When Lucrece’s intelligence was laid before Rachel, though perhaps she grieved less, she was even more shocked than her brother. That Blanche should think of quitting the happy and honourable estate of maidenhood, for the slavery of marriage, was in itself a misdemeanour of the first magnitude: but that she should have made her own choice, have received secret gifts, and held clandestine interviews—this was an awful instance of what human depravity could reach.
“Now, what is to be done?” asked Sir Thomas wearily. “First with Don John, and next with Blanche.”
“Him?—the viper! Pack him out of the house, bag and baggage!” cried the wrathful spinster. “The crocodile, to conspire against the peace of the house which hath received him in his need! Yet what better might you look for in a man and a Papist?”
“Nay, Rachel; I cannot pack him out: he is my prisoner, think thou. I am set in charge of him until released by the Queen’s Majesty’s mandate. All the greater need is there to keep him and Blanche apart. In good sooth, I wis not what to do for the best—with Blanche, most of all.”
“Blanche hath had too much leisure time allowed her, and too much of her own way,” said Rachel oracularly. “Hand her o’er to me—I will set her a-work. She shall not have an idle hour. ’Tis the only means to keep silly heads in order.”
“Maybe, Rachel,—maybe,” said Sir Thomas with a sigh. “Yet I fear sorely that we must have Blanche hence. It were constant temptation, were she and Don John left in the same house; and though she might not break charge—would not, I trust—yet he might. I can rest no faith on him well! I must first speak to Blanche, methinks, and then—”
“Speak to her!—whip her well! By my troth, but I would mark her!” cried Rachel, in a passion.
“Nay, Rachel, that wouldst thou not,” answered her brother, smiling sadly. “Did the child but whimper, thy fingers would leave go the rod. Thy bark is right fearful, good Sister; but some men’s sweet words be no softer than thy bite.”
“There is charity in all things, of course,” said Rachel, cooling down.
“There is a deal in thee,” returned Sir Thomas, “for them that know where to seek it. Well, come with me to Orige; she must be told, I reckon: and then we will send for Blanche.”
Rachel opened her lips, but suddenly shut them without speaking, and kept them drawn close. Perhaps, had she not thought better of it, what might have been spoken was not altogether complimentary to Lady Enville.
That very comfortable dame sat in her cushioned chair in the boudoir—there were no easy-chairs then, except as rendered so by cushions; and plenty of soft thick cushions were a very necessary part of the furniture of a good house. Her Ladyship was dressed in the pink of the fashion, so far as it had reached her tailor at Kirkham; and she was turning over the leaves of a new play, entitled “The Comedie of Errour”—one of the earliest productions of the young Warwickshire actor, William Shakspere by name. She put her book down with a yawn when her husband and his sister came in.
“How much colder ’tis grown this last hour or twain!” said she. “Prithee, Sir Thomas, call for more wood.”
Sir Thomas shouted as desired—the quickest way of settling matters—and when Jennet had come and gone with the fuel, he glanced into the little chamber to see if it were vacant. Finding no one there, he drew the bolt and sat down.
“Gramercy, Sir Thomas! be we all prisoners?” demanded his wife with a little laugh.
“Orige,” replied Sir Thomas, “Rachel and I have a thing to show thee.”
“I thought you looked both mighty sad,” remarked the lady calmly.
“Dost know where is Blanche?”
“Good lack, no! I never wis where Blanche is.”
“Orige, wouldst like to have Blanche wed?”
“Blanche!—to whom?”
“To Don John de Las Rojas.”
“Gramercy! Sir Thomas, you never mean it?”
“He and Blanche mean it, whate’er I may.”
“Good lack, how fortunate! Why, he will be a Marquis one day—and hath great store of goods and money. I never looked for such luck. Have you struck hands with him, Sir Thomas?”
Sir Thomas pressed his lips together, and glanced at his sister with an air of helpless vexation. Had it just occurred to him that the pretty doll whom he had chosen to be the partner of his life was a little wanting in the departments of head and heart?
