Chapter Ten.
In Deep Places.
“So I go on, not knowing—
I would not, if I might.
I would rather walk in the dark with God
Than go alone in the light:
I would rather walk with Him by faith
Than go alone by sight.”
Philip Bliss.
(In Edith’s handwriting.)
Selwick Hall, March the xvii.
Helen’s birthday. She is this morrow of the age of seven-and-twenty years, being eldest of all us save Anstace. Alice Lewthwaite counts it mighty late to tarry unwed, but I do misdoubt of mine own mind if Helen ever shall wed with any.
From Father she had gift of a new prayer-book, with a chain to hang at her girdle: and from Mother a comely fan of ostrich feathers, with a mirror therein set; likewise with a silver chain to hang from the girdle. Aunt Joyce shut into her hand, in greeting of her, five gold Spanish ducats,—a handsome gift, by my troth! But ’tis ever Aunt Joyce’s way to make goodly gifts. My Lady Stafford did give a pair of blue sleeves, (Note 1) broidered in silver, whereon I have seen her working these weeks past. Mistress Martin, a pair of lovesome white silk stockings (Note 2). Sir Robert, a silver pouncet-box (a kind of vinaigrette) filled with scent. Anstace, a broidered girdle of black silk; and Hal, a comfit-box with a little gilt spoon. Milisent, two dozen of silver buttons; and I, a book of the Psalms, the which I wist Helen desired to have (cost me sixteen pence). Ned diverted us all by making her present of a popinjay (parrot), the which he brought with him, and did set in care of Faith Murthwaite till Nell’s birthday came. And either Faith or Ned had well trained the same, for no sooner came the green cover off his cage than up goeth his foot to his head, with—
“Good morrow, Mistress Nell, and much happiness to you!”
All we were mighty taken (amused) with this creature, and I count Ned had no cause to doubt if Helen were pleased or no. Last came Walter, which bare in his hand a right pretty box of walnut-wood, lined of red taffeta, and all manner of cunning divisions therein. Saith he—
“Helen, dear heart, I would fain have had a better gift to offer thee, but being in the conditions I am, I thought it not right for me to spend one penny even on a gift. Howbeit, I have not spared labour nor thought, and I trust thou wilt accept mine offering, valueless though it be, for in very deed it cometh with no lesser love than the rest.”
“Why, Wat, dear heart!” crieth Nell, her cheeks all flushing, “dost think that which cost money, should be to me so much as half the value of thine handiwork, that had cost thee thought and toil! Nay, verily! thou couldst have given me nought, hadst thou spent forty pound, that should have been more pleasant unto me. Trust me, thy box shall be one of my best treasures so long as I do live, and I give thee hearty thanks therefor.”
Walter looked right pleased, and saith he, “Well, in very deed I feared thou shouldst count it worth nought, for even the piece of taffeta to line the same I asked of Mother.”
“Nay, verily, not so!” saith she, and kissed him.
To say Wat were last, howbeit, I writ not well, for I forgat Mynheer, and Cousin Bess, the which I should not.
Cousin Bess marcheth up to Nell with—“Well, my maid, thou hast this morrow many goodlier gifts than mine, yet not one more useful. ’Tis plain and solid, like me.” And forth she holdeth a parcel which, being oped, did disclose a right warm thick hood of black serge, lined with flannel and dowlas, mighty comfortable-looking. Mynheer cometh up with a courtesy and a scrape that should have beseemed a noble of the realm, and saith he—
“Mistress Helena Van Louvaine—for that is your true name, as I am assured of certainty—I, a Dutchman, have the great honour and pleasure to offer unto you, a Dutch vrouw, a most precious relic of your country, being a stool for your feet, made of willow-wood that groweth by the great dyke which keepeth off from Holland the waters of the sea. ’Tis true, you be of the Nether-Land, and this cometh of the Hollow-Land—for such do the names mean. Howbeit, do me the favour, Domina mea, to accept this token at the hands of your obeissant paedagogus, that should have had much pleasure in learning you the Latin tongue, had it been the pleasure of your excellent elders. Alack that it were not so! for I am assured your scholarship should have been rare, and your attention thereto of the closest.”
