Chapter Seven.
An Apple-Cast and a Letter.
“Better the blind faith of our youth
Than doubt, which all truth braves;
Better to die, God’s children dear,
Than live, the Devil’s slaves.”
Dinah Mulock.
“Good-morrow, Lady Lettice! I am come to ask a favour.”
“Ask it, I pray you, Mrs Rookwood.”
“Will you suffer Mrs Lettice to come to our apple-cast on Tuesday next? We shall have divers young folks of our neighbours—Mrs Abbott’s Mary, Dorcas, and Hester, Mrs Townsend’s Rebecca, my Lady Woodward’s Dulcibel and Grissel, and such like; and our Doll, I am in hopes, shall be back from Suffolk, and maybe her cousin Bessy with her. I have asked Mr Louvaine to come, and twain more of my Lord Oxford’s gentlemen; and Mr Manners, Mr Stone, and our Tom, shall be there. What say you?”
Lady Louvaine looked with a smile at her granddaughter, who sat in the window with a book. She was not altogether satisfied with the Rookwoods, yet less from anything they said or did than from what they omitted to say and do. They came regularly to church, they attended the Sacrament, they asked the Vicar to their dinner-parties, they were very affable and friendly to their neighbours. There was absolutely nothing on which it was possible to lay a reproving finger, and say, This is what I do not like. And yet, while she could no more give a reason for distrusting them than the schoolboy for objecting to the famous Dr Fell, she did instinctively distrust them. Still, Lettice was a good girl, on the whole a discreet girl; she had very few pleasures, especially such as took her outside her home, and gave her the companionship of girls of her own age. Lettice had been taught, as all Puritan maidens were, that “life is, to do the will of God,” and that pleasure was not to be sought at all, and scarcely to be accepted except in its simplest forms, and as coming naturally along with the duties of life. An admirable lesson—a lesson which girls sadly need to learn now, if only for the lowest reason—that pleasures thus taken are infinitely more pleasing than when sought, and the taste for them is keener and more enduring. To the moral taste, no less than the physical, plain fare with a good appetite is incomparably more enjoyable than the finest dainties with none: and the moral appetite can cloy and pall at least as soon as the physical. Lettice’s healthy moral nature had been content with the plain fare, and had never cried out for dainties. But, like all young folks, she liked a pleasant change, and her grandmother, who had thought her looking pale and somewhat languid with the summer heat in town, was glad that she should have the enjoyment. She knew she might trust her.
Not even to herself did Lady Louvaine confess her deepest reason for allowing Lettice to go to the apple-cast—an assembly resembling in its nature the American “bee,” and having an apple-gathering and storing for its object. It was derived from the fact that Aubrey had been invited. It occurred to her that something might transpire in Lettice’s free and innocent narrative of her enjoyment, which would be of service in the difficult business of dealing with Aubrey at this juncture.
Lettice, as beseemed a maiden of her years, was silent, though her eyes said, “Please!” in very distinct language.
“I thank you, Mrs Rookwood; Lettice may go.”
Lettice’s eyes lighted up.
“Then, Mrs Lettice, will you step in about nine o’clock? My maids’ll be fain to see you. And if any of you gentlewomen should have a liking to look in—”
“Nay, the girls should count us spoil-sports,” said Edith, laughingly.
“Now come, Mrs Edith! ’tis not so long since you were a young maid.”
“Twelve good years, Mrs Rookwood: as long, pretty nigh, as Hester Abbott has been in the world.”
“Eh, but years don’t go for much, not with some folks.”
“Not with them that keep the dew of their youth,” said Lady Louvaine with a smile. “But to do that, friend, a woman should dwell very near to Him who only hath immortality.”
It was something so unusual for one of this sober household to go out to a party, that a flutter arose, when Mrs Rookwood had departed, concerning Lettice’s costume.
“She had best go in a washing gown,” was the decision of her practical Aunt Temperance. “If she’s to be any good with the apples, she must not wear her Sunday best.”
Lettice’s Sunday best was not of an extravagant character, being a dark green perpetuana gown, trimmed with silver lace, a mantle of plum-coloured cloth, and a plum-coloured hood lined with dark green.
“But a washing gown, Temperance! It should look so mean,” objected Mrs Louvaine.
“Her best gown’ll look meaner, if all the lace be hung with cobwebs, and all the frilling lined with apple-parings,” said Temperance.
“She’ll take better care of it than so, I hope,” said Edith. “And a lawn gown should be cold for this season.”