“What, Orige—an enemy?” he said.
“Don John is not an enemy,” returned Lady Enville, with a musical little laugh. “We have all made a friend of him.”
“Ay—and have been fools, perchance, to do it. ’Tis ill toying with a snake. But yet once—a Papist?”
“Good lack! some Papists will get to Heaven, trow.”
“May God grant it!” replied Sir Thomas seriously. “But surely, Orige, surely thou wouldst never have our own child a Papist?”
“I trust Blanche has too much good sense for such foolery, Sir Thomas,” said the lady. “But if no—well, ’tis an old religion, at the least, and a splendrous. You would never let such a chance slip through your fingers, for the sake of Papistry?”
“No, Sister—for the sake of the Gospel,” said Rachel grimly.
“Thou wist my meaning, Rachel,” pursued Lady Enville. “Well, in very deed, Sir Thomas, I do think it were ill done to let such a chance go by us. ’Tis like throwing back the gifts of Providence. Do but see, how marvellously this young man was brought hither! And now, if he hath made suit for Blanche, I pray you, never say him nay! I would call it wicked to do the same. Really wicked, Sir Thomas!”
Lady Enville pinched the top cushion into a different position, with what was energy for her. There was silence for a minute. Rachel sat looking grimly into the fire, the personification of determined immobility. Sir Thomas was shading his eyes with his hand. He was drinking just then a very bitter cup: and it was none the sweeter for the recollection that he had mixed it himself. His favourite child—for Blanche was that—seemed to be going headlong to her ruin: and her mother not only refused to aid in saving her, but was incapable of seeing any need that she should be saved.
“Well, Orige,” he said at last, “thou takest it other than I looked for. I had meant for to bid thee speak with Blanche. Her own mother surely were the fittest to do the same. But since this is so, I see no help but that we have her here, before us three. It shall be harder for the child, and I would fain have spared her. But if it must be,—why, it must.”
“She demeriteth (merits) no sparing,” said Rachel sternly.
“Truly, Sir Thomas,” responded his wife, “if I am to speak my mind, I shall bid Blanche God speed therein. So, if you desire to let (hinder) the same—but I think it pity a thousand-fold you should—you were better to see her without me.”
“Nay, Orige! Shall I tell the child to her face that her father and her mother cannot agree touching her disposal?”
“She will see it if she come hither,” was the answer.
“But cannot we persuade thee, Orige?”
“Certes, nay!” replied she, with the obstinacy of feeble minds. “Truly, I blame not Rachel, for she alway opposeth her to marriage, howso it come. She stood out against Meg her trothing. But for you, Sir Thomas,—I am verily astonied that you would deny Blanche such good fortune.”
“I would deny the maid nought that were for her good, Orige,” said the father, sadly.
“‘Good,’ in sweet sooth!—as though it should be ill for her to wear a coronet on her head, and carry her pocket brimful of ducats! Where be your eyes, Sir Thomas?”
“Thine be dazed, methinks, with the ducats and the coronet, Sister,” put in Rachel.
“Well, have your way,” said Lady Enville, spreading out her hands, as if she were letting Blanche’s good fortune drop from them: “have your way! You will have it, I count, as whatso I may say. I pray God the poor child be not heart-broken. Howbeit, I had better loved her than to do thus.”
Sir Thomas was silent, not because he did not feel the taunt, but because he did feel it too bitterly to trust himself with speech. But Rachel rose from her chair, deeply stung, and spoke very plain words indeed.
“Orige Enville,” she said, “thou art a born fool!”
“Gramercy, Rachel!” ejaculated her sister-in-law, as much moved out of her graceful ease of manner as it lay in her torpid nature to be.
“You can deal with the maid betwixt you two,” pursued the spinster. “I will not bear a hand in the child’s undoing.”
And she marched out of the room, and slammed the door behind her.
“Good lack!” was Lady Enville’s comment.
Without resuming the subject, Sir Thomas walked to the other door and opened it.
“Blanche!” he said, in that hard, constrained tone which denotes not want of feeling, but the endeavour to hide it.
