Chapter Ten.
Counsel’s Opinion.
“A cross of gold, of silver, or of wood,
Or of mean straw, hid in each shape of life;
Some trial working for eternal good,
Found in our outward state or inward strife.”
“Bab! Art thou yonder?”
“Is it Jennet?”
“Ay. There’s a gentlewoman i’ th’ bower to see thee.”
“Nay,—a gentlewoman! Who can it be?”
“I’ve told thee all I know. Hoo (she) wanted Mistress Clare; and I said hoo were down at th’ parsonage; then hoo said, ‘Is Barbara Polwhele here?’ And I said, ‘Ay, hoo’s come o’er to fot (fetch) somewhat for th’ young mistresses.’ So hoo said, ‘Then I’ll speak wi’ her.’ So I took her to my Lady, for I see hoo were a gentlewoman; and hoo’s i’ th’ bower.”
“I wis nought of her,” said Barbara. “I never looked to see none here that I know.”
“Well, thou’d best go to her,” decided Jennet Barbara hurried down, and found an old silver-haired lady sitting with Lady Enville, and addressed by her with marked deference.
“Well, Bab!” said the old lady, who was brisk enough for her years; “thou dost not seem no younger since I saw thee in Cornwall, and the mirror yonder saith neither am I.”
“Marry La’kin! but if I thought it metely possible, I would say it were surely Mistress Philippa Basset!”
“I will not confute thee, Bab, though it be but metely possible,” said the lively old lady, laughing. “I came to see the child Clare; but hearing she was hence, I then demanded thee. I will go down to the parsonage anon. I would like well to see Robin, and Thekla likewise.”
“Eh, Mistress Philippa! but there be great and sore changes sithence you were used to come unto the Lamb to see Mistress Avery!”
“Go to, Barbara! Hast dwelt sixty years, more or less, in this world, and but now found out that all things therein be changeable? What be thy changes to mine? Child, there is not a soul that I loved in those days when Isoult dwelt in the Minories, that is not now with God in Heaven. Not a soul! Fifty years gone, brethren and sisters, there were seven of us. All gone, save me!—a dry old bough, that sticketh yet upon the tree whence all the fair green shoots have been lopped away. And I the eldest of all! The ways of God’s Providence be strange.”
“I said so much once unto Master Robin,” responded Barbara with a smile; “but he answered, ’twas no matter we apprehended not the same, for the Lord knew all, and ordered the end from the beginning.”
“He hath ordered me a lonely journey, and a long,” said Philippa sadly. “Well! even a Devon lane hath its turning.”
“And what brought you thus far north, Mistress Philippa, an’ I make not too bold?”
“Why, I came to see Bridget’s childre. I have bidden these four months gone with Jack Carden. And being so nigh ye all, I thought I would never turn home without seeing you.”
Lady Bridget Carden was the daughter of Philippa Basset’s step-father. They were not really related; but they had been brought up as sisters from their girlhood.
“Nigh, Mistress Philippa!” exclaimed Barbara in surprise. “What, from Cheshire hither!”
Philippa laughed merrily. “Marry come up, Bab! thou hast not dwelt seven years in Calais, as I have, and every yard of lawn for thy partlets to be fetched from London, and every stone of thy meat to boot. Why, thou earnest thine own self as far as from Cornwall.”
“Eh, marry La’kin! Never came I that way but once, and if God be served, (if it be His will) I never look to turn again.”
Philippa turned to Lady Enville, who had sat, or rather reclined, playing with a hand-screen, while she listened to the preceding conversation. “And how goeth it with the child, tell me, Orige? She is not yet wed, trow?”
“Not yet,” replied Lady Enville, with her soft smile. “I shall ne’er be astonied if she wed with Arthur Tremayne. ’Twere a very fair match, and he is good enough for Clare.”
“A good stock, and an old; and a good lad, I trust. Thou must have a care, Orige, not to cast the child away on one that will not deal well and truly by her.”
“Oh, Arthur would deal well,” said Lady Enville carelessly. “He is a mighty sobersides, and so is Clare. They were cut out for one another.”
“Poor child!” said Philippa.
“‘Poor child’—and wherefore, Mrs Basset, say you so?”
“Because, Orige, it seemeth me she hath no mother.”
“Nay, Mistress Basset, what signify you?”
