Chapter Fourteen.
Ends with Joyce Morrell.
“Vanished is each bright illusion;
They have faded one by one:
Yet they gaze with happy faces,
Westwards to the setting sun:—
“Talking softly of the future,
Looking o’er the golden sands,
Towards a never-fading city,
Builded not with earthly hands.”
Cyrus Thornton.
“Well, to be sure! My man wouldn’t let me come no sooner—’tis his fault, not mine. But I did want to know which of them lads o’ ours told his tale the Tightest. Here’s Seth will have it you’ve had a thousand left you by the year, and Ben he saith young Master Floriszoon’s to be a lord.”
“Dear! I hope not,” said Hans.
“Well! but they’re a-saying so much all up and down the King’s Street, I can tell you.”
“How could it have crept forth?” said Edith. “Then ’tis true? Eh, but I’m as glad as if I’d had forty shillings left me,—I am, so!” cried Mrs Abbott; and she was sincere, for a fresh subject for conversation was worth quite that to her. “And is it true, as our Seth said, that you’ve a fine house and a park in Northamptonshire come to you, and fifteen hundred head o’ red deer and a lake to fish in?”
“Quite true,” said Robert Lewthwaite, with a grave bow, “allowing, my mistress, of four corrections: there is not a park, it is not in Northamptonshire, there be no red deer, and the lake ’longeth not to the house.”
“And jewels worth ever so many thousands, as our Ben saith, for Mistress Lettice, and ten Barbary horses o’ th’ best, and a caroche fine enough for the King’s Majesty?”
“Ah, I would that last were true,” said Edith.
“My mistress, the Barbary horses be all there saving ten, and the caroche is a-building in the air: as to the jewels, seeing they be Mistress Lettice’s, I leave her to reply.”
Lettice was in no condition to do it, for she was suffering torments from suppressed laughter. Her Uncle Robert’s preternatural gravity, and Mrs Abbott’s total incapacity to see the fun, were barely endurable.
“Eh, but you will be mortal fine!” said Mrs Abbott, turning her artillery on the afflicted Lettice. “I only wish our Mall had such a chance. If she—”
“Mrs Abbott, I cry you mercy, but here comes your Caleb,” said Hans calmly. “I reckon he shall be after you.”
“I reckon he shall, the caitiff! That man o’ mine, he’s for ever and the day after a-sending the childer after me.”
“I rejoice to hear you have so loving an husband,” Mr Lewthwaite was sufficiently inconsiderate to respond.
“Eh, bless you, there’s no love about it. Just like them men! they’d shut a woman’s mouth up as tight as a fish, and never give her no leave to speak a word, if they had their way. But I’m not one of your meek bag-puddings, that’ll take any shape you pinch ’em,—not I, forsooth; and he knows it. I’ll have my say, soon or late, and Prissy, she’s a downright chatterbox. Not that I’m that, you know—not a bit of it: but Prissy, she is; and I can tell you, when Prissy and Dorcas and Ben they’re all at it, the house isn’t over quiet, for none on ’em hearkens what t’others are saying, and their father whacks ’em by times—ay, he doth! Now, Caleb, what’s to do?”
“Nothing particular, Mother,” said slow, deliberate Caleb through the open window: “only there’s yon pedlar with the mercery, and he willn’t tarry only ten minutes more—”
“Thou lack-halter rascal, and ne’er told me while I asked thee!”
The parlour of the White Bear was free in another moment.
“There’s a deliverance!” said Mr Lewthwaite. “Blessed be the pedlar!—Have you been much pestered by that gadfly?”
“There’s been a bit of buzzing by times,” replied Temperance.
“Now, Mother, darling,” said Milisent, “how are we to carry you down home?”
“My dear child!” was the response. “Methinks, if you would do that, it should be only in my coffin. I have one journey to go soon, and it is like to be the next.”
“Mother, sweet heart, I won’t have it! You shall yet win to Selwick, if I carry you every foot of the way.”
“Nay, nay, my dear heart, I cannot hope that at fourscore.”
“Fourscore! ay, or forty score!” cried Milisent. “Why, old Mistress Outhwaite journeyed right to the Border but just ere we came, and she’s four years over the fourscore—and on horseback belike. Sure, you might go in a waggon or a caroche!”
“Where is the caroche, Milly?”
“Well! but at any rate we might find a waggon.”
“There is a travelling waggon,” said Hans, “leaves the Chequers in Holborn for York, once in the month—methinks ’tis the first Thursday in every month.”
“That is three weeks hence. Why not? Sure, your landlord would suffer you to let this house, and you might leave some behind till it were off your hands. What saith Temperance?—or Hans?”
