Chapter Thirteen.
Which is full of Surprises.
“Ah, who am I, that God hath saved
Me from the doom I did desire,
And crossed the lot myself had craved,
To set me higher?”
Jean Ingelow.
As Mr Marshall approached the White Bear that evening, he was unexpectedly pounced upon by Silence Abbott.
“Eh, Parson, I declare it’s you! How fares Mrs Agnes this cold even? Marry, I do believe we shall have snow ere the day break again. The White Bear’ll be a bit whiter, I reckon, if he be well snowed o’er. Are you going in there? You’ll have some work to peace Mrs Louvaine; she’s lamenting and weeping, you never heard!—and all for her son as cometh not home, and she is fair sure he’ll be hung, because she saith he was in with those rogues yonder.”
“He was nothing of the sort,” said Mr Marshall, breaking in sternly on the flow of Silence’s tide of words: “and let me tell you, Mrs Abbott, if you spread such a lie, you may have a death at your door, as like as not. Mr Louvaine, I have no doubt, is safe and well, and had no more ado with the Gunpowder Plot than you had: and I saw you with mine own eyes talking with Fawkes, that rascal that called himself Johnson.”
“Eh deary, Parson, but you’d never go to tell on a poor woman, and as honest as any in Westminster, if I did pass the time o’ day to a fellow, that I never guessed to be a villain? I do assure you, on my truth as—”
“I hope you are an honest woman, Mrs Abbott; and so is Mr Louvaine an honest man; and if you would have me keep my tongue off your doings, see that you keep yours off his. Now I have given you warning: that is a bargain.”
“Eh deary, deary! but I never heard Parson i’ such a way afore!” lamented Mrs Abbott to her daughter Mary, the only listener she had left, for Mr Marshall had walked straight into the White Bear. “I’ll say the lad’s a Prince of the Blood, or an angel, or anything he’s a mind, if he’ll but let me be. Me talk to Guy Fawkes, indeed! I never said no worser to him than ‘Fine morning,’ or ‘Wet, isn’t it?’ as it might be: and to think o’ me being had up afore the Lords of the Council for just passing a word like that—and the parson, too! Eh, deary me! whatever must I say to content him, now?”
“I fancy, Mother,” said Mary, who took after her quiet father, “he’ll be content if you’ll hold your peace.”
Mr Marshall found the ladies at the White Bear all assembled in the parlour. Mrs Louvaine had the ear of the House as he entered.
“So unfeeling as you are, Temperance, to a poor widow! and my only child as good as lost, and never found again. And officers and third-boroughs and constables all going about, making all manner of inquirations, trying to bring folks to justice, and Aubrey in with those wicked people, and going to sup with them, and all—and nobody ever trying to prevent him, and not a soul to care but me whether he went right or wrong—I do believe you thought more of the price of herrings than you ever did of the dear boy—and now, he’s completely lost and nobody knows what has become of him—”
Mr Marshall’s quiet voice effected a diversion.
“Mrs Louvaine, pardon me. Aubrey is at my house, safe and sound. There is no need for your trouble.”
“Of course!” responded Temperance. “I told her so. Might as well talk to the fire-bricks, when she takes a fancy of this sort. If the lad had come to any harm, we should have heard it. Faith never will think that ‘no news is good news.’”
“I am glad Aubrey is with you, Mr Marshall,” said the gentle voice of Lady Louvaine.
“I met with him, Madam, in a walk this afternoon, and brought him so far with me.”
“And why not a bit further, trow?” asked Temperance.
“That am I come to say. Madam,”—and he addressed himself to Lady Louvaine,—“having told you that your grandson is well in body, and safe at my lodging, I trust it shall not greatly touch you to learn that he is in some trouble of mind.”
“Didn’t I tell you?” demanded Mrs Louvaine, in tones suited to Cassandra amid the ruins of Troy. “I said I was sure some harm had come to the boy, and you laughed me to scorn, and not one of you went to see—”
“Nobody laughed at you but me, my dear,” said her sister: “and as to going to see, when his mother did not reckon it worth while to budge, I don’t see why his aunts should not sit quiet.”
“Why, you never looked for me to go?” responded Mrs Louvaine, with a faint scream of horror. “Me, a poor widow, and with my feeble health! When I haven’t been out of the door except to church for nigh a month!”
“More’s the pity! If you knocked about a bit more, and went to market of a morrow, and such like, maybe your health would not be so feeble.”
“Temperance, you barbarous creature, how can you?”