“Well, let the child wear her brown kersey. That’ll not spoil so much as some.”
In her heart Lettice hoped she would not have to wear the brown kersey. Brown was such an ugly colour! and the kersey, already worn two seasons, was getting shabby—far too shabby to wear at a party. She would have liked to put on her best. But no girl of twenty, unmarried, at that date decided such matters for herself.
“Oh, never that ugly thing!” said Mrs Louvaine. “I mean her to wear my pearls, and that brown stuff—”
Wear Aunt Faith’s pearls! Lettice’s heart beat.
“Faith, my dear, I would not have the child use ornaments,” said Lady Louvaine quietly. “You wot, those of our way of thinking do commonly discard them. Let us not give occasion for scandal. I would have Lettice go neat and cleanly, and not under her station, but no more.”
The palpitations of Lettice’s heart sobered down. Of course she could not expect to wear pearls and such worldly vanities. Grandmother was always right.
“I can tell you, Mrs Gertrude and Mrs Anne shall not be in brown kersey,” said Mrs Louvaine, in her usual petulant tone. “And if Aubrey don him not in satin and velvet, my name is not Faith.”
“It shouldn’t have been, my dear, for it isn’t your nature,” was her sister’s comment.
“We need not follow a multitude to do evil,” quietly responded Lady Louvaine, as she sat and knitted peacefully.
“Well, Madam, what comes that to—the brown kersey, trow? Edith saith truth, lawn is cold this weather.”
“I think, my dear, the green perpetuana were not too good, with clean apron, ruff, and cuffs, and a silver lace: but I would have nought more.”
So Lettice made her appearance at the apple-cast in her Sunday gown, but decked with no pearls, and her own brown hair turned soberly back under her hood. She put no hat on over it, as she had only to slip into the next house. In the hall Tom Rookwood met her, and bowing, requested the honour of conducting her into the garden, where his sisters and cousin were already busy with the day’s duties.
On the short ladder which rested against one of the apple-trees stood Dorothy, the tallest of the Rookwoods, clad in a long apron of white lawn edged with lace, over a dress of rich dark blue silk, gathering apples, and passing them to Anne at the foot of the ladder, by whom they were delivered to Gertrude, who packed them in sundry crates ready for the purpose. By Gertrude’s side stood a dark, rosy, merry-looking child of six, whom she introduced to Lettice as her cousin Bessy. Lettice, who had expected Bessy to be much older, was disappointed, for she was curious to know what kind of a creature a female Papist might be.
“Now, Tom, do your duty!” cried Dorothy, as Tom was about to retire. “I am weary of gathering, and you having the longest legs and arms amongst us, should take my place. Here come Mr Montague and Rebecca Townsend; I’m coming down. Up with you!”
Tom pulled a face and obeyed: but showing a disposition to pelt Dorothy and Bessy, instead of carefully delivering the apples unbruised to Anne, he was screamed at and set upon at once, Gertrude leading the opposition.
“Tom, you wicked wretch! Come down this minute, or else behave properly. I shall—”
The—accidental?—descent of an enormous apple on the bridge of Gertrude’s nose put her announcement of her intentions to speedy flight: and in laughing over the fracas, the ice rapidly melted between the young strangers.
The apple-gathering proceeded merrily, relieved by a few scenes of this sort, until the trees were stripped, the apples laid carefully in the crates for transportation to the garrets, and on their arrival, as carefully taken out and spread on sheets of grey paper on the floor. When all was done, the girls were marshalled into Gertrude’s room to tidy themselves: after which they went down to the dining-room. Mrs Rookwood had provided an excellent dinner for her youthful guests, including geese, venison, and pheasants, various pies and puddings, Muscadel and Canary wines. After dinner they played games in the hall and dining-room, hood-man blind, and hunt the slipper, and when tired of these, separated into little groups or formed tête-à-têtes for conversation. Lettice, who could not quite get rid of an outside feeling, as if she did not belong to the world in which she found herself, was taken possession of by her oldest acquaintance, Gertrude, and drawn into a window-seat for what that young lady termed “a proper chat.”
“I thought my cousin was to be here,” said Lettice, glancing over the company.
“Ay, Tom asked him, I believe,” said Gertrude. “Maybe his Lord could not spare him. Do you miss him?”
“I would like to have seen him,” said Lettice innocently.