“No mother, Orige—or as good as none. An’ Clare had been my child, I had never handed her o’er, to Arthur Tremayne nor any other, with no more heed than a napron-full of sticks.”
“Well, in very deed, I do take the better care of the twain for Blanche to be well matched. Lo’ you, Mistress Basset, Blanche is of good lineage; and she is rare lovesome—well-nigh as fair as I was at her years—so that I would not have her to cast herself away, in no wise: but for Clare—which hath small beauty, and is of little sort—it maketh not much matter whom she may wed.”
“Good lack, Orige Enville, is a maid’s heart no matter?—is a maid’s life no matter? Why, woman! thou lackest stirring up with a poker! I marvel if I were sent hither to do it.”
“Gramercy, Mistress Basset!” cried Lady Enville in horror. “That stirring up is it which I can in no wise abide.”
“The which shows how much thou lackest it. But I am afeard thou art too far gone for any good. Well, I will look after the child; and I will set Thekla on to do it. And if I find Arthur to be a good man and true, and Clare reasonable well affected unto him,—trust me, I will not interfere. But if not,—Orige, I will not see Walter’s child cast away, if thou wilt.”
“Nay, good lack, Mrs Basset, what would you do?”
Lady Enville knew the energy and determination of the old lady’s character, and that if she set her mind upon a course of action, she was pretty sure to carry it through, and to make other people do as she wished.
“I will do that” said Philippa decidedly. “I will judge whether the lot thou hast chalked out for Clare be fit for her.”
“But in case you judge it not so, what then?”
“Then I will have the child away.”
“I could ne’er allow that, Mistress Basset,” said Lady Enville with unusual decision.
“I shall ne’er ask thee, Orige,” returned Philippa, with a slightly contemptuous stress upon the pronoun. “I will talk with thine husband; I trust he will hear reason, though thou mayest not. And I could find good places enow for Clare; I have many friends in the Court. My Lady Dowager of Kent (Susan Bertie, the only daughter of Katherine Duchess of Suffolk) would work, I know, for Isoult Barry’s granddaughter; and so would Beatrice Vivian (a fictitious person), Isoult’s old comrade, that hath a daughter and a niece to boot in the Queen’s chamber. And I dare say my Lady Scrope (Note 1) would do somewhat for me. Any way, I would assay it.”
“What, to have Clare in the Queen’s Majesty’s Court?” demanded Lady Enville, her eyes sparkling with interest and pleasure. “O Mistress Basset, could you not compass the same for Blanche?”
“In the Court! By my troth, nay!” said Philippa heartily. “I would never set maid that I cared a pin for in Queen Bess’s Court. Soothly, there be good women there, but— And as for Blanche,—I will see her, Orige, ere I say aught. Blanche hath stole all thine heart, methinks—so much as there was to steal.”
“But what meant you touching Clare, Mistress Basset?”
“What meant I? Why, to have her with some worthy and well-conditioned dame of good degree, that should see her well bestowed. I would trust my Lady Dowager of Kent, forsooth, or my Lady Scrope—she is a good woman and a pleasant—or maybe—”
“And my Lady Scrope is herself in the Court, I take it,” said Lady Enville, pursuing her own train of thought, independent of that of Philippa.
“Ay, and were therefore the less fitting,” said Philippa coolly. “Take no thought thereabout, Orige; I will do nought till I have seen the maidens.”
“But, Mistress Basset! you would ne’er count that mine husband’s word, that is not in very deed her father, should weigh against mine, that am her true and natural mother?” urged Lady Enville in an injured tone.
“Thou art her natural mother, Orige, ’tis sooth,” was the uncompromising answer: “but whether true or no, that will I not say. I rather think nay than yea. And if thine husband be better father unto the child than thou mother, he is the fitter to say what shall come of the maid. And I can alway reason with a man easilier than a woman. Women be geese, mostly!”
With which reasonably plain indication of her sentiments, the old lady rose and took her leave. She would have no escort to the parsonage. She would come back and be introduced to Sir Thomas when she had seen the girls. And away she trudged, leaving Lady Enville in the undesirable situation of one who feels that a stronger will than his own is moulding his fate, and running counter to his inclinations.