“That where my Lady goeth, I go,” was the answer from Hans.
“Is it needful, Milly, to settle all our futures ere the clock strike?” humorously inquired Mr Lewthwaite. “Methinks we might leave that for the morrow.”
Milisent laughed, and let the subject drop.
Mr Lewthwaite and Temperance happened to be the last up that night. When all the rest had departed, and Charity came with the turf to bank up the parlour fire for the night, Temperance was saying—
“One thing can I promise you,—which is, if Aubrey return to Selwick as lord and master, you may trust Faith to go withal. As for me, I live but in other lives, and where I am most needed, there will I be, if God be served: but truly, I see not how we shall move my Lady Lettice. I would fain with all my heart have her back yonder, and so she would herself,—of that am I right sure. But to ride so far on an horse, at her years, and with her often pains—how could she? And though the waggon were safer, it were too long and weary a journey. Think you not so?”
Charity, having now settled her peat-sod to her satisfaction, left the room, with a hearty—“Good-night, Mrs Temperance! Good-night, Mestur Robin!”
“Truly, I think with you,” said Mr Lewthwaite, when she was gone: “but there is time to consider the matter. Let us decide nothing in haste.”
The next morning, for the first time for many weeks, Charity asked for a holiday. It was granted her, and she was out till twelve o’clock, when she came home with a very satisfied face.
Ways and means were discussed that day, but to little practical purpose. Of course Aubrey must be informed of the good fortune which had fallen to him: and after some consideration, it was settled that if Hans could make arrangements with Mr Leigh, he should be the messenger in this direction, setting forth when Sunday was over. People did not rush off by the next train in those days, and scald their tongues with hot coffee in order to be in time.
The Saturday evening came, and with it the calm quiet which most Puritan families loved to have on the eve of the Lord’s Day. While it was not necessary, it was nevertheless deemed becoming to lay aside secular occupations, and to let worldly cares rest. There was therefore some astonishment in the parlour when a sudden rap came on the door, and Charity’s face and cap made their appearance.
“If you please, Madam, when’ll you be wanting your coach, think you?”
“My coach, Charity!” said Lady Louvaine in amazement.
Everybody was staring at Charity.
“It’s ready, Madam,” said that damsel with much placidity. “He’s only got to put the horses to, hasn’t ’Zekiel, and they’re at Tomkins’ stable yon, by th’ Tilt Yard—Spring Gardens, I reckon they call it.”
“Charity, lass, are you in your right senses, think you?” demanded Temperance.
“Well, Mrs Temperance, I reckon you’ll be best judge o’ that,” said Charity coolly. “Seems to me I am: but that scarce makes sure, I count.”
“But, Charity!—what Ezekiel?”
“’Zekiel Cavell, Mrs Edith. He’s i’ th’ kitchen: you can see him if you’ve a mind.”
“Ezekiel Cavell! Aunt Joyce’s coachman! Where on earth has he come from?”
“Well, I rather think it was somewhere on earth,” answered the calm Charity, “and I expect it was somewhere i’ Oxfordshire. Howbeit, here he is, and so’s th’ coach, and so’s th’ horses: and he says to me, ‘Charity,’ says he, ‘will you ask my Lady when she’ll be wanting th’ coach?’ So I come.”
Everybody looked at everybody else.
“Is it possible?” cried Edith. “Has dear Aunt Joyce sent her coach to carry down Mother home?”
“Nay, it’s none hers, it’s my Lady’s,” said Charity, “and nobry else’s; and if she’s a mind to bid me chop it up for firewood, I can, if Mestur ’Ans ’ll help me. We can eat th’ horses too, if she likes; but they mun be put in salt, for we’s ne’er get through ’em else. There’s six on ’em. Shall I tell Rachel to get th’ brine ready?”
“Charity, what have you been doing?” said Hans, laughing.
“I’ve done nought, Mestur ’Ans, nobut carry a letter where it belonged, and serve ’Zekiel his four-hours.”
They began to see light dawning on the mystery.
“A letter to whom, Charity? and who writ it?”
“To Mestur Marshall: and Mrs Joyce Morrell writ it—leastwise her man did, at her bidding.”
“What said it?”
“I didn’t read it, Sir,” responded Charity, demurely.
“Come, I reckon you know what was in it,” said Mr Lewthwaite. “Out with it, Charity.”
“Come forward into the room, Charity, and tell your tale like a man,” said Temperance.