“Tom would not love to hear you say so much, I can tell you,” laughed Gertrude. “He admires you very much, Lettice. Oh, do let us drop the ‘Mistress’—it is so stiff and sober—I hate it.”
“Me!” was all that it occurred to Lettice to answer.
“You. Don’t you like men to admire you?”
“I don’t know; they never did.”
Gertrude went off into a soft explosion of silvery laughter.
“O Lettice, you are good! You have been brought up with all those sober, starched old gentlewomen, till you don’t know what life is—why, my dear, you might as well be a nun!”
“Don’t I know what life is?” said Lettice. “I’ve had twenty years of it.”
“You haven’t had twenty days of it—not life. You’ve been ruled like a copy-book ever since you were born. I have pitied you, poor little victim, you cannot guess how much! I begged Mother to try and win you for to-day. She said she did not believe Starch and Knitting-Pins would suffer it, but she would try. Wasn’t I astonished when I heard you really were to come!”
“What do you mean by Starch and Knitting-Pins?” asked the bewildered Lettice.
“Oh, that awful aunt of yours who looks as if she had just come out of the wash, and your sweet-smiling grandmother who is always fiddling with knitting-pins—”
Gertrude stopped suddenly. She understood, better than Lettice did herself, the involuntary, unpremeditated gesture which put a greater distance between them on the window-seat, and knew in a moment that she had scandalised her guest.
“My dear creature!” she said with one of her soft laughs, “if you worship your starchy aunt, I won’t say another word! And as to my Lady Louvaine, I am sure I never meant the least disrespect to her. Of course she is very sweet and good, and all that: but dear me! have you been bred up to think you must not label people with funny names? Everybody does, my dear—no offence meant at all, I assure you.”
“I beg your pardon!” said Lettice stiffly—more so, indeed, than she knew or meant. “If that be what you call ‘life,’ I am afraid I know little about it.”
“And wish for no more!” said Gertrude, laughing. “Well, if I offended you, I ought to beg pardon. I did not intend it, I am sure. But, my dear, what a pity you do not crisp your hair, or curl it! That old-fashioned roll back is as ancient as my grandmother. And a partlet, I declare! They really ought to let you be a little more properly dressed. You never see girls with turned-back hair now.”
Lettice did not know whether to blush for her deficiencies, or to be angry with Gertrude for pointing them out. She felt more inclined to the latter.
“Now, if I had you to dress,” said Gertrude complacently, “I should just put you in a decent, neat corset, with a white satin gown, puffed with crimson velvet, a velvet hood lined with white satin, a girdle of gold and pearls, crimson stockings, white satin slippers, a lace rebato, and a pearl necklace. Oh, how charming you would look! You would not know yourself. Then I should put a gold bodkin in your hair, and a head-drop of pearls set round a diamond, and bracelets instead of these lawn cuffs, and a fan; and wash your face in distilled waters, and odoriferous oils for your hands.”
“But I should not like my hands oily!” said Lettice in amazement.
Gertrude laughed. “Oh yes, you would, when you were accustomed to it. And then just the least touch on your forehead and cheeks, and—O Lettice, my dear, you would have half London at your feet!”
“The ‘least touch’ of what?” inquired Lettice.
“Oh, just to show the blue veins, you know.”
“‘Show the blue veins!’ What can you show them with?”
“Oh, just a touch of blue,” said Gertrude, who began to fear she had gone further than Lettice would follow, and did not want to be too explicit.
“You never, surely, mean—paint?” asked Lettice in tones of horror.
“My dear little Puritan, be not so shocked! I do, really, mean paint; but not all over your face—nothing of the sort: only a touch here and there.”
“I’ll take care it does not touch me,” said Lettice decidedly. “I don’t want to get accustomed to such abominable things. And as to having half London at my feet, there isn’t room for it, and I am sure I should not like it if there were.”
“O Lettice, Lettice!” cried Gertrude amidst her laughter. “I never saw such a maid. Why, you are old before you are young.”
“I have heard say,” answered Lettice, laughing herself, “that such as so be are young when they are old.”
“Oh, don’t talk of being old—’tis horrid to think on. But, my dear, you should really have a little fine breeding, and not be bred up a musty, humdrum Puritan. I do hate those she-precise hypocrites, that go about in close stomachers and ruffles of Geneva print, and cannot so much as cudgel their maids without a Scripture to back them. Nobody likes them, you know. Don’t grow into one of them. You’ll never be married if you do.”
Lettice was silent, but she sat with slightly raised eyebrows, and a puzzled expression about her lips.