Open doors were kept at the parsonage, as was generally the case in Elizabethan days. It was therefore no surprise to Mrs Tremayne, who was occupied in the kitchen, with her one servant Alison acting under her orders, to hear a smart rap on the door which shut off the kitchen from the hall.
“Come within!” she called in answer, expecting some parishioner in want of advice or alms.
But in marched an upright, brisk old lady, with silver hair, and a stout staff in her hand.
“I am come to see Thekla Rose,” said she.
Mrs Tremayne was surprised now. It was thirty years since that name had belonged to her.
“And Thekla Rose has forgot me,” added the visitor.
“There is a difference betwixt forgetting and not knowing,” replied Mrs Tremayne with a smile.
“There is so,” returned the old lady. “Therefore to make me known, which I see I am not,—my name is Philippa Basset.”
The exclamation of delighted recognition which broke from the Rector’s wife must have shown Philippa that she was by no means forgotten. Mrs Tremayne took her visitor into the parlour, just then unoccupied,—seated her in a comfortable cushioned chair, and, leaving Alison to bake or burn the cakes and pie in the oven as she found it convenient, had thenceforward no eyes and ears but for Philippa Basset. Certainly the latter had no cause to doubt herself welcome.
“I spake truth, Thekla, child, when I said I was come to see thee. Yet it was but the half of truth, for I am come likewise to see Robin: and I would fain acquaint me with yonder childre. Be they now within doors?”
“They be not all forth, or I mistake,” said Mrs Tremayne; and she went to the door and called them—all four in turn. Blanche answered from the head of the stairs, but avowed herself ignorant of the whereabouts of any one else; and Mrs Tremayne begged her to look for and bring such as she could find to the parlour, to see an old friend of Clare’s family.
In a few minutes Blanche and Lysken presented themselves. Arthur and Clare were not to be found. Philippa’s keen, quick eyes surveyed the two girls as they entered, and mentally took stock of both.
“A vain, giddy goose!” was her rapid estimate of Blanche; wherein, if she did Blanche a little injustice, there was some element of truth. “Calm and deep, like a river,” she said to herself of Lysken: and there she judged rightly enough.
Before any conversation beyond the mere introductions could occur, in trotted Mrs Rose.
“Mistress Philippa, you be the fairest ointment for the eyen that I have seen these many days!” said the lively little Flemish lady. “Ma foi! I do feel myself run back, the half of my life, but to look on you. I am a young woman once again.”
“Old friend, we be both of us aged women,” said Philippa.
“And it is true!” said Mrs Rose. “That will say, the joints be stiff, and the legs be weakened, and the fatigue is more and quicker: but I find not that thing within me, that men call my soul, to grow stiff nor weak. I laugh, I weep, I am astonied,—just all same as fifty years since. See you?”
“Ah! you have kept much of the childly heart,” answered Philippa smiling. “But for me, the main thing with me that is not stiff nor weak in me is anger and grief. Men be such flat fools—and women worser, if worse can be.”
Blanche opened her eyes in amazement Lysken looked amused.
“Ah, good Mistress Philippa, I am one of the fools,” said Mrs Rose with great simplicity. “I alway have so been.”
“Nay, flog me with a discipline if you are!” returned Philippa heartily. “I meant not you, old friend. You are not by one-tenth part so much as—” Her eye fell on Blanche. “Come, I name none.—And thou art Frank Avery’s daughter?” she added, turning suddenly to Lysken. “Come hither, Frances, and leave me look on thee.”
“My name is not Frances, good Mistress,” replied Lysken, coming forward with a smile.
“Isoult, then? It should be one or the other.”
“Nay—it is Elizabeth,” said Lysken, with a shake of her head.
“More shame for thee,” retorted Philippa jokingly. “What business had any to call thee Elizabeth?”
“My father’s mother was Lysken Klaas.”
“Good.—Well, Thekla, I have looked this face o’er, and I can read no Avery therein.”
“’Tis all deep down in the heart,” said Mrs Tremayne.
“The best place for it,” replied Philippa. “Thou wilt do, child, as methinks. I would say it were easier to break thy heart than to beguile thy conscience. A right good thing—for the conscience. Is this Clare?” she asked, breaking off suddenly as Clare came in, with a tone which showed that she felt most interest in her of the three. She took both Clare’s hands and studied her face intently.