“I amn’t a man, Mrs Temperance,” answered Charity, doing as she was bid: “but I’ll tell it like a woman. Well, when I were with Mrs Joyce, afore we came hither, hoo gave me a letter,—let’s see! nay, it were two letters, one lapped of a green paper, and one of a white. And hoo said, as soon as yo’ geet (got) here, I were to ask my way to Shoe Lane, just outside o’ th’ City gate, and gi’e th’ letter i’ th’ white paper to Mestur Marshall. And th’ green un I were to keep safe by me, till it came—if it did come—that my Lady lacked a coach either to journey home or to Minster Lovel, and when I heard that, I were to carry it to Mestur Marshall too. So I did as I were bid. What were i’ th’ letters I cannot tell you, but Mestur Marshall come to see you as soon as he geet th’ white un, and when he geet th’ green un come ’Zekiel wi’ th’ coach and th’ tits. Mrs Joyce, hoo said hoo were feared nobry’d tell her if a coach were wanted, and that were why she gave me th’ letter. So now you know as much as I know: and I hope you’re weel pleased wi’ it: and if you please, what am I to say to ’Zekiel?”
“Dear Aunt Joyce!” said Edith under her breath.
“Make Ezekiel comfortable, Charity,” said Lady Louvaine, as she drew off her glasses and wiped them: “and on Monday we will talk over the matter and come to some decision thereupon.”
The decision unanimously come to on the Monday was that Hans should ride down to Oxford and see Aubrey before anything else was settled. Lady Louvaine would have liked dearly to return home to Selwick, but Aubrey was its master, and was of age, and he might be contemplating matrimony when he could afford it. If so, she would make a long visit—possibly a life-long one—to her beloved Joyce at Minster Lovel, accompanied by Edith. Temperance and Lettice were to return to Keswick: Faith must please herself. That Faith would please herself, and would not much trouble herself about the pleasing of any one else, they were tolerably convinced: and of course Aubrey’s own mother had a greater claim on him than more distant relatives. She would probably queen it at Selwick, unless Aubrey provided the Hall with a younger queen in her place.
It was on a lovely summer afternoon that Hans rode into Oxford by the Water Gate or Little Gate, from which a short street led up northwards to Christ Church and Saint Aldate’s. Just beyond these, he passed through the city portal of South Gate, and turning to the left down Brewers’ Street, he soon came to Mr Whitstable’s shop under the shadow, of West Gate. Just on the eastern side was a livery-stable, where Hans put up his horse: and then, wishing to see Aubrey before he should be recognised, he walked straight into the shop. At the further end, Aubrey was showing some solid-looking tomes to two solid-looking dons, while Mr Whitstable himself was just delivering a purchase to a gentleman in canonicals. Hans stepped up to the bookseller, and in a low tone asked him for a Book of Articles. This meant the famous Thirty-Nine, then sold separate from the Prayer-Book at a cost of about sixpence.
Mr Whitstable laid three copies on the counter, of which Hans selected one, and then said, still speaking low—
“May I, with your good leave, tarry till my brother yonder is at liberty, and have speech of him? I have ridden from London to see him.”
The keen eyes examined Hans critically.
“You—brothers?” was all the reply of the old bookseller.
“Not by blood,” said Hans with a smile, “nor truly by nation: but we were bred up as brothers from our cradles.”
“You may tarry. Pray you, sit.”
Hans complied, and sat for a few minutes watching Aubrey. He perceived with satisfaction that his costume was simple and suitable, entirely devoid of frippery and foppery; that his mind seemed to be taken up with his employment; that he was looking well, and appeared to understand his business. At last the grave and reverend signors had made their choice; Bullinger’s Decades, at nine shillings, was selected, and Beza’s New Testament, at sixteen: Aubrey received the money, gave the change, and delivered the books. He was following his customers down the shop when his eyes fell on Hans. Whether on this occasion he was welcome or not, Hans was not left to doubt. Every feature of Aubrey’s face, every accent of his voice, spoke gratification in no measured tones.
“Hans, my dear brother!” he said as they clasped hands. “When came you? and have you had to eat since? How left you all at home?”
Mr Whitstable was looking on, with eyes that saw.
“I came but now, and have left all well, God be thanked,” said Hans. “I have not yet eaten, for I wished to see you first. I will now go and break bread, and we can meet in the evening, when you are at large.”
There was a momentary look of extreme disappointment, and then Aubrey said—
“That is right, as you alway are. Where meet we? under West Gate?”
Mr Whitstable spoke. “Methinks, Mr Louvaine, it were pity to snatch the crust from an hungry man. Go you now with your brother, until he make an end of his supper; then return here in time to make up accounts and close. If this gentleman be the steady and sober man that his looks and your words promise, you can bring him hither to your chamber for the night.”
“I thank you right heartily, Master. He is sober as Mr Vice-Chancellor, and good as an angel,” said Aubrey.