“Well, why don’t you speak?” said Gertrude briskly.
“Because I don’t know what to say. I can’t tell what you expect me to say: and you give such queer reasons for not doing things.”
“Do I so?” said Gertrude, looking amused. “Why, what queer reasons have I given?”
“That nobody will like me, and I shall never be married!”
“Well! aren’t they very good reasons?”
“They don’t seem to me to be reasons at all. I may never be married, whether I do it or not; and that will be as God sees best for me, so why trouble myself about it? And as to people not liking me because I am a Puritan, don’t you remember the Lord’s words, ‘If the world hate you, ye know that it hated Me before it hated you’?”
“Oh, you sucked in the Bible with your mother’s milk, I suppose,” said Gertrude pettishly, “and have had it knitted into you ever since by your grandmother’s needles. I did not expect you to be a spoil-sport, Lettice. I thought you would be only too happy to come out of your convent for a few hours.”
“Thank you, I don’t want to be a spoil-sport, and I do not think the Bible is, unless the sports are bad ones, and they might as well be spoiled, might they not?”
“There’s Mr Stone!” cried Gertrude inconsequently, and in a relieved tone, for Lettice was leading in a direction whither she had no wish to follow. “Look! isn’t he a fine young man? What a shame to have christened so comely a man by so ugly a name as Jeremy!”
“Do you think so? It is a beautiful name; it means ‘him whom God hath appointed,’—Aunt Edith says so.”
“Think you I care what it means!” was the answer, in a rather vexed tone, though it was accompanied by a laugh. “’Tis ugly and old-fashioned, child. Now your cousin, Mr Louvaine, has a charming name. But fancy having a name with a sermon wrapped up in it!”
“I do not understand!” said Lettice a little blankly. “You seem to think little of those things whereof I have been taught to think much; and to think much of those things whereof I have been led to think little. It puzzles me. Excuse me.”
Gertrude laughed more good-naturedly.
“My dear little innocence!” said she. “I am sorry to let the cold, garish daylight in upon your pretty little stained-glass creed: it is never pleasant to have scales taken from your eyes. But really, you look on things in such false colours, that needs must. Why, my child, if you were to go out into the world, you would find all those fancies laughed to scorn. ’Tis only Puritans love sermons and Bibles and such things. No doubt they are all right, and good, and all that; quite proper for Sunday, and sick-beds, and so on. I am not an infidel, of course. But then—well?”
Lettice’s face of utter amazement arrested the flow of words on Gertrude’s lips.
“Would your mother think you loved her, Gertrude, if you told her you never wanted to see her except on Sundays and when you were sick? And if God hears all we say, is it not as good as telling Him that? You puzzle me more and more. I have been taught that the world is the enemy of God, and refuses to guide its ways by His Word: but you speak as if it were something good, that we ought to look up to, and hearken what it bids us. It cannot be both. And what God says about it must be true.”
“Lettice, whatever one says, you always come back to your Puritan stuff. I wish you would be natural, like other maids. See, I am about to turn you over to Dorothy. Let us see if she can make something of you—I cannot.—Here, Doll! come and sit here, and talk with Lettice. I want to go and speak to Grissel yonder.”
Dorothy sat down obediently in the window-seat.
“I thought Mr Louvaine was to be here to-day,” she said.
“So did I likewise. I cannot tell why he comes not.”
“Have you seen him lately?”
“No, not in some time. I suppose he is busy.”
Dorothy looked amused. “What think you he doth all the day long?”
Lettice had not been present when Aubrey detailed his day’s occupations, and she was under the impression that he led a busy life, with few idle hours.
“Truly, I know not what,” she answered; “but the Earl, no doubt, hath his duties, and ’tis Aubrey’s to wait on him.”
“The Earl, belike, reads an hour or two with his tutor, seeing he is but a child: and the rest of the time is there music and dancing, riding the great horse, playing at billiards, tennis, bowls, and such like. That is your cousin’s business, Mrs Lettice.”
“Only that?—but I reckon he cannot be let go, but must come after his master’s heels?”
“He is on duty but three days of every week, save at the lever and coucher, and may go whither he list on the other four.”
“Then I marvel he comes not oftener to visit us,” said innocent Lettice.
“Do you so? I don’t,” answered Dorothy, with a little laugh.
“Why?”
“How old are you, Mrs Lettice?”
The notion of discourtesy connected with this query is modern.