“Walter’s eyes,” she said. “Isoult Barry’s eyes! The maid could have none better. And John Avery’s mouth. Truth and love in the eyes; honour and good learning on the lips. Thou wilt do, child, and that rarely well.”
“Mistress Philippa Basset is a right old friend of thy dear grandame, Clare,” said Mrs Tremayne in explanation. “Thou canst not remember her, but this worthy gentlewoman doth well so, and can tell thee much of her when they were young maids together, and thy grandmother was gentlewoman unto Mistress Philippa her mother, my sometime Lady Viscountess Lisle.”
Clare looked interested, but she did not say much.
Mr Tremayne and Arthur came in together, only just in time for four-hours.
“God save thee, Robin dear!” was Philippa’s greeting. “Art rested from Little Ease? I saw thee but slightly sithence, mind thou, and never had no good talk with thee.”
Mr Tremayne laughed more merrily than was usual with him.
“Good Mistress Philippa, if thirty years were not enough to rest a man, in very deed he were sore aweary.”
“Now, Arthur,” said Philippa, turning to him bluntly, “come and let me look thee o’er.”
Arthur obeyed, with grave lips, but amused eyes.
“Robin’s eyes—Thekla’s mouth—Father Rose’s brow—Custance Tremayne’s chin,” she said, enumerating them rapidly. “If the inward answer the outward, lad, thou shouldst be a rare good one.”
“Then I fear it doth not so,” said Arthur soberly, “Humbleness will do thee no hurt, lad.—Now, Thekla, let us have our four-hours. I could eat a baken brick wall. Ay me! dost mind thee of the junkets, in old days, at the Lamb?”
“Thekla, I told thee afore, and I do it yet again,—women be flat fools. The biggest I know is Orige Enville. And in good sooth, that is much to say! She is past old Doll, at Crowe, that threw her kerchief over the candle to put it out. Blanche may be a step the better; methinks she is. But for all that, she is Orige Enville’s daughter. I would as soon fetch my bodkin and pierce that child to the heart, as I would send her to the Court, where her blind bat of a mother would fain have her. ’Twere the kindlier deed of the twain. Lack-a-daisy! she would make shipwreck of life and soul in a month. Well, for Clare, then—I give thee to wit, Thekla, thou art that child’s mother. Orige is not. She never was worth her salt. And she never will be. So the sooner thou win the maid hither, the better for her.”
“She doth abide hither, Mistress Philippa, even now.”
“Tush, child! I mean the sooner she weds with Arthur.”
“Weds with Arthur!”
It was manifest that the idea had never entered Mrs Tremayne’s head until Philippa put it there.
“Prithee, wherefore no?” demanded the old lady coolly. “Orige means it. Mercy on us, Thekla Rose! art thou gone wood?”
“Mrs Philippa! Who e’er told you my Lady Enville meant any such thing?”
“The goose told me herself,” said Philippa bluntly, with a short laugh. “’Twas not in a civil fashion, Thekla. She said Arthur was good enough for Clare; it recked not whom Clare wedded withal. Marry come up! if I had not let mine head govern mine hands, I had fetched her a good crack on the crown with my staff. It could ne’er have hurt her brain—she has none. What were such women born for, do all the saints wit?—without it were to learn other folk patience.”
Thekla Tremayne was a woman, and a mother. She would have been more than human if she had not felt hurt for this insult to her boy. Was Clare, or anything else in the world, too good for her one darling?
“Come,—swallow it, Thekla, and have done,” said Philippa. “And by way of a morsel of sugar at after the wormwood, I will tell thee I do not think Clare hates him. I studied her face.”
“Mistress Philippa, you read faces so rarely, I would you could read Lucrece Enville. Margaret, which is eldest of the three, is plain reading; I conceive her conditions (understand her disposition) well. But Lucrece hath posed me ever since I knew her.”
“I will lay thee a broad shilling, child, I read her off like thou shouldst a hornbook when I see her. Ay, I have some skill touching faces: I have been seventy years at the work.”
That evening, just before supper, the indefatigable old lady marched into the hall at Enville Court. Lady Enville introduced her to Sir Thomas and Mistress Rachel, and presented her step-daughters and Jack. Philippa made her private comments on each.