“Well, I know there are folks that can, Faith, and there are folks that can’t. You never heard me ask my Lady Lettice why she didn’t stir up and go a-marketing. She can’t; she’d be only too glad if she could, and would want no asking. But you could if you would—it’s true, my dear, and you don’t need to stare, as if you’d never seen me before this evening. As for looking for you to go, I didn’t indeed; I never look for aught but cumber, and so I’m not disappointed.—Mr Marshall, I ask your pardon; I’m staying you from speaking.”
Mr Marshall accepted the apology with a smile.
“Well, the upshot of the matter is this. Mr Louvaine, though in truth, as I do verily believe, innocent of all ill, is in danger to fall in some suspicion through a certain jewel of his being found in the lodging of one of the caitiffs lately execute. He saith that he knew not where he had lost it: no doubt it dropped out of his apparel when he was there, as he allows he hath been divers times. He never heard, saith he, a word of any traitorous designs, nor did they tamper at all with his religion. But this jewel being carried to my Lady Oxford—truly, whether by some suspicion that it should be Mr Louvaine’s, or how, I know not, nor am sure that he doth himself—she charged him withal, yet kindly, and made haste to have him forth of the house, warning him that he must in no wise tarry in the town, but must with all haste hie him down into the country, and there lie squat until all suspicion had passed. She would not even have him come hither, where she said he should be sought if any inquiry were made. The utmost she would suffer was that he should lie hid for a day or twain in my lodging, whither you might come as if to speak with Agnes, and so might agree whither he should go, and so forth. My Lady paid him his wage, well-nigh nine pound, and further counted ten pounds into his hand to help him on his journey. Truly, she gave him good counsel, and dealt well with him. But the poor lad is very downcast, and knows not what to do; and he tells me he hath debts that he cannot pay. So I carried him to my lodging, where he now lieth: and I wait your further wishes.”
“I thank you right truly for that your goodness,” said Lady Louvaine.
“There, now! didn’t I say the boy was sure to run into debt?” moaned Mrs Louvaine.
“How much be these debts, Mr Marshall?” asked the old lady.
“Twenty pounds borrowed from Mr Thomas Rookwood; twenty lost at play; and about sixty owing to tailors, mercers, and the like.”
“Ay, I reckoned that velvet would be over a penny the yard.”
“I see, the lad hath disburdened himself to you,” said Lady Louvaine, with a sad smile. “Truly, I am sorry to hear this, though little astonied. Mr Marshall, I have been much troubled at times, thinking whether, in suffering Aubrey to enter my Lord Oxford’s service, I had done ill: and yet in very deed, at the time I could see nothing else to do. It seemed to be the way wherein God meant us to go—and yet—”
“Madam, the Lord’s mercies are great enough to cover our mistakes along with our sins. And it may be you made none. I have never seen Mr Louvaine so softened and humbled as he now looks to be.”
“May the Lord lead him forth by the right way! What do you advise, true friend?”
“I see two courses, Madam, which under your good leave I will lay before you. Mr Louvaine can either lie hid in the country with some friend of yours,—or, what were maybe better, some friend of your friend: or, if he would be doing at once towards the discharging of his debts, he can take the part Mr Floriszoon hath chosen, and serve some tradesman in his shop.”
“Trade! Aubrey!” shrieked Mrs Louvaine in horror. “He never will! My boy hath so delicate a soul—”
“He said he would,” answered Mr Marshall quietly, “and thereby won my high respect.”
“Nay, you never mean it!” exclaimed Temperance. “Bless the lad! I ne’er gave him credit for half the sense.”
“If Aubrey be brought down to that, he must have learned a good lesson,” said his grandmother. “Not that I could behold it myself entirely without a pang.”
Edith, who had hitherto been silent, now put in a suggestion.
“Our Charity is true as steel,” she said. “Why not let Aubrey lie close with her kindred, where none should think to look for him?”
“In Pendle?—what, amid all the witches!” said Temperance.
“Edith, I’m amazed at you! I could never lie quiet in my bed!” wailed Mrs Louvaine. “Only to think of the poor boy being bewitched by those wicked creatures! Why, they spend Sunday nights dancing round the churchyard with the devil.”
“And the place is choke-full of ’em, Charity says,” added Temperance. “She once met Mother Demdike her own self, muttering under her breath, and she gave her the evillest look as she passed her that the maid ever saw.”
“Ay, saying the Lord’s Prayer backwards, of course.”