“I was twenty last June,” said Lettice.
“Dear heart! I should have supposed you were about two,” said Dorothy, with a little curl of her lip.
“But my grandmother thinks so likewise, and she is near eighty,” said Lettice.
“Ah! Extremes meet,” answered Dorothy, biting her lip.
Lettice tried to think out this obscure remark, but had not made much progress, when at the other end of the room she caught a glimpse of Aubrey. Though he stood with his back to her, she felt sure it was Aubrey. She knew him by the poise of his head and the soft golden gloss on his hair; and a moment later, his voice reached her ear. He came up towards them, stopping every minute to speak with some acquaintance, so that it took him a little time to reach them.
“There is Cousin Aubrey,” said Lettice.
Dorothy answered by a nod. “You admire your cousin?”
“Yes, I think he looks very well,” replied Lettice, in her simplicity.
Dorothy bit her lip again. “He is not so well-favoured as Mr Jeremy Stone,” said she, “though he hath the better name, and comes of an elder line by much.”
By this time Aubrey had come up. “Ah, Lettice!” said he, kissing her. “Mrs Dorothy, your most obedient, humble servant.”
“Are you?” responded she.
“Surely I am. Lay your commands on me.”
“Then bring Mr Stone to speak with me.”
Aubrey gave a little shrug of his shoulders, a laugh, and turned away as if to seek Mr Stone: while Dorothy, the moment his back was turned, put her finger on her lip, and slipped out of sight behind a screen, with her black eyes full of mischievous fun.
“Why, my dear,” said a voice beside Lettice, “is none with you? I thought I saw Doll by your side but now.”
“She was, Gentlewoman,” answered Lettice, looking up at Mrs Rookwood, and beginning to wish herself at home again. Might she slip away? “May I pray you of the time?”
Mrs Rookwood was neither of wealth nor rank to carry a watch, so she went to look at the clock before replying, and Aubrey came up with Mr Stone.
“Why, where is gone Mrs Dorothy?” asked the former, knitting his brows.
“All the beauty has not departed with her,” responded Mr Stone gallantly, bowing low to Lettice, who felt more and more uncomfortable every minute.
“’Tis on the stroke of four, my dear,” said Mrs Rookwood, returning: “but I beg you will not hurry away.”
“Oh, but I must, if you please!” answered Lettice, feeling a sensation of instant and intense relief. “Grandmother bade me not tarry beyond four o’clock. I thank you very much, Gentlewoman, and I wish you farewell.—Aubrey, you will come with me?”
Aubrey looked extremely indisposed to do so, and Lettice wondered for what reason he could possibly wish to stay: but Mrs Rookwood, hearing of Lady Louvaine’s order, made no further attempt to delay her young guest. She called her daughters to take their leave, and in another minute the Golden Fish was left behind, and Lettice ran into the door of the White Bear. She went straight upstairs, and in the chamber which they shared found her Aunt Edith.
Lettice had no idea how uneasy Edith had been all that day. She had a vague, general idea that she was rather a favourite with Aunt Edith—perhaps the one of her nieces whom on the whole she liked best: but of the deep pure well of mother-like love in Edith’s heart for Dudley Murthwaite’s daughter, Lettice had scarcely even a faint conception. She rather fancied herself preferred because, as she supposed, her mother had very likely been Aunt Edith’s favourite sister. Little notion therefore had Lettice of the network of feeling behind the earnest, wistful eyes, as the aunt laid a hand on each shoulder of the niece, and said—
“Well, Lettice?”
“Aunt Edith,” was the answer, “if that is the world I have been in to-day, I hope I shall never go again!”
“Thank God!” spoke Edith’s heart in its innermost depths; but her voice only said, quietly enough, “Ay so, dear heart? and what misliked thee?”
“It is all so queer! Aunt Edith, they think the world is something good. And they want me to paint my face. And they call Aunt Temperance ‘Starch.’ And they say I am only two years old. And they purse up their faces, and look as if it were something strange, if I quote the Bible. And they talk about being married as if it must happen, whether you would or not, and as if it were the only thing worth thinking about. And they seemed to think it was quite delightful to have a lot of gentlemen bowing at yon, and saying all sorts of silly things, and I thought it was horrid. And altogether, I didn’t like it a bit, and I wanted to get home.”
“Lettice, I prayed God to keep thee, and I think He has kept thee. My dear heart, mayest thou ever so look on the world which is His enemy, and His contrary!”