“Blanche is in the garden, Father,” said Margaret, coming out of the hall. “Shall I seek her for you?”
“Ay, bid her come, my lass,” said he quietly.
Margaret looked up inquiringly, in consequence of her father’s unusual tone; but he gave her no explanation, and she went to call Blanche.
That young lady was engaged at the moment in a deeply interesting conversation with Don Juan upon the terrace. They had been exchanging locks of hair, and vows of eternal fidelity. Margaret’s approaching step was heard just in time to resume an appearance of courteous composure; and Don Juan, who was possessed of remarkable versatility, observed as she came up to them—
“The clouds be a-gathering, Doña Blanca. Methinks there shall be rain ere it be long.”
“How now, Meg?—whither away?” asked Blanche, with as much calmness as she could assume; but she was by no means so clever an actor as her companion.
“Father calleth thee, Blanche, from Mother’s bower.”
“How provoking!” said Blanche to herself. Aloud she answered, “Good; I thank thee, Meg.”
Blanche sauntered slowly into the boudoir. Lady
Enville reclined in her chair, engaged again with her comedy, as though she had said all that could be said on the subject under discussion. Sir Thomas stood leaning against the jamb of the chimney-piece, gazing sadly into the fire.
“Meg saith you seek me, Father.”
“I do, my child.”
His grave tone chilled Blanche’s highly-wrought feelings with a vague anticipation of coming evil. He set a chair for her, with a courtesy which he always showed to a woman, not excluding his daughters.
“Sit, Blanche: we desire to know somewhat of thee.”
The leaves of the play in Lady Enville’s hand fluttered; but she had just sense enough not to speak.
“Blanche, look me in the face, and answer truly:—Hath there been any passage of love betwixt Don John and thee?”
Blanche’s heart gave a great leap into her throat,—not perhaps anatomically, but so far as her sensations were concerned. She played for a minute with her gold chain in silence. But the way in which the question was put roused all her better feelings; and when the first unpleasant thrill was past, her eyes looked up honestly into his.
“I cannot say nay, Father, and tell truth.”
“Well said, my lass, and bravely. How far hath it gone, Blanche?”
Blanche’s chain came into requisition again. She was silent.
“Hath he spoken plainly of wedding thee?”
“I think so,” said Blanche faintly.
“Didst give him any encouragement thereto?” was the next question—gravely, but not angrily asked.
If Blanche had spoken the simple truth, she would have said “Plenty.” But she dared not. She looked intently at the floor, and murmured something about “perhaps” and “a little.”
Her father sighed. Her mother appeared engrossed with the play.
“And yet once tell me, Blanche—hath he at all endeavoured himself to persuade thee to accordance with his religion? Hath he given thee any gifts, such as a cross, or a relic-case, or the like?”
Blanche would have given a good deal to run away. But there was no chance of it. She must stand her ground; and not only that, but she must reply to this exceedingly awkward question.
Don Juan had given her one or two little things, she faltered, leaving the more important points untouched. Was her father annoyed at her accepting them? She had no intention of vexing him.
“Thou hast not vexed me, my child,” he said kindly. “But I am troubled—grievously troubled and sorrowful. And the heavier part of my question, Blanche, thou hast not dealt withal.”
“Which part, Father?”
She knew well enough. She only wanted to gain time.
“Hath this young man tampered with thy faith?”
“He hath once and again spoken thereof,” she allowed.
“Spoken what, my maid?”
Blanche’s words, it was evident, came very unwillingly.
“He hath shown me divers matters wherein the difference is but little,” she contrived to say.
Sir Thomas groaned audibly.
“God help and pardon me, to have left my lamb thus unguarded!” he murmured to himself. “O Blanche, Blanche!”
“What is it, Father?” she said, looking up in some trepidation.
“Tell me, my daughter,—should it give thee very great sorrow, if thou wert never to see this young man again?”
“What, Father?—O Father!”
“My poor child!” he sighed. “My poor, straying, unguarded child!”