“Well, I can’t say,” said Temperance, dubiously: “it did not seem to do Charity any ill. I shouldn’t wonder, truly—”
“For mercy’s sake, stop her!” cried Mrs Louvaine. “She’s going to say something wicked—I know she is! She’ll say there are no witches, or no devil, or something horrible.”
“Nay, I’ll say nought o’ the sort,” responded Temperance. “Whether there be witches or no, the Lord knows, and there I leave it; but that there is a devil I’m very sure, for he has tempted me over and over again. All I say is, if Charity could meet a witch, and get no ill, why should not Aubrey too?”
“I won’t have it!” cried Mrs Louvaine in an agony. “My poor darling boy! I won’t have it! My fatherless child shall not go among snakes and witches and demons—”
“Now, Faith, do be quiet, or you’ll have a fit of the mother (hysterics). Nobody wants to send the lad amongst snakes—I don’t know that there’s so much as an adder there. As to devils, he’ll find them where’er he goeth, and some of them in men’s and women’s bodies, or I mistake.”
“If your Ladyship liked better,” suggested Mr Marshall, quietly, “to take the other road I named, I am acquaint with a bookseller in Oxford town, that is a cousin of my sister’s husband, a good honest man, and a God-fearing, with whom, if you so pleased, he might be put. ’Tis a clean trade, and a seemly, that need not disgrace any to handle: and methinks there were no need to mention wherefore it were, save that the place were sought for a young gentleman that had lost money through disputes touching lands. That is true, and it should be sufficient to account for all that the master might otherwise note as strange in a servant.”
“My poor fatherless boy!” sobbed Mrs Louvaine, with her handkerchief at her eyes. “Servant to a tradesfellow!”
“We are all servants,” answered Mr Marshall: “and we need think no scorn thereof, since our Lord Himself took on Him the form of a servant. Howbeit, for this even, the chief question is, Doth any of you gentlewomen desire to return with me?—Mrs Louvaine?”
“I could not bear it!” came in a stifled voice from behind the handkerchief. “To see my poor child in his misery—it would break mine heart outright. ’Tis enough to think of, and too-too (exceedingly) great to brook, even so.”
“Let her pass; she’ll be ne’er a bit of good,” said Temperance in a contemptuous whisper. Then raising her voice, she added,—“Now, Lady Lettice, don’t you think thereof. There’s no need, for Edith and I can settle everything, and you’d just go and lay yourself by, that you should have no good of your life for a month or more. Be ruled by me, and let Edith go back and talk matters o’er with Aubrey, and see whether in her judgment it were better he lay hid or went to the bookseller. She’s as good a wit as any of us, yourself except. Said I well?”
“If your Ladyship would suffer me to add a word,” said the clergyman, “I think Mrs Temperance has well spoken.”
There was a moment’s hesitation, as if Lady Louvaine were balancing duties. Mr Marshall noticed how her thin hand trembled, and how the pink flush came and went on her delicate cheek.
“Well, children, have it as you will,” said the old lady at last. “It costs me much to give it up; but were I to persist, maybe it should cost more to you than I have a right to ask at your hands. Let be: I will tarry.”
“Dearest Mother, you have a right to all that our hands can give you,” answered Edith, tenderly: “but, I pray you, tarry until the morrow, and then if need be, and your strength sufficient, you can ride to Shoe Lane.”
So Edith went with Mr Marshall alone. Even after all she had heard, Aubrey’s condition was a delightful surprise. Never before had she seen him in so softened, humbled, grateful a mood as now. They talked the matter over, and in the end decided that, subject to Lady Louvaine’s approval, Aubrey should go to the bookseller.
When the White Bear was reached on her return, Edith found Lady Oxford in the parlour. The sternness with which the Countess had treated Aubrey was quite laid aside. To Lady Louvaine she showed a graceful and grateful mixture of sympathy and respect, endeavoured to reassure her, hoped there would be no search nor inquiry, thought it was almost too late, highly approved of Edith’s decision, promised to send over all Aubrey’s possessions to the White Bear, and bade them let her know if she could do them any service.
“Will you suffer me to ask you one thing?” she said. “If Mr Louvaine go to Oxford, shall you tarry here, or no?”
“Would it be safe for us to follow him?”
“Follow him—no! I did but think you might better love to be forth of this smoky town.”
“Amen, with all my heart!” said Temperance. “But, Madam, and saving your Ladyship’s presence, crowns bloom not on our raspberry bushes, nor may horses be bought for a groat apiece down this way.”