Edith’s voice was not quite under her control—a most unusual thing with her.
“Aunt Edith, I did think at first—when Mrs Rookwood came—that I should like it very well. I felt as if it would be such a pleasant change, you know, and—sometimes I have fancied for a minute that I should like to know how other maids did, and to taste their life, as it were, for a little while; because, you see, I knew we were so quiet, and other people seemed to have more brightness and merriment, and—well, I wanted to see what it was like.”
“Very natural, sweet heart, at thy years. I can well believe it.”
“And so, when Mrs Rookwood asked, I so hoped Grandmother would let me go. And I did enjoy the apple-gathering in the garden, and the games afterward in the hall. But when we sat down, and girls came up and talked to me, and I saw what they had inside their hearts—for if it had not been in their hearts, it would not have come on their tongues—Aunt Edith, I hope I shall never, never, never have anything more to do with the world! I’d rather peel onions and scrub tiles every day of my life than live with people, and perhaps get like them, who could call my dear old Grandmother ‘Knitting-pins’ in scorn, and tell God Himself that they only wanted to think of Him on Sundays. That world’s another world, and I don’t belong to it, and please, I’ll keep out of it!”
“Amen, and Amen!” said Aunt Edith. “My Lettice, let us abide in the world where God is King and Father, and Sun, and Water of Life. May that other world where Satan rules ever be another and a strange world to thee, wherein thou shalt feel thyself a traveller and a stranger. My child, there is very much merriment which hath nought to do with happiness, and very much happiness which hath nought to do with mirth. ’Tis one thing to shut ourselves from God’s world which He made, and quite another to keep our feet away from Satan’s world which he hath ruined. When God saith, ‘Love not the world,’ He means not, Love not flowers, and song-birds, and bright colours, and sunset skies, and the innocent laughter of little children. Those belong to His world; and ’tis only as we take them out thereof, and hand them unto Satan, and they get into the Devil’s world, that they become evil and hurtful unto us. Satan hath ruined, and will yet, so far as he may, all the good things of God; and beware of the most innocent-seeming thing so soon as thou shalt see his touch, upon it. Thank God, my darling, that He suffered thee not to shut thine eyes thereto! Was Aubrey there, Lettice?”
“He came but late, Aunt, and therefore it was, I suppose, that as it seemed, he had no list to come with me. He said he might look in, perchance, at after.”
“And Mr Tom Rookwood?”
“Ay, he was there, though I saw scarce anything of him but just at first.”
Edith was privately glad to hear it. She had been a little afraid of designs upon Lettice from that quarter.
“Aunt, was it not rude to give nicknames?”
“Very rude, and very uncomely, Lettice.”
“I thought it was horrid!” said Lettice.
“Louvaine,” Tom Rookwood was saying, next door, “I met Mr Tom Winter this afternoon, and he asked me if you had gone to the Low Countries to take service under the Archduke. He hath seen nought of you, saith he, these three weeks.”
“I know it,” said Aubrey, sulkily.
“Well, he told me to bid you to supper with him o’ Thursday even next. I shall be there, and Sir Josceline Percy, Sir Edward Bushell, and Mr Kit Wright.”
“I can’t. Wish I could.”
“Why, what’s to hinder?”
“Oh, I’m—ah—promised beforehand,” said Aubrey, clumsily.
“Can’t you get off?”
“No. But I’ve as great a mind to go—”
“You come, and never mind the other fellows. You’ll find us much jollier grigs of the twain.”
“I know that. Hang it, Tom, I’ll go!”
“There’s a brave lad! Four o’clock sharp, at the Duck. I’ll meet you there.”
“Done!”
“Where was he promised, I marvel?” asked Dorothy in a whisper, with a yawn behind her hand.
“Oh, didn’t you see how he flushed and stammered?” said Gertrude, laughing. “I vow, I do believe old Knitting-pins had made him swear on her big Bible that he wouldn’t speak another word to Mr Winter. Had it been but another merry-making, he should never have looked thus.”
There was no visit from Aubrey at the White Bear that evening. He felt as if he could not meet his grandmother’s eyes. He was not yet sufficiently hardened in sin to be easy under an intention of deliberate disobedience and violation of a solemn promise; yet the sin was too sweet to give up. This once, he said to himself: only this once!—and then, no more till the month was over.