Hans followed him, with an amused look, to the Golden Lion, where they supped on chicken and Banbury cakes, and Aubrey heard all the news—the one item excepted which Hans had come especially to tell. The tongues went fast, but no sooner had the hour rung out from the clock of Saint Ebbe’s than Aubrey sprang up and said he must return.
“Thou canst wander forth for an hour, only lose not thyself,” he said to Hans, “and when my work is done, I will join thee beneath the arch of West Gate.”
Hans obeyed with amused pleasure. This was an altered Aubrey. When had he cared to keep promises and be in time for work? They met presently under West Gate, and Aubrey played cicerone until dusk set in, when he took Hans to his own quiet little chamber at the bookseller’s shop. It was very plainly furnished, and Hans quickly saw that on the drawers lay a Bible which bore evidence of being used.
“Thou little wist,” said Hans affectionately, when they were thus alone, “how glad I am to see thee, Aubrey, and to perceive thy good welfare in this place.”
He did not add “good conduct,” but he meant it.
“How much richer shouldst thou have been, Hans, if thou hadst never beheld me?” was the answer.
“I should have been poorer, by the loss of the only brother I ever had.”
There was more feeling in Aubrey’s look than Hans was wont to see, and an amount of tenderness in his tone which he had no idea how it astonished Hans to hear.
“My brother,” he said, “you have had your revenge, and it is terrible.”
Hans looked, as he felt, honestly surprised. It was his nature to remember vividly benefits received, but to forget those which he conferred.
“Dost thou not know?” said Aubrey, reading the look. “After my unworthy conduct toward thee, that thou shouldst take my debts upon thine own—”
“Prithee, shut thy mouth,” answered Hans with a laugh, “and make me not to blush by blowing the trumpet over that which but gave me a pleasure. I ensure thee, my brother,” he added more gravely, “that I had a sufficiency to cover all was a true contentment unto me. As to revenge, no such thought ever crossed my mind for a moment.”
“The revenge had been lesser if it were designed,” was the reply.
“And how goeth it with thee here?” asked Hans, not sorry to change the subject. “Art thou content with thy work?—and doth Mr Whitstable entreat thee well?”
“Mr Whitstable is the manner of master good for me,” responded Aubrey with a smile: “namely, not unkindly, but inflexibly firm and just. I know that from him, if I deserve commendation, I shall have it; and if I demerit blame, I am evenly sure thereof: which is good for me. As to content—ay, I am content; but I can scarce go further, and say I find a pleasure in my work. That were more like thee than me.”
“And if it so were, Aubrey, that the Lord spake unto thee and me, saying, ‘Work thus no more, but return unto the old life as it was ere ye came to London town,’—how shouldst thou regard that?”
The momentary light of imagination which sprang to Aubrey’s eyes was succeeded and quenched by one of wistful uncertainty.
“I cannot tell, Hans,” said he. “That I were glad is of course: that I were wise to be glad is somewhat more doubtful. I am afeared I might but slip back into the old rut, and fall to pleasing of myself. Riches and liberty seem scarce to be good things for me; and I have of late,”—a little hesitation accompanied this part of the sentence—“I have thought it best to pray God to send me that which He seeth good, and not to grant my foolish desires. Truly, I seem to know better, well-nigh every day, how foolish I have been, and how weak I yet am.”
There was a second of silence before Hans said—
“Aubrey, what God sees good for thee, now, is the old home at Selwick Hall. May He bless it to thee, and fit thee for it!”
“What mean you?” asked the bewildered Aubrey.
A few minutes put him in possession of the facts. Nothing which had passed convinced Hans of a radical change in Aubrey’s heart, so completely as the first sentence with which he greeted the news of his altered fortune.
“Then my dear old grandmother can go home!”
“Thou wilt be glad to hear,” added Hans, quietly, “that Mrs Joyce Morrell hath sent her a caroche and horses wherein to journey at her ease. Mrs Temperance and Lettice go back to Keswick.”
“Not if I know it!” was the hearty response. “I lack Aunt Temperance to keep me straight. Otherwise I should have nought save soft south-west airs playing around me, and she is a cool north breeze that shall brace me to my duty. But how quick, Hans, canst thou get free of Mr Leigh? for we must not tarry Grandmother at her years, and in this summer weather when journeying were least weariful.”
“Wilt thou have me, then, Aubrey?”
“Hans, that is the worst cut thou hast ever given me. I have a mind to say I will not turn back without thee.”
Hans smiled. “I thank thee, my dear brother. I dare say that I can be quit with Mr Leigh as soon as thou canst shake thee free of Mr Whitstable.”
Mr Whitstable smiled rather cynically when the matter was laid before him.