Mrs Louvaine, behind the cambric, was heard to murmur something about a sordid spirit, people whose minds never soared, and old maids who knew nothing of the strength of maternal love.
“Strength o’ fiddlesticks!” said Temperance, turning on her. “Madam, I ask your Ladyship’s pardon.”
“My dear lady, I cannot answer you as now,” was Lady Louvaine’s reply. “The pillar of cloud hath not moved as yet; and so long as it tarrieth, so long must I also. It may be, as seemeth but like, that my next home will be the churchyard vault, that let my Father judge. If it had been His will, that I might have laid my bones in mine own country, and by the side of my beloved, it had been pleasant to flesh and blood: but I know well that I go to meet him, wherever my dust may lie. I am well-nigh fourscore years old this day; and if the Lord say, ‘Go not over this Jordan,’ let Him do as seemeth Him good. Methinks the glory of the blessed City burst no less effulgent on the vision of Moses, because he had seen the earthly Canaan but far off. And what I love the best is not here, but there.”
Temperance and Edith accompanied Lady Oxford to her coach. She paused a moment before stepping in.
“Mrs Edith,” she said, “methinks your good mother would fain see Mr Louvaine ere he depart. If so, she shall not be balked thereof. I have made inquiry touching Mr Marshall’s house, and I find there is a little gate from the garden thereof into Saint Andrew’s churchyard. I will call for her as to-morrow in my coach, and carry her to take the air. An ancient servant of mine, that is wedded to the clerk of Saint Andrew’s, dwelleth by the churchyard, and I will stay me there as though to speak with her, sending away the coach upon another errand that I can devise. Then from her house my Lady may safely win to Mr Marshall’s lodging, and be back again ere the coach return.”
“Your Ladyship is most good unto us,” responded Edith, thankfully. “I am assured it should greatly comfort my dear mother.”
Lady Oxford turned with a smile to Temperance.
“It seems to me, Mrs Temperance, that your words be something sharp.”
“Well, Madam, to tell truth, folks do put me out now and again more than a little. Many’s the time I long to give Faith a good shaking; and I could have laid a stick on Aubrey’s back middling often,—I’ll not say I couldn’t: but if the lad sees his blunders and is sorry for ’em, I’ll put my stick in the corner.”
“I think I would leave it tarry there for the present,” said Lady Oxford, with a soft little laugh. “God grant you a good even!”
The coach had only just rolled away, and four youthful Abbotts, whom it had glued to the window, were still flattening their noses against the diamond panes, when a clear, strong, sweet voice rang out on the evening air in the back road which led by the palings of Saint James’s Park. Both Edith and Temperance knew well whose voice it was. They heard it every night, lifted up in one of the Psalms of David, as Hans Floriszoon came home from his work with the mercer. Hans was no longer an apprentice. Mr Leigh had taken such a fancy to him, and entertained so complete a trust both in his skill and honesty, that six months before he had voluntarily cancelled his indentures, and made him his partner in the business. Nothing changed Hans Floriszoon. He had sung as cheerily in his humble apprenticeship, and would have done so had he been Lord Mayor of London, as now when he came down the back road, lantern in hand, every evening as regularly as the clock struck four, Mrs Abbott declared that she set her clock by Hans whenever it stopped, which it did frequently, for it was an ancient piece of goods, and suffered from an asthmatic affection.
“There’s Mestur ’Ans!” said Charity. “See thee, Rachel, I’ll teem them eggs into th’ pan; thou doesn’t need to come.”
Rachel sat by the window, trying to finish making a new apron before supper.
“That’s a good lass,” she said. “Eh, but it’s a dark day; they’ll none see a white horse a mile off to-night.” (Note 1.)
“They’d have better e’en nor me to see it any night,” said Charity, breaking the eggs into the pan.
“Hearken to th’ lad!” said Rachel. “Eh, it’s gradely (excellent, exactly right) music, is that!”
“He sings well, does Mestur ’Ans.”
The words were audible now, as the singer unlatched the gate, and turned into the garden.
“And in the presence of my foes
My table Thou shalt spread:
Thou shalt, O Lord, fill full my cup,
And eke anoint mine head.
“Through all my life Thy favour is
So frankly showed to me,
That in Thy house for evermore
My dwelling-place shall be.”
Hans lifted the latch and came into the kitchen.
“Here’s a clean floor, Rachel! Tarry a minute, while I pluck off my shoes, and I will run across in my stocking-feet. It shall be ‘February Fill-dyke,’ methinks, ere the day break.”