“A worthy, honest man—not too sharp-sighted,” she said of Sir Thomas to herself. “And a good, sound-hearted woman”—of Mistress Rachel. “There is a pickie, or I mistake,” greeted Jack. “This is Margaret, is it? Clear as crystal: not deep, but clear. But this face”—as Lucrece came before her—“is deep enough. Not deep like a river, but like a snake. I could do well enough with your plain, honest sister; but I love you not, Mistress Lucrece. Enville. Your graceful ways do not captivate me. Ah! it takes a woman to know a woman. And the men, poor silly things! fancy they know us better than we do each other.”
If Philippa had spoken that last sentiment audibly, she would have won the fee-simple of Rachel Enville’s heart.
“Sir Thomas,” said Philippa, when they rose from supper, “when it may stand with your conveniency, I would fain have an half-hour’s talk with you.”
Sir Thomas was ready enough to confer with the old lady, whom he liked, and he led her courteously to his wife’s boudoir. Lady Enville sat down in her cushioned chair, and made a screen of her fan.
“Sir Thomas,” began Philippa bluntly, “I would fain wit what you and Orige mean to do with Clare? Forgive my asking; I love the child for her grandame’s sake.”
“Good Mistress, you be full welcome to ask the same. But for me, I know not how to answer, for I never took any thought thereupon. Hadst thou thought thereon, Orige?”
“I counted her most like to wed with Arthur Tremayne,” said Lady Enville carelessly.
“I ne’er thought of him,” remarked Sir Thomas.
“If it be so, good,” said Philippa. “I have looked the lad o’er, and I am satisfied with him. And now, I pray you, take one more word from an old woman, of your gentleness. What do you with Blanche?”
In answer to this question—for Philippa was well known to Sir Thomas by repute, and he was prepared to trust her thoroughly—the whole story of Don Juan came out. Philippa sat for a minute, looking thoughtfully into the fire.
“Have a care of yonder maid,” she said.
“But what fashion of care, Mistress Basset? An’ you grant it me, I would value your thought thereupon.”
Philippa turned to Sir Thomas.
“Have you not,” she said, “made somewhat too much of this matter? Not that it was other than grave, in good sooth; yet methinks it had been better had you not let Blanche see that you counted it of so much import. I fear she shall now go about to count herself of mighty importance. Childre do, when you make much of their deeds; and Blanche is but a child yet, and will so be for another year or twain. Now this young man is safe hence, I would say, Fetch her home. And let none ever name the matter afore her again; let bygones be bygones. Only give her to see that you account of her as a silly child for the past, but yet that you have hope she shall be wiser in the future.”
“Well, herein I see not with you,” said Lady Enville. “I had thought it rare good fortune for Blanche to wed with Don John.”
Sir Thomas moved uneasily, but did not answer. Philippa turned and looked at the speaker.
“That was like,” she said quietly. But neither of her hearers knew how much meaning lay beneath the words.
“And what think you touching Lucrece?” asked Mrs Tremayne the next day, when Philippa was again at the parsonage.
“I ne’er had a fancy for snakes, Thekla.”
“Then you count her deceitful? That is it which I have feared.”
“Have a care,” said Philippa. “But what is to fear? A care of what?”
“Nay, what feareth any from a snake? That he should sting, I take it. He may do it while you be looking. But he is far more like to do it when you be not.”
The evening before the two sisters were to return to Enville Court, Mrs Tremayne and Clare were sitting alone in the parlour. Clare had manoeuvred to this end, for she wanted to ask her friend a question; and she knew there was a particular period of the evening when Mr Tremayne and Arthur were generally out, and Lysken was occupied elsewhere. Mrs Rose and Blanche remained to be disposed of; but the former relieved Clare’s mind by trotting away with a little basket of creature comforts to see a sick woman in the village; and it was easy to ask Blanche to leave her private packing until that period. But now that Clare had got Mrs Tremayne to herself, she was rather shy in beginning her inquiries. She framed her first question in a dozen different ways, rejected all for various reasons, and finally—feeling that her opportunity was sliding away—came out with that one which she had most frequently cast aside.
“Mistress Tremayne, account you it alway sinful to harbour discontent?”
“I could much better answer thee, dear maid, if I knew the fountain whence thy question springeth.”
This was just the point which Clare was most shy of revealing. But she really wanted Mrs Tremayne’s opinion; and with an effort she conquered her shyness.