Blanche was almost frightened. Her father seemed to her to be coming out in entirely a new character. At this juncture Lady Enville laid down the comedy, and thought proper to interpose.
“Doth Don John love thee, Blanche?”
Blanche felt quite sure of that, and she intimated as much, but in a very low voice.
“And thou lovest him?”
With a good many knots and twists of the gold chain, Blanche confessed this also.
“Now really, Sir Thomas, what would you?” suggested his wife, re-opening the discussion. “Could there be a better establishing for the maiden than so? ’Twere easy to lay down rule, and win his promise, that he should not seek to disturb her faith in no wise. Many have done the like—”
“And suffered bitterly by reason thereof.”
“Nay, now!—why so? You see the child’s heart is set thereon. Be ruled by me, I pray you, and leave your fantastical objections, and go seek Don John. Make him to grant you oath, on the honour of a Spanish gentleman, that Blanche shall be allowed the free using of her own faith—and what more would you?”
“If thou send me to seek him, Orige, I shall measure swords with him.”
Blanche uttered a little scream. Lady Enville laughed her soft, musical laugh—the first thing which had originally attracted her husband’s fancy to her, eighteen years before.
“I marvel wherefore!” she said, laying down the play, and taking up her pomander—a ball of scented drugs, enclosed in a golden network, which hung from her girdle by a gold chain.
“Wherefore?” repeated Sir Thomas more warmly. “For plucking my fairest flower, when I had granted unto him but shelter in my garden-house!”
“He has not plucked it yet,” said Lady Enville, handling the pomander delicately, so that too much scent should not escape at once.
“He hath done as ill,” replied Sir Thomas shortly.
Lady Enville calmly inhaled the fragrance, as if nothing more serious than itself were on her mind. Blanche sat still, playing with her chain, but looking troubled and afraid, and casting furtive glances at her father, who was pacing slowly up and down the room.
“Orige,” he said suddenly, “can Blanche make her ready to leave home?—and how soon?”
Blanche looked up fearfully.
“What wis I, Sir Thomas?” languidly answered the lady. “I reckon she could be ready in a month or so. Where would you have her go?”
“A month! I mean to-night.”
“To-night, Sir Thomas! ’Tis not possible. Why, she hath scantly a gown fit to show.”
“She must go, nathless, Orige. And it shall be to the parsonage. They will do it, I know. And Clare must go with her.”
“The parsonage!” said Lady Enville contemptuously. “Oh ay, she can go there any hour. They should scantly know whether she wear satin or grogram. Call for Clare, if you so desire it—she must see to the gear.”
“Canst not thou, Orige?”
“I, Sir Thomas!—with my feeble health!”
And Lady Enville looked doubly languid as she let her head sink back among the cushions. Sir Thomas looked at her for a minute, sighed again, and then, opening the door, called out two or three names. Barbara answered, and he bade her “Send hither Mistress Clare.”
Clare was rather startled when she presented herself at the boudoir door. Blanche, she saw, was in trouble of some kind; Lady Enville looked annoyed, after her languid fashion; and the grave, sad look of Sir Thomas was an expression as new to Clare as it had been to the others.
“Clare,” said her step-father, “I am about to entrust thee with a weighty matter. Are thy shoulders strong enough to bear such burden?”
“I will do my best, Father,” answered Clare, whose eyes bespoke both sympathy and readiness for service.
“I think thou wilt, my good lass. Go to, then:—choose thou, out of thine own and Blanche’s gear, such matter as ye may need for a month or so. Have Barbara to aid thee. I would fain ye were hence ere supper-time, so haste all thou canst. I will go and speak with Master Tremayne, but I am well assured he shall receive you.”
A month at the parsonage! How delightful!—thought Clare. Yet something by no means delightful had evidently led to it.
“Clare!” her mother called to her as she was leaving the room,—“Clare! have a care thou put up Blanche’s blue kersey. I would not have her in rags, even yonder; and that brown woolsey shall not be well for another month. And,—Blanche, child, go thou with Clare; see thou have ruffs enow; and take thy pearl chain withal.”