“He’s as good as my Lady and Mrs Edith, for not making work,” said Charity as Hans disappeared.
“I would we could set him i’ th’ garden, and have a crop on him,” responded Rachel. “He’s th’ only man I ever knew that ’d think for a woman.”
“Eh, lass, yo’ never knew Sir Aubrey!” was Charity’s grave comment.
There was a good deal for Hans to hear that evening, and he listened silently while Edith told the tale, and Temperance now and then interspersed sarcastic observations. When at last the story was told, Hans said quietly—
“Say you that you look to see Aubrey again to-orrow?”
“Lady Lettice doth, and Edith. Not I,” said Temperance. “’Tis a case wherein too many cooks might spoil the broth, and the lad shall be all the easier in his mind for his old crusty Aunt Temperance to tarry at home. But I say, Edith, I would you had asked him for a schedule of his debts. ‘Tailors and silkmen’ is scarce enough to go to market withal, if we had the means to pay them.”
“So did I, Temperance, and he told me—twenty pounds to Mr Tom Rookwood, and forty to Patrick at the Irish Boy; fifteen to Cohen, of the Three Tuns in Knightriders’ Street; and about ten more to Bennett, at the Bible in Paternoster Row.”
“Lancaster and Derby! Why, however many suits can the lad have in his wardrobe? It should fit me out for life, such a sum as that.”
“Well! I would we could discharge them,” said Lady Louvaine with a sigh. “Twenty to Tom Rookwood, and forty to Patrick!”
“Make your mind easy, Madam,” came in the quietest tones from Hans: “not a penny is owing to either.”
“What can you mean, Hans?”
“I am sure of it.”
“Who told you so much?”
“Nay, ask Mr Rookwood, and see what he saith.”
“I’ll go this minute,” said Temperance, rising, “I wis not what bee thou hast in thy bonnet, but I don’t believe thee, lad.”
“Maybe you will when you come back,” was the calm response.
Away flashed Temperance, and demanded an interview with Mr Thomas Rookwood, if he were at home. Mr Thomas was at home, and did not express the surprise he felt at the demand. But when the subject of Aubrey’s debt was introduced, Mr Thomas’s eyebrows went up.
“Mr Louvaine owes me nothing, I do ensure you.”
“I heard you had lent him twenty pounds?”
“I did; but it was repaid a month ago.”
“By Aubrey?”
“So I suppose. I understood so much,” was the answer, in a slightly puzzled tone.
“He repaid it not himself, then?”
“Himself, nay—he sent it to me; but I gave the quittance as to Mr Louvaine.”
“I thank you, Mr Rookwood. Then that ends the matter.”
Out of the Golden Fish, and into the White Bear, ran Temperance, with drops of rain lying on her gown and hood.
“Madam,” she announced in a stern voice, “I am that flabbergasted as never was! Here’s Mr Tom Rookwood saith that Aubrey paid him his money a month gone.”
“Why, Aubrey told me this afternoon that he owed him twenty pounds,” replied Edith in a tone of astonished perplexity.
“Hans, what meaneth this?”
“Methinks, Madam, it means merely that I told you the truth. Mr Rookwood, you see, bears me out.”
“He saith Aubrey sent the money by a messenger, unto whom he gave the quittance. Dear heart, but if he lost it!”
“Yet Aubrey must have known, if he sent the money,” said Edith in the same tone as before.
“The messenger lost not the quittance,” said Hans. “It is quite safe.”
He had been out of the room for a minute while Temperance was away, and now, passing his hand into his pocket, he took out a slip of paper, which he laid in the hand of Lady Louvaine.
She drew forth her gold spectacles, and was fitting them on, when Edith impulsively sprang up, and read the paper over her mother’s shoulder.
“Received of Mr Aubrey Louvaine, gent, the sum of twenty pounds, for moneys heretofore lent by me, this fifteenth of January, the year of our Lord God 1605, according to the computation of the Church of England.
“Thomas Rookwood.”
“Northumberland, Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Durham!” was the comment from Temperance.
“Hans!” said Edith, a light flashing on her, “wert thou the messenger?”
“I was not sent,” was the placid answer.
“Hans, thou admirable rascal!” cried Temperance, laying her hands on his shoulders, “I do believe thou didst pay this money. If thou own not the truth, I’ll shake thee in twenty bits.”
Hans looked up laughingly into her face.
“Methinks, Mrs Temperance, you should shake yourself in forty ere you did it.”