“Well, young gentleman!” said he to Aubrey. “Methinks you shall make a better country squire than you should have done three months gone, and maybe none the worse for your tarrying with the old bookseller.”
“Mr Whitstable, I con you hearty thanks for your good and just entreatment of me,” said Aubrey, “and if ever your occasions call you into Cumberland, I promise you a true welcome at Selwick Hall.”
That night, Aubrey seemed to be in a brown study, and the sagacious Hans let him alone till his thoughts should blossom forth into words of themselves. They came at last.
“Hans, thou wist it is customary for chaplains to be entertained in great houses?”
“Ay,” said Hans, smiling to himself.
“I desire not to ape the great: but—thinkest thou we might not have a prophet’s chamber in some corner at Selwick—the chamber over the east porch, belike?”
“Truly, if the prophet were to hand,” said Hans, looking as grave as if he were not secretly amused.
“The prophet is to hand rather than the chamber,” was the answer. “Couldst thou not guess I meant Mr Marshall?”
Hans had guessed it some seconds back.
“A good thought, truly,” he replied.
“That will I ask my grandmother,” said Aubrey.
It was the evening after Aubrey’s return to the White Bear when that proposal was suggested to Lady Louvaine. A light of gladness came to the dim blue eyes.
“My dear lad, how blessed a thought!” said she.
“But what should come of Mrs Agnes, then?” suggested Temperance.
“Oh, she could easily be fitted with some service,” answered Mrs Louvaine, who for once was not in a complaining mood. “Hans, you might ask of Mr Leigh if he know of any such, or maybe of some apprenticeship that should serve her. She can well work with the needle, and is a decent maid, that should not shame her mistress, were she not over high in the world.”
“Mother!”
The indignant tone of that one word brought the handkerchief instantly out of Mrs Louvaine’s pocket.
“Well, really, Aubrey, I do think it most unreasonable! Such a way to speak to your poor mother, and she a widow! When I have but one child, and he—”
“He is sorry, Mother, if he spake to you with disrespect,” said Aubrey in a different tone. “But suffer me to say that if Mr Marshall come with us, so must Mrs Agnes.”
“Now, Faith, do be quiet! I’ve been counting on Mrs Agnes to see to things a bit, and save Edith,—run about for my Lady Lettice, see you, and get our Lettice into her good ways.”
“You don’t say, to spare me,” wailed Mrs Louvaine.
“No, my dear, I don’t,” replied Temperanoe, significantly. “I’ll spare you when you need sparing; don’t you fear.”
Mr Marshall and Agnes were as glad as they were astonished—and that was no little—to hear of the provision in store for them. To pass from those three rooms in Shoe Lane to the breezy hills and wide chambers of Selwick Hall—to live no more from hand to mouth, with little in either, but to be assured, as far as they could be so, among the changes and chances of this mortal life, of bread to eat and raiment to put on—to be treated as beloved and honoured friends instead of meeting with scornful words and averted looks—this was glad news indeed. Mr Marshall rejoiced for his daughter, and Agnes for her father. Hers was a nature which could attain its full happiness only in serving God and man. To have shut herself up and occupied herself with her own amusement would have been misery, not pleasure. The idea of saving trouble to Lady Louvaine and Edith, of filling in some slight degree the empty place of that beloved friend whom Selwick Hall called “Cousin Bess” and Agnes “Aunt Elizabeth”—this opened out to Agnes Marshall a prospect of unadulterated enjoyment. To her father, whose active days were nearly over, and who was old rather with work, hardship, and sorrow, than by the mere passage of time, the lot offered him seemed equally happy. The quiet rest, the absence of care, the plenitude of books, the society of chosen friends who were his fellow-pilgrims, Zionward,—to contemplate such things was almost happiness enough in itself. And if he smothered a sigh in remembering that his Eleanor slept in that quiet churchyard whence she could never more be summoned to rejoice with him, it was followed at once by the happier recollection that she had seen a gladder sight than this, and that she was satisfied with it.
It was but natural that the journey home should be of the most enjoyable character. The very season of the year added to its zest. The five ladies and two girls travelled in the coach—private carriages were much more roomy then than now, and held eight if not ten persons with comfort—Mr Lewthwaite, Aubrey, Hans, and the two maids, were on horseback. So they set forth from the White Bear.
“Farewell to thee!” said Charity to that stolid-looking animal, as she rode under it for the last time. “Rachel, what dost thou mean, lass?—art thou crying to leave yon beast or Mistress Abbott?”
“Nay, nother on ’em, for sure!” said Rachel, wiping her eyes; “I’ve nobut getten a fly into my eye.”