Nell kept her countenance (which was more than Ned or Milly could do), and thanked Mynheer right well, ensuring him that she should essay to make herself worthy of the great honour of coming of Dutch parentage.
Saith Father drily, “There is time yet, Mynheer.”
“For what?” saith he. “To learn Mistress Helena the Latin? Excellent Sir, you rejoice me. When shall we begin, Mistress Helena?—this morrow?”
Helen laughed now, and quoth she,—“I thank you much, Mynheer, though I am ’feared you reckon mine understanding higher than it demerit: yet I fear there shall scantly be opportunity this morrow. I have divers dishes to cook that shall be cold for this even, and a deal of flannel-work to do.”
“Ah, the dishes and the flannel, they are mine abhorrence!” saith Mynheer. “They stand alway in the road of the learning.”
“Nay, mine old paedagogus!” crieth Ned. “I reckon the dishes are little your abhorrence at supper-time, nor the flannel of a cold night, when it taketh the form of blankets. ’Tis right well to uphold the learning, yet without Nell’s cates and flannel, your Latin should come ill off.”
“The body is ever in the way of the soul!” saith Mynheer. “Were we souls without bodies, what need had we of the puddings and the flannels?”
“Or the Latin,” sticketh in Ned, mischievously.
Mynheer wagged his head at Ned.
“Edward Van Louvaine, thou wist better.”
“Few folks but know better than they do, Mynheer,” saith Ned. “Yet think you there shall be lexicons needed to talk with King David or the Apostle Paul hereafter?”
“I trow not,” saith Father.
“Dear heart, Master Stuyvesant,” cries Cousin Bess, “but sure the curse of Babel was an ill thing all o’er! You would seem to count it had a silver side to it.”
“It had a golden side, my mistress,” made he answer. “Had all men ever spoken but one tongue, the paedagogus should scarce be needed, and half the delights of learning had disappeared from the earth.”
“Eh, lack-a-day!—but how different can folks look at matters!” saith Cousin Bess. “Why, I have alway thought it should be a rare jolly thing when all strange tongues were done away (as I reckon they shall hereafter), and all folks spake but plain English.”
“Art so sure it should be English, Bess?” saith Father, smiling. “What an’ it were Italian or Greek?”
“Good lack, that could never be!” crieth she. “Why, do but think the trouble all men should have.”
“Somebody must have it,” quoth he. “I take it, what so were the tongue, all nations but one should have to learn it.”
“I’ll not credit it, Sir Aubrey,” crieth Bess, as she trotteth off to the kitchen. “It is like to be English that shall become the common tongue of the earth: it can’t be no elsewise!”
Mynheer seemed wonderful taken with this fantasy of Cousin Bess.
“How strange a thought that!” saith Aunt Joyce.
“Bess is in good company,” answereth Father. “’Tis right the reasoning of Saint Cyril, when he maketh argument that the Temple of God, wherein the Man of Sin shall sit (as Paul saith), cannot signify the Christian Church. But wherefore, good Sir? say you. Oh, saith he, because ‘God forbid it should be this temple wherein we now are!’”
“Well, it is a marvel to me,” quoth Aunt Joyce, “that some folks seem to have no brains!”
“Is it so great a marvel?” saith Father.
“But they have no wit!” saith she. “Why, here yestereven was Caitlin, telling me the sun had put the fire out—she’d let it go out, the lazy tyke as she is!—Then said I, ‘But how so, Caitlin, when there hath been no sun?’ (You wist how hard it rained all day.) ‘Ha!’ saith she—and gazed into the black grate, as though it should have helped her to an other excuse. Which to all appearance it did, for in a minute quoth my wiseacre,—‘Then an’ it like you, Mistress, it was the light.’”