When the Saturday evening arrived, Aubrey made a very careful toilet, and set forth for the Strand. It was a long walk, for the Earl of Oxford lived in the City, near Bishopsgate. Aubrey was rather elated at the idea of making the acquaintance of Sir Josceline Percy and Sir Edward Bushell. He was concerned at the family disgrace, as he foolishly considered it, of Hans’s connection with the mercer, and extremely desirous to attain knighthood for himself. The way to do that, he thought, was to get into society. Here was an opening which might conduct him to those Elysian fields—and at the gate stood his grandmother, trying to wave him away. He would not be deprived of his privileges by the foolish fancies of an old woman. What did old women know of the world? Aubrey was not aware that sixty years before, that very grandmother, then young Lettice Eden, had thought exactly the same thing of those who stood in her way to the same visionary Paradise.
Temple Bar was just left behind him, and the Duck was near, when to Aubrey’s surprise, and not by any means to his satisfaction, a hand was laid upon his shoulder.
“Hans! you here?”
“Truly so. Where look you I should be an half-hour after closing time?”
This was a most awkward contretemps. How should Hans be got rid of before the Duck was reached?
“You are on your way to the White Bear,” said Hans, in the tone of one who states an incontrovertible fact, “Have with you.”
Aubrey privately wished Hans in the Arctic Sea or the torrid zone, or anywhere out of the Strand for that afternoon. And as if to render his discomfiture more complete, here came Mr Winter and Tom Rookwood, arm in arm, just as they reached Mrs More’s door. What on earth was to be done?
Mr Thomas Rookwood, whose brain was as sharp as a needle, guessed the situation in a moment, and with much amusement, from a glance at Aubrey’s face. He, of course, at once recognised Hans, and was at least as well aware as either that Hans represented the forces of law and order, and subordination to lawful authority, while Aubrey stood as the representative of the grand principle that every man should do what is right in his own eyes. A few low-toned words to Mr Winter preceded a doffing of both the plumed hats, and the greeting from Tom Rookwood as they passed, of—
“Good even to you both. Charming weather!”
A scarcely perceptible wink of Tom’s left eye was designed to show Aubrey that his position was understood, and action taken upon it. Aubrey saw and comprehended the gesture. Hans saw it also, but did not comprehend it except as a sign of some private understanding between the two. They walked on together, Aubrey engaged in vexed meditation as to how he was to get rid of Hans. But Hans had no intention of allowing himself to be dismissed. He began to talk, and Aubrey had to answer, and could not satisfy himself what course to pursue, till he found himself at the door of the White Bear.
Charity was at the door, doing what every housemaid was then compelled to do, namely, pouring her slops into the gutter.
“Eh, Mestur Aubrey, is that yo’?” said she. “’Tis a month o’ Sundays sin’ we’ve seen you. You might come a bit oftener, I reckon, if you’d a mind. Stand out o’ th’ way a minute, do, while I teem these here slops out. There’s no end to folks’ idleness down this road. Here’s Marg’et Rumboll, at th’ back, been bidden by th’ third-borough to get hersen into service presently, under pain of a whipping, and Mary Quinton, up yon, to do th’ same within a month, at her peril. (Note 1.) I reckon, if I know aught of either Mall or Marg’et, they’ll both look for a place where th’ work’s put forth. Dun ye know o’ any such, Mestur Aubrey, up City way?”
Aubrey was not sufficiently sharp to notice the faint twinkle in Charity’s eyes, and the slight accent of sarcasm in her tone. Hans perceived both.
“I do not, Charity, but I dare be bound there are plenty,” said Aubrey, stepping delicately over the puddle which Charity had just created, so as to cause as little detriment as possible to his Spanish leather shoes and crimson silk stockings.
“Ay, very like there will. They’ll none suit you, Mestur ’Ans; you’re not one of yon sort. Have a care o’ th’ puddle, Mestur Aubrey, or you’ll mire your brave hose, and there’ll be wark for somebody.”
With which Parthian dart, Charity bore off her pail, and Aubrey and Hans went forward into the parlour, “Good even, my gracious Lord!” was the greeting with which the former was received. “Your Lordship’s visits be scarcer than the sun’s, and he has not shown his face none wist when. Marry, but I do believe I’ve seen that suit afore!”