Mrs Abbott, however, was not behindhand. She came out to her gate to see the cavalcade depart, followed by a train of youthful Abbotts, two or three talking at once, as well as herself. What reached the ears of the ladies in the coach, therefore, was rather a mixture.
“Fare you well, Lady Louvaine, and all you young gentlewomen—and I hope you’ll have a safe journey, and a pleasant; I’m sure—”
“I’ll write and tell you the new modes, Mrs Lettice,” said Prissy; “you’ll have ne’er a chance to—”
“Be stuck in the mud ere you’ve gone a mile,” came in Seth’s voice.
“And where tarry you to-night, trow?” demanded Mrs Abbott. “Is it to be at Saint Albans or—”
“Up atop of yon tree,” screamed Hester; “there she was with a kitten in her mouth, and—”
“All the jewels you could think of,” Dorcas was heard to utter.
The words on either side were lost, but nobody—except, perhaps, the speakers—thought the loss a serious one.
Under way at last, the coach rumbled with dignity up King Street, through the Court gates, past Charing Cross and along the Strand—a place fraught with painful memories to one at least of the party—past the Strand Cross, through Temple Bar, up Fetter Lane, over Holborn Bridge and Snow Hill, up Aldersgate Street, along the Barbican, and by the fields to Shoreditch, into the Saint Alban’s Road. As they came out into the Shoreditch Road, a little above Bishopsgate, they were equally surprised and gratified to find Lady Oxford’s groom of the chambers standing and waiting for their approach. As he recognised the faces, he stepped forward. In his hand was a very handsome cloak of fine cloth, of the shade of brown then called meal-colour, lined with crimson plush, and trimmed with beaver fur.
“Madam, my Lady bids you right heartily farewell, and prays you accept this cloak to lap you at night in your journey, with her loving commendations: ’tis of her Ladyship’s own wearing.”
It was considered at that time to add zest to a gift, if it had been used by the giver.
Lady Louvaine returned a message suited to the gratitude and pleasure which she felt at this timely remembrance, and the coach rolled away, leaving London behind.
“Weel, God be wi’ thee and all thine!” said Charity, looking back at the great metropolis: “and if I ne’er see thee again, it’ll none break my heart.”
“Nay, nor mine nother!” added Rachel. “I can tell thee, lass, I’m fair fain to get out o’ th’ smoke and mire. Th’ devil mun dwell i’ London, I do think.”
“I doubt it not,” said Hans, who heard the remark, “but he has country houses, Rachel.”
“Well!” said that damsel, in a satisfied tone: “at any rate, we shalln’t find him at Selwick!”
“Maybe not, if the house be empty,” was Hans’s reply: “but he will come in when we do, take my word for it.”
“Yo’re reet, Mestur ’Ans,” said Charity, gravely.
Four days’ travelling brought them to the door of the Hill House at Minster Lovel. They had had no opportunity of sending word of their coming.
“How amazed Aunt Joyce will be, and Rebecca!” said Edith, with a happy laugh.
“I reckon they’ll have some work to pack us all in,” answered Temperance.
“Let be, children,” was the response of Lady Louvaine. “The Hill House is great enough to hold every one of us, and Aunt Joyce’s heart is yet bigger.”
For a coach and six to draw up before the door of a country house was then an event which scarcely occurred so often as once a year. It was no great wonder, therefore, if old Rebecca looked almost dazed as she opened the door to so large a party.
“We are going home, Rebecca!” cried Edith’s bright, familiar voice. “How fares my Aunt?”
“Eh, you don’t mean it’s you, mine own dear child?” cried the old servant lovingly. “And your Ladyship belike! Well, here is a blessed even! It’ll do the mistress all the good in the world. Well, she’s very middling, my dear—very middling indeed: but I think ’tis rather weariness than any true malady, and that’ll flee afore the sight of you like snow afore the warm sun. Well, there’s a smart few of you!—all the better, my dear, all the better!”
“You can hang one or two of us up in a tree, if you can’t find us room,” said Aubrey as he sprang from his saddle.
“There’s room enough for such good stuff, and plenty to spare,” answered old Rebecca. “If you was some folks, now, I might be glad to have the spare chambers full of somewhat else—I might! Come in, every one of you!”
“We’ll help you to make ready, all we can,” said Rachel, as she trudged after Rebecca to the kitchen.
“Ay, we will,” echoed Charity.
Warmer and tenderer yet was the welcome in the Credence Chamber, where Aunt Joyce lay on her couch, looking as though not a day had passed since she bade them farewell. She greeted each of them lovingly until Aubrey came to her. Then she said, playfully yet meaningly,—“Who is this?”
“Aunt Joyce,” replied Aubrey, as he bent down to kiss her, “shall I say, ‘A penitent fool?’”