“A lack of power to perceive the relation betwixt cause and effect,” saith Father, drily, “A lack of common sense!” saith Aunt Joyce.
“The uncommonest thing that is,” quoth Father.
“But wherefore should the sun put the fire out?” saith Sir Robert.
“Nay, I’ll let alone the whys and the wherefores,” quoth she. “It doth, and that is enough for me.”
Father seemed something diverted in himself, but he said nought more.
All the morrow were we busy in the kitchen, and the afternoon a-work: but in the even come all the young folks to keep Nell’s birthday—to wit, the Lewthwaites, the Armstrongs, the Murthwaites, the Parks, and so forth. Of course Robin had no eyes nor ears for aught but Milisent. And for all Master Ned may say of his being so rare heart-free, I did think he might have talked lesser with Faith Murthwaite had it liked him so to do. I said so unto him at after, but all I gat of my noble admiral was “Avast there!” the which I took to mean that he did desire me to hold my peace. Wat was rare courtly amongst all us, and had much praise of all the maidens. Me-wondered if Gillian Armstrong meant not to set her cap at him. But I do misdoubt mine own self if any such rustical maids as be here shall be like to serve Walter’s turn. I would fain hear more of this daughter of my Lord of Sheffield, that was his Excellency, but I am not well assured if I did well to ask at him or no.
Selwick Hall, March ye xx.
’Tis agreed that Aunt Joyce, in the stead of making an end of her visit when the six months shall close, shall tarry with us until Sir Robert and his gentlewomen shall travel southward, the which shall be in an other three weeks’ time thereafter. They look therefore to set forth in company as about the twentieth of April. I am rare glad (and so methinks be we all) to keep Aunt Joyce a trifle longer. She is like a fresh breeze blowing through the house, and when she is away, as Ned saith, we are becalmed. Indeed, I would by my good will have her here alway.
“Now, Aunt,” said I, “you shall have time to write your thoughts in the Chronicle, the which shall end with this month, as ’twas agreed.”
“Time!” quoth she. “And how many pages, my sweet scrivener?”
“Trust me, but I’ll leave you plenty,” said I. “Your part shall be a deal better worth the reading.”
“Go to, Mistress Edith!” saith she. “‘All the proof of a pudding is in the eating.’”
“I am sure of that pudding,” saith Milisent.
“These rash young women!” maketh answer Aunt Joyce. “When thou hast lived fifty or sixty years in this world, my good maid, thou wilt be a trifle less sure of most things. None be so sure that a box is white of all sides as they that have seen but one. When thou comest to the second, and findest it painted grey, thou wilt not be so ready to swear that the third may not be red.”
“But we can be sure of some things, at any years, Aunt,” saith Milly.
“Canst thou so?” saith Aunt Joyce. “Ah, child, thou hast not yet been down into many deep places. So long as a goat pulls not at his tether, he may think the whole world lieth afore him when he hath but half-a-dozen yards. Let him come to pull, and he will find how short it is. There be places, Milly, where a man may get to, that he can be sure of nothing in all the universe save God. And thou shalt not travel far, neither, to come to the end of that cord.”
“O Aunt Joyce, I do never love to hear such talk as that!” saith Milly. “It causeth one feel so poor and mean.”
“Then it causeth thee feel what thou art,” saith she. “’Tis good for a man to find, at times, how little he can do.”
“It may be good, but ’tis mighty displeasant,” quoth Milisent.
“’Tis very well when it be no worse than displeasant,” Aunt Joyce makes answer. “I thought of places, Milly, which were not displeasant, but awful—where the human soul feels nigh to being shut up in the blackness of darkness for ever. Thou wist little of such things yet. But most souls which be permitted to soar high aloft be made likewise to descend deep down. David went deep enough—may-be deeper than any other save Christ. Look you, he was appointed to write the Psalter. Throughout all the ages coming, of his words was the Church to serve her when she should come into deep places. There must be somewhat therein for every Christian soul, and every Jewish belike, ere Christ came. And to do that, I reckon David had need to go very deep down. He that shall help a man to climb forth of a well must know whereto the water reacheth, and on which side the steps be. List him—‘Out of the depths have I cried unto Thee, O Lord!’ ‘I am come into deep places, where the floods overflow me.’”