Blanche was relieved by being told to accompany her sister. She had been afraid that she was about to be put in the dark closet like a naughty child, with no permission to exercise her own will about anything. And just now, the parsonage looked to her a dark closet indeed.
But Sir Thomas turned quickly on hearing this, with—“Orige, I desire Blanche to abide here. If there be aught she would have withal, she can tell Clare of it.”
And, closing the door, he left the three together.
“Oh!—very well,” said Lady Enville, rather crossly. Blanche sat down again.
“What shall I put for thee, Blanche?” asked Clare gently.
“What thou wilt,” muttered Blanche sulkily.
“I will lay out what I think shall like thee best,” was her sister’s kind reply.
“I would like my green sleeves, (Note 1) and my tawny kirtle,” said Blanche in a slightly mollified tone.
“Very well,” replied Clare, and hastened away to execute her commission, calling Barbara as she went.
“What ado doth Sir Thomas make of this matter!” said Lady Enville, applying again to the pomander. “If he would have been ruled by me—Blanche, child, hast any other edge of pearl?” (Note 2.)
“Ay, Mother,” said Blanche absently.
“Metrusteth ’tis not so narrow as that thou wearest. It becometh thee not. And the guarding of that gown is ill done—who set it on?”
Blanche did not remember—and, just then, she did not care.
“Whoso it were, she hath need be ashamed thereof. Come hither, child.”
Blanche obeyed, and while her mother gave a pull here, and smoothed down a fold there, she stood patiently enough in show, but most unquietly in heart.
“Nought would amend it, save to pick it off and set it on again,” said Lady Enville, resigning her endeavours. “Now, Blanche, if thou art to abide at the parsonage, where I cannot have an eye upon thee, I pray thee remember thyself, who thou art, and take no fantasies in thine head touching Arthur Tremayne.”
Arthur Tremayne! What did Blanche care for Arthur Tremayne?
“I am sore afeard, Blanche, lest thou shouldst forget thee. It will not matter for Clare. If he be a parson’s son, yet is he a Tremayne of Tremayne,—quite good enough for Clare, if no better hap should chance unto her. But thou art of better degree by thy father’s side, and we look to have thee well matched, according thereto. Thy father will not hear of Don John, because he is a Papist, and a Spaniard to boot: elsewise I had seen no reason to gainsay thee, poor child! But of course he must have his way. Only have a care, Blanche, and take not up with none too mean for thy degree,—specially now, while thou art out of our wardship.”
There was no answer from Blanche.
“Mistress Tremayne will have a care of thee, maybe,” pursued her mother, unfurling her fan—merely as a plaything, for the weather did not by any means require it. “Yet ’tis but nature she should work to have Arthur well matched, and she wot, of course, that thou shouldst be a rare catch for him. So do thou have a care, Blanche.”
And Lady Enville, leaning back among her cushions, furled and unfurled her handsome fan, alike unconscious and uncaring that she had been guilty of the greatest injustice to poor Thekla Tremayne.
There was a rap at the door, and enter Rachel, looking as if she had imbibed an additional pound of starch since leaving the room.
“Sister, would you have Blanche’s tartaryn gown withal, or no?”
“The crimson? Let me see,” said Lady Enville reflectively. “Ay, Rachel,—she may as well have it. I would not have thee wear it but for Sundays and holy days, Blanche. For common days, there, thy blue kersey is full good enough.”
Without any answer, and deliberately ignoring the presence of Blanche, Rachel stalked away.
It was a weary interval until Sir Thomas, returned. Now and then Clare flitted in and out, to ask her mother’s wishes concerning different things: Jennet came in with fresh wood for the fire; Lady Enville continued to give cautions and charges, as they occurred to her, now regarding conduct and now costume: but a miserable time Blanche found it. She felt herself, and she fancied every one else considered her, in dire disgrace. Yet beneath all the mortification, the humiliation, and the grief over which she was brooding, there was a conviction in the depth of Blanche’s heart, resist it as she might, that the father who was crossing her will was a wiser and truer friend to her than the mother who would have granted it.