“Well,—suppose it had pleased God to cast my lot some whither, that the daily work I had to do was mighty dislikeful to me; and some other maiden that I knew, had that to do withal which I would have loved dearly:—were it ill for me to wish that my business had been like hers?”
“Whom enviest thou, my child?” asked Mrs Tremayne very gently.
Clare blushed, and laughed.
“Well, I had not meant to say the same; but in very deed I do envy Lysken.”
“And wherefore, dear heart?”
“Because her work is so much higher and better than mine.”
Mrs Tremayne did not answer for a moment. Then she said,—“Tell me, Clare,—suppose thy father’s serving-men and maids should begin to dispute amongst themselves,—if Sim were to say, ‘I will no longer serve in the hall, because ’tis nobler work to ride my master’s horses:’ or Kate were to say, ‘I will no longer sweep the chambers, sith ’tis higher matter to dress my master’s meat:’ and Nell,—‘I will no longer dress the meat, sith it were a greater thing to wait upon my mistress in her chamber,’—tell me, should the work of the house be done better, or worser?”
“Worser, no doubt.”
“Well, dear heart, and if so, why should God’s servants grudge to do the differing works of their Master? If thou art of them, thy Master, hath set thee thy work. He saw what thou wert fit to do, and what was fit to be done of thee; and the like of Lysken. He hath set thee where thou art; and such work as thou hast to do there is His work for thee. Alway remembering,—if thou art His servant.”
Clare did not quite like that recurring conjunction. It sounded as if Mrs Tremayne doubted the fact.
“You think me not so?” she asked in a low voice.
“I hope thou art, dear Clare. But thou shouldst know,” was the searching answer.
There was silence after that, till Clare said, with a sigh, “Then you reckon I ought not to wish for different work?”
“I think not, my maid, that wishing and discontent be alway one and the same. I may carry a burden right willingly and cheerfully, and yet feel it press hard, and be glad to lay it down. Surely there is no ill that thou shouldest say to thy Father, ‘If it be Thy will, Father, I would fain have this or that.’ Only be content with His ordering, if He should answer, ‘Child, thou hast asked an evil thing.’”
There was another pause, during which Clare was thinking.
“Am I the first to whom thou hast opened thine heart hereon, dear Clare?”
“Well, I did let fall a word or twain at home,” said Clare smiling; “but I found no like feeling in response thereto.”
“Not even from Margaret?”
“Meg thought there was work enough at home,” replied Clare laughing, “and bade me go look in the mending-chest and see how much lacked doing.”
“Nor Mistress Rachel?”
“Nay, Aunt Rachel said I might well be thankful that I was safe guarded at home, and had not need to go about this wicked world.”
“Well, there is reason in that. It is a wicked world.”
“Yet, surely, we need try to make it better, Mistress Tremayne: and—any woman could stitch and cut as well as I.”
Clare spoke earnestly. Mrs Tremayne considered a little before she answered.
“Well, dear heart, it may be the Lord doth design thee to be a worker in His vineyard. I cannot say it is not thus. But if so, Clare, it seemeth me that in this very cutting and stitching, which thou so much mislikest, He is setting thee to school to be made ready. Ere we be fit for such work as thou wouldst have, we need learn much: and one lesson we have to learn is patience. It may be that even now, if the Lord mean to use thee thus, He is giving thee thy lesson of patience. ‘Let patience have her perfect work.’ ’Tis an ill messenger that is so eager to be about his errand, that he will needs run ere he be sent. The great Teacher will set thee the right lessons; see thou that they be well learned: and leave it to Him to call thee to work when He seeth thee ripe for it.”
“I thank you,” said Clare meekly; “maybe I am too impatient.”
“’Tis a rare grace, dear heart,—true patience: but mind thou, that is not idleness nor backwardness. Some make that blunder, and think they be patiently waiting for work when work waiteth for them, and they be too lazy to put hand thereto. We need have a care on both sides.”
But though Mrs Tremayne gave this caution, in her own mind she thought it much more likely that Blanche would need it than Clare.
“And why should I press back her eagerness, if the Lord hath need of her? Truly”—and Thekla Tremayne sighed as she said this to herself—“‘the labourers are few.’”
Note 1. Philadelphia Carey, a kinswoman of Queen Elizabeth through her mother, Anne Boleyn.