“Answer me this minute, thou wicked knave! didst thou pay this money, or no?”
“I was there when it was paid.”
“I’ll wager my best boots thou wert! Was any else there?”
“Certainly.”
“Who beside?”
“The cat, I believe.”
Temperance gave him a shake, which he stood with complete calm, only looking a little amused, more about his eyes than his lips.
“Hans, tell me!” said Lady Louvaine. “Is it possible these debts were paid with thy money? How shall I repay thee, my true and dear friend?”
Hans freed himself from Temperance’s grasp, and knelt down beside Lady Louvaine.
“Nay, Madam! do you forget that you paid me first—that I owe unto you mine own self and my very life? From the time we came hither I have seen pretty clearly which way Aubrey was going; and having failed to stay him, methought my next duty was to save all I could, that you should not at some after-time be cumbered with his debts. Mr Rookwood’s and Patrick’s, whereof I knew, have I discharged; and the other, for which I have a sufficiency, will I deal withal to-morrow, so that you can tell Aubrey he is not a penny in debt—”
“Save to thee, my darling boy.”
“There are no debts between brothers, Madam, or should not be.”
“Hans, thou downright angel, do forgive me!” burst from Temperance.
“Dear Mrs Temperance, I should make a very poor angel; but I will forgive you with all mine heart when I know wherefore I should do it.”
“Why, lad, here have I been, like an old curmudgeon as I am, well-nigh setting thee down as a penny-father, because I knew not what thou didst with thy money. It was plain as a pikestaff what Aubrey did with his, for he set it all out on his back; but thy habit is alway plain and decent, and whither thy crowns went could I never tell. Eh, but I am sorry I misjudged thee thus! ’tis a lesson for me, and shall be my life long. I do believe thou art the best lad ever trod shoe-leather.”
“Well, ’tis a very proper deed, Hans, and I am glad to see in you so right a feeling,” said Mrs Louvaine.
“The Lord bless thee, my boy!” added Lady Louvaine, with emotion. “But how may I suffer thee to pay Aubrey’s debts?”
“I scarce see how you shall set about to help it, Madam,” said Hans with a little laugh of pleasure. “I thank God I have just enough to pay all.”
“And leave thyself bare, my boy?” said Edith.
“Of what, Mrs Edith?” asked Hans with a smile. “‘A man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.’ I am one of the richest men in England, I take it, and my wealth is not of a sort that shall make it hard to enter into the Kingdom of God. The corn and wine and oil may be good things, and are such, being God’s gifts: yet the gladness which He giveth is a better, and will abide when they are spent.”
Lady Oxford kept her word, and his grandmother and Aunt Edith had a farewell interview with Aubrey. His face was a study for a painter when the receipts were shown him. Tom Rookwood had refused him a second loan only a few weeks earlier, and had pressed him to repay the former: Hans Floriszoon had paid his debts without even letting him know it. Yet he had lent many a gold piece to Tom Rookwood, while the memory of that base, cruel blow given to Hans made his cheek burn with shame. Had he not been treasuring the pebble, and flinging away the pearl?
“Hans has paid my debts!” he said, in an exceedingly troubled voice. “Hans! out of his own pocket? May God forgive me! Tell him,”—and Aubrey’s voice was almost choked—“tell him he hath heaped coals of fire on mine head.”
Edith asked no questions, but she gave a shrewd guess which was not far off the truth, and she was confirmed in it by the fact that Hans received the message with a smile, and expressed no doubt what it meant.
That night there were twenty-two miles between Aubrey and London: and the next day he rode into Oxford, and delivered Mr Marshall’s letter of recommendation to the bookseller, Mr Whitstable, whose shop was situated just inside the West Gate—namely, in close contiguity to that aristocratic part of the city now known as Paradise Square.
Mr Whitstable was a white-haired man who seemed the essence of respectability. He stooped slightly in the shoulders, and looked Aubrey through and over, with a pair of dark, brilliant, penetrating eyes, in a way not exactly calculated to add to that young gentleman’s comfort, nor to restore that excellent opinion of his own virtues which had been somewhat shaken of late.
“You are of kin to the writer of this letter, Mr Marshall?”
Aubrey admitted it.
“And you desire to learn my trade?”
“I am afeared I scarce do desire it, Master: but I am content, and needs must.”
“What have you hitherto done?”
“Master,” said Aubrey, looking frankly at his questioner, “I fear I have hitherto done nothing save to spend money and make a fool of myself. That is no recommendation, I know.”