“But, Aunt,” said I, yet was I something feared to say it, “was not that hard on David? It scarce seems just that he should have to go through all those cruel troubles for our good.”
“Ah, Edith,” saith she, “the Lord payeth His bills in gold of Ophir. I warrant you David felt his deep places sore trying. But ask thou at him, when ye meet, if he would have missed them. He shall see clearer then when he shall wake up after His likeness, and shall be satisfied with it.”
“What sort of deep places mean you, Aunt?” saith Helen, looking on her somewhat earnestly.
“Thou dost well to ask, Nell,” quoth she, “for there be divers sorts of depths. There be mind depths, the which are at times, as Milly saith, displeasant: at other times not displeasant. But there be soul depths for the which displeasant is no word. When the Lord seems to shut every door in thy face and to leave thee shut up in a well, where thou canst not breathe, and when thou seest no escape, and when thou criest and shoutest, He shutteth out thy prayer: when thine heaven above thee is as brass, and thine earth below thee iron: when it seems as if no God were, either to hear thee or to do for thee—that is a deep pit to get in, Helen, and not a pleasant one.”
“Aunt Joyce! can such a feeling be—at the least to one that feareth God?”
“Ay, it can, Nelly!” saith Aunt Joyce, solemnly, yet with much tenderness. “And when thou comest into such a slough as that, may God have mercy upon thee!”
And methought, looking in Aunt Joyce’s eyes, that at some past time of her life she had been in right such an one.
“It sounds awful!” saith Milisent, under her breath.
“It may be,” saith Aunt Joyce, looking from the window, and after a fashion as though she spake to herself rather than to us, “that there be some souls whom the Lord suffers not to pass through such quagmires. May-be He only leads the strongest souls into the deepest places. I say not that there be not deeps beyond any I know. Yet I know of sloughs wherein I had been lost and smothered, had He not held mine hand tight, and watched that the dark waters washed not over mine head too far for life. That word, ‘the fellowship of His passions,’ hath a long tether. For He went down to Hell.”
“But, Aunt, would you say that meant the place of lost souls?” saith Helen.
“I am wholesomely ’feared of laying down the law, Nell,” saith Aunt Joyce, “touching such matters as I can but see through a glass darkly. What He means, He knoweth. But the place of departed spirits can it scarce fail to be.”
“Aunt Joyce,” saith Helen, laying down her work, “I trust it is not ill in me to say thus, but in very deed I do alway feel ’feared of what shall be after death. If we might but know where we shall be, and with whom, and what we shall have to do—it all looks so dark!”
“Had it been good for us, we should have known,” saith Aunt Joyce. “And two points we do know. ‘With Christ,’ and ‘far better.’ Is that not enough for those that are His friends?”
“‘If it were not so, I would have told you,’” saith my Lady Stafford.
“But not how, Madam, an’ it please you?” asks Helen.
“If there were not room; if there were not happiness.”
“I take it,” saith Aunt Joyce, “if there were not all that for which my nature doth crave. But, mark you, my renewed nature.”
“Then surely we must know our friends again?” saith Helen.
“He was a queer fellow that first questioned that,” saith Aunt Joyce. “If I be not to know Anstace Morrell, I am well assured I shall not know her sister Joyce!”
“But thereby hangeth a dreadful question, Joyce!” answereth my Lady Stafford. “If we must needs know the souls that be found, how about them that be missed?”