“Of course you have, Aunt Temperance,” answered the nettled Aubrey. He was exceedingly put out. His evening was spoiled; he was deprived of his liberty, of his friends’ company, of a good dinner—for Mr Winter gave delightful little dinners, and Mrs Elizabeth More, the housewife at the Duck, was an unusually good cook. Moreover, he was tied down to what he contemptuously designated in his lofty mind “a parcel of women,” with the unacceptable and very unflattering sarcasms of Aunt Temperance by way of seasoning. It really was extraordinary, thought Mr Aubrey, that when women passed their fortieth milestone or thereabouts, they seemed to lose their respect for the nobler sex, and actually presumed to criticise them, especially the younger specimens of that interesting genus. Such women ought to be kept in their places, and (theoretically) he would see that they were. But when he came in contact with the obnoxious article in the person of Aunt Temperance, in some inscrutable manner, the young lord of creation never saw it. At the Duck, the company were making merry over Tom Rookwood’s satirical account of Aubrey’s discomfiture. For his company they cared little, and the only object they had for cultivating it was the consideration that he might be useful some day. Their conversation was all the freer without him, since all the rest were Papists.
Something, at that moment, was taking place elsewhere, with which the company at the Duck, and even Aubrey Louvaine, were not unconcerned. Lord Monteagle was entertaining friends to supper at his house at Hoxton, where he had not resided for some time previously. Just before the company sat down to table, a young footman left the house on an errand, returning a few minutes later. As he passed towards his master’s door, a man of “indifferent stature,” muffled in a cloak, and his face hidden by a slouched hat drawn down over the brow, suddenly presented himself from amongst the trees.
“Is your Lord within, and may a man have speech of him?” asked the apparition.
“His Lordship is now sitting down to supper,” was the answer.
The stranger held out a letter.
“I pray you, deliver this into your Lord’s own hand,” said he, “seeing it holdeth matter of import.”
The young man took the letter, and returned to the house. Lord Monteagle was just crossing the hall to the dining-room, when his servant delivered the letter. Grace having been said, and the business of supper begun, he unfolded the missive. His Lordship found it difficult to read, which implies that his education was not of the most perfect order, for the writing is not at all hard to make out. But gentlemen were much less versed in the three R’s at that date than at the present time (Note 2), and Lord Monteagle, calling one of his servants, named Thomas Ward, desired him to read the letter.
Now, Mr Thomas Ward was in the confidence of the conspirators,—a fact of which there is no doubt: and that Lord Monteagle was the same may not inaptly be described as a fact of which there is doubt—an extremely strong probability, which has been called in question without any disproof (see Appendix). Both these gentlemen, however, conducted themselves with perfect decorum, and as if the subject were entirely new to them.
This was what Mr Ward read:—
“My Lord out of the loue i beare you (this word was crossed out, and instead of it was written) some of youere trends i haue a caer of youer preseruacion. Therfor i would aduyse yowe as yowe tender youer lyf to deuyse some exscuse to shift of youer attendance at this parleament. For god and man hathe concurred to punishe the wickednes of this tyme and thinke not slightlye of this aduertisment but retire youer self into youre contri wheare yowe maye expect the euent in safti for thowghe theare be no apparance of anni stir yet i saye they shall receyue a terrible blowe this Parleament and yet they shall not seie who hurts them This councel is not to be acontemned because it maye do yowe good and can do yowe no harm for the dangere is passed as soon as yowe have burnt the letter and I hope god will giue yowe the grace to mak good use of it to whose holy proteccion I commend yowe.”
The writing was tall, cramped, and angular. There was neither signature nor date.
The hearers gazed on each other in perplexed astonishment, not unmixed with fear.
“What can it mean?” asked one of the guests.
“Some fool’s prating,” replied Lord Monteagle. “How else could the danger be past so soon as I had burnt the letter?”
This question no one could answer. Lord Monteagle took the letter from the reader, pocketed it, and turned the conversation to other topics. The thoughts of the company soon passed from the singular warning; and occupied by their own fancies and amusements, they did not notice that their host quitted them as soon as they left the dining-room.
With the letter in his pocket, Lord Monteagle slipped out of his garden gate, mounted his horse, and rode to his house in the Strand. Leaving the horse here, he went down to the water-side, where he hailed a boat, and was rowed to Westminster Stairs. To hail a boat was as natural and common an incident to a Londoner of that day as it is now to call a cab or stop an omnibus. Lord Monteagle stepped lightly ashore, made his way to the Palace of Whitehall, and asked to speak at once with the Earl of Salisbury, Lord High Treasurer of England.
Note 1. These exemplary women really resided at Southampton, a few years later.
Note 2. A letter of Lord Chief-Justice Popham would be a suitable subject for a competitive examination.