“You have done one other thing, young man,” said the old bookseller: “you have told the truth. That is a recommendation. Mr Marshall tells me not that, yet can I read betwixt the lines. I shall ask you no questions, and as you deal with me, so shall I with you. Have you eaten and drunk since you entered the city? Good: take this cloth, and dust that row of books. I shall give you your diet, three pound by the year, and a suit of livery.”
And Mr Whitstable walked away into the back part of his shop, leaving Aubrey to digest what he had just heard.
The idea of wearing livery was not in his eyes, what it would be in ours, a part of his humiliation, for it was then customary for gentlemen, as well as servants, to wear the livery of their employers. Even ladies did it, when in the service of royal or noble mistresses. This, therefore, was merely what he might expect in the circumstances: and as his own meanest suit was not in keeping with his new position, it was rather a relief than otherwise. But he was slightly disconcerted to find how accurately his master had read him in the first minute. A little wholesome reflection brought Aubrey to the conclusion that his best plan—nay, his only plan in present circumstances—was to accommodate himself to them, and to do his very best in his new calling. Almost unconsciously, he set Hans before him as a suitable example, and dusted the row of books under this influence in a creditable manner.
His experiences for the evening were new and strange. Now an undergraduate entered for the Epistles of Casaubon or the Paraphrases of Erasmus; now a portly citizen demanded the Mirrour of Magistrates; a labouring man asked for the Shepherd’s Calendar; a schoolmaster required a dozen horn-books, and a lady wanted a handsomely-bound Communion Book. Psalters, at two shillings each; grammars, from sixpence to a shilling; Speed’s Chronicle at fifty shillings, a map of England at thirty, the Life of Sir Philip Sidney at fourpence, a “paper book” at sixteen pence, an Italian Dictionary at fifteen shillings—classics, song-books, prayer-books, chronicles, law-books—Aubrey learned to handle them all, and to repeat their prices glibly, in a style which astonished himself. At the end of a week, Mr Whitstable told him, in his usual grave and rather curt manner, that if he would go on as he had begun, he should be satisfied with him.
The going on as he had begun was precisely the difficulty with Aubrey. To do some magnificent deed by a sudden spurt of heroism, or behave angelically for a day, might be possible to him; but that quiet daily fulfilment of uninteresting duties—that patient continuance in well-doing, which seemed as if it came naturally to Hans, was to Aubrey Louvaine the hardest thing on earth. Had the lesson been a little less sharp, humanly speaking, he would have failed. But Aubrey’s conscience had been startled into life, and he was beginning to see that it would be too little profit to gain the whole world, if in so doing he lost his own soul, which was himself. Men are apt to look on their souls not as themselves, but as a sort of sacred possession, a rich jewel to be worn on Sundays, and carefully put up in cotton-wool for the rest of the week—of immense value, theoretically, of course, yet not at all the same thing as the “me” which is the centre of sensation to each one, and for which every man will give all that he hath. The mountain was terribly steep, but Aubrey climbed it—only God knew with how much inward suffering, and with how many fervent prayers. The Aubrey who sold Mr Whitstable’s books that spring in the shop, at the West Gate of Oxford, was a wholly different youth from my Lord Oxford’s gentleman only a few weeks before.
Three months had passed by, and no further apprehensions were entertained at the White Bear of any Government inquiries. If Lady Oxford still felt any, she kept them to herself.
It was a summer evening; Hans had come home, and the little family party were seated in the parlour, when a summons of Charity to the front door was followed by her appearance before the ladies.
“Madam,” said she, “here’s one would have speech of your Ladyship, and he’ll not take a civil nay, neither. I told him he might ha’ come i’ daylight, and he said you’d be just as fain of him i’ th’ dark. He’s none aila (bashful), for sure.”
“Well, let him come in, Charity,” said Lady Louvaine smiling.
Charity drew back, and admitted a man of about five-and-twenty years, clad in respectable but not fashionable garments, and with an amused look in his eyes.
“I do believe your maid thinks I’ve come to steal the spoons,” said he. “I could scarce win her to let me in. Well, does nobody know me? Don’t you, Grandmother?”
“Why, sure! ’tis never David Lewthwaite?” responded Lady Louvaine in some excitement.
“’Tis David Lewthwaite, the son of your daughter Milisent,” said he, laughing.
“Why, who was to know you, my boy?” asked his Aunt Edith. “We have not seen you but once since we came, and you have changed mightily since then.”