Sir Thomas came at last. He wore a very tired look, and seemed as if he had grown several years older in that day.
“Well, all is at a point, Orige,” he said. “Master Tremayne hath right kindly given consent to receive both the maids into his house, for so long a time as we may desire it; but Mistress Tremayne would have Barbara come withal, if it may stand with thy conveniency. She hath but one serving-maid, as thou wist; and it should be more comfortable to the childre to have her, beside the saving of some pain (trouble, labour) unto Mistress Tremayne.”
“They can have her well enough, trow,” answered Lady Enville. “I seldom make use of her. Jennet doth all my matters.”
“But how for Meg and Lucrece?”
Barbara’s position in the household was what we should term the young ladies’ maid; but maids in those days were on very familiar and confidential terms with their ladies.
“Oh, they will serve them some other way,” said Lady Enville carelessly.
The convenience of other people was of very slight account in her Ladyship’s eyes, so long as there was no interference with her own.
“Cannot Kate or Doll serve?” asked Sir Thomas—referring to the two chambermaids.
“Of course they can, if they must,” returned their nominal mistress. “Good lack, Sir Thomas!—ask Rachel; I wis nought about the house gear.”
Sir Thomas walked off, and said no more.
With great difficulty and much hurrying, the two girls contrived to leave the house just before supper. Sir Thomas was determined that there should be no further interview between Blanche and Don Juan. Nor would he have one himself, until he had time to consider his course more fully. He supped in his own chamber. Lady Enville presented herself in the hall, and was particularly gracious; Rachel uncommonly stiff; Margaret still and meditative; Lucrece outwardly demure, secretly triumphant.
Supper at the parsonage was deferred for an hour that evening, until the guests should arrive. Mrs Tremayne received both with a motherly kiss. Foolish as she thought Blanche, she looked upon her as being almost as much a victim of others’ folly as a sufferer for her own: and Thekla Tremayne knew well that the knowledge that we have ourselves to thank for our suffering does not lessen the pain, but increases it.
The kindness with which Blanche was received—rather as an honoured guest than as a naughty child sent to Coventry—was soothing to her ruffled feelings. Still she had a great deal to, bear. She was deeply grieved to be suddenly and completely parted from Don Juan; and she imagined that he would be as much distressed as herself. But the idea of rebelling against her father’s decree never entered her head; neither did the least suspicion of Lucrece’s share in the matter.
Blanche was rather curious to ascertain how much Clare knew of her proceedings, and what she thought of them. Now it so happened that in the haste of the departure, Clare had been told next to nothing. The reason of this hasty flight to the parsonage was all darkness to her, except for the impression which she gathered from various items that the step thus taken had reference not to herself, but to Blanche. What her sister had done, was doing, or was expected to do, which required such summary stoppage, Clare could not even guess. Barbara was quite as ignorant. The interviews between Blanche and Don Juan had been so secret, and so little suspected, that the idea of connecting him with the affair did not occur to either.
One precious relic Blanche had brought with her—the lock of hair received from Don Juan on that afternoon which was so short a time back, and felt so terribly long—past and gone, part of another epoch altogether. Indeed, she had not had any opportunity of parting with it, except by yielding it to her father; and for this she saw no necessity, since he had laid no orders on her concerning Don Juan’s gifts. While Clare knelt at her prayers, and Barbara was out of the room, Blanche took the opportunity to indulge in another look at her treasure. It was silky black, smooth and glossy; tied with a fragment of blue ribbon, which Don Juan had assured her was the colour of truth.
“Is he looking at the ringlet of fair hair which I gave him?” thought she fondly. “He will be true to me. Whate’er betide, I know he will be true!”
Poor little Blanche!
Note 1. Sleeves were then separate from the dress, and were fastened into it when put on, according to the fancy of the wearer.
Note 2. Apparently the plaited border worn under the French cap.