“Nay, my lad,” was the firm answer. “A fool is never a penitent, nor a penitent a fool. The fool hath been: let the penitent abide.”
“This is our dear, kind friend, Mr Marshall, Joyce,” said Lady Louvaine. “He is so good as to come with us, and be our chaplain at Selwick: and here is his daughter.”
“I think Mrs Joyce can guess,” said the clergyman, “that the true meaning of those words is that her Lady ship hath been so good as to allow of the same, to our much comfort.”
“Very like you are neither of you over bad,” said Aunt Joyce with her kindly yet rather sarcastic smile. “I am glad to see you, Mr Marshall; hitherto we have known each other but on paper. Is this your daughter? Why, my maid, you have a look of the dearest and blessedest woman of all your kin—dear old Cousin Bess, that we so loved. May God make you like her in the heart, no less than the face!”
“Indeed, Mistress, I would say Amen, with all mine heart,” answered Agnes, with a flush of pleasure.
There was a long discussion the next day upon ways and means, which ended in the decision that Aubrey and Hans, Faith and Temperance, with the two maids, should go forward to Selwick after a few days’ rest, to get things in order; Lady Louvaine, Edith, Lettice, Agnes, and Mr Marshall, remaining at Minster Lovel for some weeks.
“And I’m as fain as I’d be of forty shillings,” said old Rebecca to Edith. “Eh, but the mistress just opens out when you’re here like a flower in the sunlight!”
“Now, don’t you go to want Faith to tarry behind,” observed Temperance, addressing the same person: “the dear old gentlewomen shall be a deal happier without her and her handkerchief. It shall do her good to bustle about at Selwick, as she will if she’s mistress for a bit, and I’ll try and see that she does no mischief, so far as I can.”
Aunt Joyce, who was the only third person present, gave an amused little laugh.
“How long shall she be mistress, Temperance?”
“Why, till my Lady Lettice comes,” said Temperance, with a rather perplexed look.
“For ‘Lady Lettice,’ read ‘Mrs Agnes Marshall,’” was the answer of Aunt Joyce.
“Aunt Joyce!” cried Edith. “You never mean—”
“Don’t I? But I do, Mistress Bat’s-Eyes.”
“Well, I never so much as—”
“Never so much as saw a black cow a yard off, didst thou? See if it come not true. Now, my maids, go not and meddle your fingers in the pie, without you wish it not to come true. Methinks Aubrey hath scarce yet read his own heart, and Agnes is innocent as driven snow of all imagination thereof: nevertheless, mark my words, that Agnes Marshall shall be the next lady of Selwick Hall. And I wouldn’t spoil the pie, were I you; it shall eat tasty enough if you’ll but leave it to bake in the oven. It were a deal better so than for the lad to fetch home some fine town madam that should trouble herself with his mother and grandmother but as the cuckoo with the young hedge-sparrows in his foster-mother’s nest. She’s a downright good maid, Agnes, and she is bounden to your mother and yon, and so is her father: and though, if Selwick were to turn you forth, your home is at Minster Lovel, as my child here knows,”—and Aunt Joyce laid her hand lovingly on that of Edith—“yet while we be here in this short wilderness journey, ’tis best not to fall out by the way. Let things be, children: God can take better care of His world and His Church than you or I can do it.”
“Eh, I’ll meddle with nought so good,” responded Temperance, heartily. “If the lad come to no worse than that, he shall fare uncommon well, and better than he deserveth. As for the maid, I’m not quite so sure: but I’ll hope for the best.”
“The best thing you can do, my dear. ‘We are saved by hope’—not as a man is saved by the rope that pulleth him forth of the sea, but rather as he is saved by the light that enableth him to see and grasp it. He may find the rope in the dark; yet shall he do it more quicklier and with much better comfort in the light. ‘Hope thou in God,’ ‘Have faith in God,’ ‘Fear not,’—all those precepts be brethren; and one or other of them cometh very oft in Scripture. For a man cannot hope without some faith, and he shall find it hard to hope along with fear. Faith, hope, love—these do abide for ever.”
The party for Selwick had set off, with some stir, in the early morning, and the quiet of evening found the friends left at the Hill House feeling as those left behind usually do,—enjoying the calm, yet with a sense of want.
Perhaps Mr Marshall was the least conscious of loss of any of the party, for he was supremely happy in the library over the works of Bishop Jewell. In the gallery upstairs, Lettice and Agnes sat in front of the two portraits which had so greatly interested the former on her previous visit, and talked about “Aunt Anstace” and “Cousin Bess,” and the blessed sense of relief and thankfulness which pervaded Agnes’s heart. And lastly, in the Credence Chamber, Aunt Joyce lay on her couch, and Lady Louvaine sat beside her in the great cushioned chair, while Edith, on a low stool at the foot of the couch, sat knitting peacefully, and glancing lovingly from time to time at those whom she called her two mothers.