“When last we saw you,” said Temperance, “your chin was as smooth as the hearthstone, and now you’ve got beard enough to fit out a flock of goats.”
“Ah! I’d forgot my beard was new. Well, I have been remiss, I own: but I will expound another time the reasons why you saw us not oftener. To-night, methinks, you’ll have enough to do to hearken to the cause which has brought me at last.”
“No ill news, David, I trust?” asked his grandmother, growing a shade paler.
“None, Madam. And yet I come to bring news of death.”
“Of whose death?”
“Of the death of Oswald Louvaine, of Selwick Hall.”
There was a cry from Edith—“O David, can you possibly mean—is Selwick come back to us?”
“Oswald Louvaine died unwedded, and hath left no will. His heir-at-law is my cousin Aubrey here.”
“May the Lord help him to use it wisely!” said his grandmother, with emotion.
“Amen!” said David, heartily. “And now, Madam, as I have not stolen the spoons, may I let somebody else in, that I left round the corner?—whom, perchance, you may care rather to see than me.”
“Prithee bring whom thou wilt, David; there shall be an hearty welcome for him.”
“Well, I rather guess there will be,” said David, as he walked out of the parlour. “Dear heart, but who is talking fast enough to shame a race-horse?”
“Well, now, you don’t say so!” was what met David’s ear as he unlatched the gate of the White Bear. “And you’ve come from Camberwell, you say? Well, that’s a good bit o’ walking, and I dare be bound you’re weary. I’d—”
“I cry you mercy,—Cumberland,” said a silvery voice in amused tones.
“Dear heart! why, that’s a hundred mile off or more, isn’t it? And how many days did it take you?—and how did you come—o’ horseback?—and be the roads very miry?—and how many of you be there?—and what kin are you to my Lady Lettice, now? and how long look you to tarry with her?”
“My mistress,” said David, doffing his hat, “an’t like you, I am a lawyer; and to-morrow morning, at nine o’clock, if you desire it, will I be at your service in the witness-box, for two shillings the week and my diet. For to-night, I wish you good even.”
“Lack-a-daisy!” was all that Mrs Abbott could utter, as David rescued the owner of the silvery voice, and bore her off, laughing, to the White Bear.
“Madam, and my mistresses,” he said, as he threw open the door, “I have the honour to announce the most excellent Mistress Milisent Lewthwaite.”
Tears and laughter were mixed for more than one present, as Milisent flew into her mother’s arms, and then gave a fervent hug to her sister Edith.
“I would come with Robin!” she cried. “It feels like a whole age since I saw one of you!”
“My dear heart, such a journey!” said her mother. “And where is the dear Robin, then?”
“Oh, he shall be here anon. He tarried but to see to the horses, and such like; and I set off with Davie—I felt as though I could not bear another minute.”
“Madam, I give you to wit,” said David, with fun in his eyes, “this mother of mine, that had not seen me for an whole year, spake but three words to me—‘How fare you, my boy?’ ‘Help me to ’light,’ and ‘Now let us be off to Westminster.’”
“Well, I had seen thee in a year,” answered Milisent, echoing his laugh, “and them not for three years, less a month.”
A little soft echoing laugh came from Lady Louvaine.
“Shall I tell thee, my dear heart, what I think Aunt Joyce should say to thee? ‘Well done, Lettice Eden’s daughter!’”
“Ah, Mother dear!” said Milisent, kissing her mother’s hand, “I may be like what you were as a young maid, but never shall I make by one-half so blessed a saint in mine old age.”
“That must you ask your grandchildren,” said Temperance.
“Nay, I will ask somebody that can judge better,” replied Milisent, laughing. “What sayest thou, Robin?”
Mr Lewthwaite had entered so quietly that only his wife’s quick eyes had detected his presence. He came forward now, kissed Lady Louvaine’s hand, and then laying his hand on Milisent’s bright head, he said softly—
“‘The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her; she will do him good and not evil all the days of her life. She openeth her mouth with wisdom, and in her tongue is the law of kindness. Her children arise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her.’”
Whether he would have gone further was never to be known, for a sudden rap at the door preceded Charity.
“Madam, here’s Mistress Abbott, and hoo will come in. I cannot keep her out. I’ve done my best.”
And they were all feeling so happy, and yet, for various reasons, so humble,—the two are very apt to go together,—that, as Edith observed afterwards, there was charity enough and to spare even for Silence Abbott.
Note 1. “On Candlemas Day, you should see a white horse a mile off,” is a proverb in the North, and perhaps elsewhere.