“Joyce, dear,” Lady Louvaine was saying, “’tis just sixty years since I came over that sunshine afternoon from the Manor House, to make acquaintance with thee and Anstace. Sixty years! why, ’tis the lifetime of an old man.”
“And it looks but like sixty days, no doth it?” was the rejoinder. “Thou and I, Lettice, by reason of strength have come to fourscore years; yet is our life but a vapour that vanisheth away. I marvel, at times, how our Anstace hath passed her sixty years in Heaven. What do they there?”
“Dost thou mind, Joyce, Aubrey’s once saying that we are told mainly what they do not there? Out of that, I take it, we may pick what they do. There shall be no night—then there must be eternal light; no curse—then must there be everlasting blessedness; no tears—then is there everlasting peace; no toil—then is there perpetual rest and comfort.”
“Go on, Lettice—no sickness, therefore perfect health; no parting, therefore everlasting company and eternal love.”
“Ay. What a blessed forecast! Who would not give all that he hath, but to be sure he should attain it? And yet men will fling all away, but to buy one poor hour’s sinful pleasure, one pennyworth of foolish delight.”
“And howsoe’er often they find the latter pall and cloy upon their tongues, yet shall they turn to it again with never-resting eagerness, as the sow to her wallowing in the mire. There is a gentleman dwells a matter of four miles hence, with whose wife and daughters I am acquaint, and once or twice hath he come with them to visit me. He hath got hold of a fancy—how, judge you—that man is not a fallen creature; indiscreet at times, maybe, and so forth, yet not wholly depraved. How man comes by this indiscretion, seeing God made him upright, he is discreet enough not to reveal. ‘Dear heart!’ said I, ‘but how comes it, if so be, that man shall sell his eternal birthright for a mess of sorry pottage, as over and over again you and I have seen him do? Call you this but indiscretion? Methinks you should scarce name it thus if Mrs Aletheia yonder were to cast away a rich clasp of emeralds for a piece of a broken bottle of green glass. If you whipped her not well for such indiscretion, I were something astonied.’ Well, see you, he cannot perceive it.”
“Man’s perceptions be fallen, along with all else.”
“Surely: and then shall this blind bat reckon, poor fool, that he could devise out of his disordered imagination a better God than the real. Wot you what this Mr Watkinson said to me once when we fell to talking of the sacrifice of Isaac? Oh, he could not allow that a loving and perfect God could demand so horrible a sacrifice; and another time, through Christ had we won the right notion of God. ‘Why,’ said I, ‘how know you that? Are you God, that you are able to judge what God should be? Through Christ, in very deed, have we won to know God; but that is by reason of the knowledge and authority of Him that revealed Him, not by the clear discernment and just judgment of us that received that revelation.’ I do tell thee, Lettice—what with this man o’ the one side with his philosophical follies, and Parson Turnham on the other, with his heathenish fooleries, I am at times well-nigh like old Elias, ready to say, ‘Now then, O Lord, take me out of this wicked world, for I cannot stand it any longer.’”
“He will take thee, dear Joyce, so soon as thou shalt come to the further end of the last of those good works which He hath prepared for thee to walk in.”
“Well!—then must Edith do my good works for me. When our Father calls this child in out of the sun and wind, and bids her lie down and fall asleep, must that child see to it that my garden-plots be kept trim, and no evil insects suffered to prey upon the leaves. Ay, my dear heart: thou wilt be the lady of the Hill House, when old Aunt Joyce is laid beneath the mould. May God bless thee in it, and it to thee! but whensoever the change come, I shall be the gainer by it, not thou.”
“Not I, indeed!” said Edith in a husky voice.
“‘As a watch in the night!’” said Joyce Morrell solemnly. “‘As a vapour that vanisheth away!’ What time have we for idle fooleries? Only time to learn the letters that we shall spell hereafter—to form the strokes and loops wherewith we shall write by and bye. Here we know but the alphabet of either faith or love.”
“And how often are we turned back in the very alphabet of patience!”
“Ay, we think much to tarry five minutes for God, though He may have waited fifty years for us. I reckon it takes God to bear with this poor thing, man, that even at his best times is ever starting aside like a broken bow,—going astray like a lost sheep. Thank God that He hath laid on the only Man that could bear them the iniquities of us all, and that He hath borne them into a land not inhabited, where the Lord Himself can find them no more.”
“And let us thank God likewise,” said Lady Lettice, “that our blessed duty is to abide in Him, and that when He shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before Him at His coming.”