Aunt Joyce was silent for a moment. Then saith she—
“The goat doth but hurt himself, Dulcie, to pull too hard at the tether. Neither thou nor I can turn over the pages of the Book of Life. It may be that we shall both find souls whom we thought to miss. May-be, in the very last moment of life, the Lord may save souls that have been greatly prayed for, though they that be left behind never wit it till they join the company above. We poor blindlings must leave that in His hands unto whom all hearts be open, and who willeth not the death of any sinner. ‘As His majesty is, so is His mercy.’ Of this one thing am I sure, that no soul shall be found in Hell which should have rather chosen Heaven. They shall go ‘to their own place:’ the place they are fit for, and the place they choose.”
“But how can we forget them?” she replieth.
“If we are to forget them,” saith Aunt Joyce, “the Lord will know how to compass it. I have reached the end of my tether, Dulcie; and to pull thereat doth alway hurt me. I will step back, by thy leave.”
As I listed the two voices, both something touched, methought it should be one soul in especial of whom both were thinking, and I guessed that were Mr Leonard Norris.
“And yet,” saith my Lady Stafford, “that thought hath its perilous side, Joyce. ’Tis so easy for a man to think he shall be saved at the last minute, howsoe’er he live.”
“Be there any thoughts that have not a perilous side?” saith Aunt Joyce. “As for that, Dulcie, my rule is, to be as easy as ever I can in my charitable hopes for other folk; and as hard as ever I can on this old woman Joyce, that I do find such rare hard work to pull of the right road. I cannot help other folks’ lives: but I can see to it that I make mine own calling sure. That is the safe side, I reckon.”
“The safe side, ay: but men mostly love to walk on the smooth side.”
“Why, so do I,” quoth Aunt Joyce: “but I would be on the side that shall come forth smooth at the end.”
“Ah, if all would but think of that!” saith my Lady, and she fetched a sigh.
“We should all soon be in Heaven,” Aunt Joyce made answer. “But thou art right, Dulcie. He that shall leave to look to his chart till the last hour of his journey is like to reach home very weary and worn, if he come at all. He that will go straight on, and reckoneth to get home after some fashion, is not like to knock at the gate ere it be shut up. The easiest matter in all the world is to miss Heaven.”
Selwick Hall, March ye xxv.
This morrow, Milisent was avised to ask at Walter, in a tone somewhat satirical, if he wist how his Excellency did.
“Nay, Milly, mind me not of my follies, prithee,” quoth he, flushing.
“Never cast a man’s past ill-deeds in his face, Milly,” softly saith Mother. “His conscience (if it be awake) shall mind him of them oft enough.”
“I reckon she shall have forgotten by now how to spell his name,” saith Father. “There be many such at Court.”
“Yet they have hearts in the Court, trow?” saith Aunt Joyce.
“A few,” quoth Father. “But they mostly come forth thereof. For one like my Lady of Surrey—(Lettice will conceive me)—there is many a Lady of Richmond.”
“Oh, surely not, Aubrey!” crieth Mother, earnestly.
“True, dear heart,” answereth he. “Let but a woman enter the Court—any Court—and verily it should seem to change her heart to stone.”
“Now, son of Adam!” saith Aunt Joyce.
“Well, daughter of Eva?” Father makes answer.
“Casting the blame on the women,” saith she. “Right so did Adam, and all his sons have trod of his steps.”
“I thought she deserved it,” saith Father.
“She deserved it a deal less than he!” quoth Aunt Joyce, in an heat. “He sinned with his eyes open, and she was deceived of the serpent.”
“Look you, she blamed the serpent, belike,” saith Sir Robert, laughing.
“I take it, she was an epitome in little of all future women, as Adam of all men to come,” saith Father. “But, Joyce, methinks Paul scarce beareth thee out.”
“I have heard folks to say Paul was not a woman’s friend,” saith Sir Robert.
“That’s not true,” quoth Aunt Joyce.
“Why, how so, my mistress?” Sir Robert makes merry answer. “He bade them keep silence in the churches, and be subject to the men, and not to teach: was that over courteous, think you?”
“Call me a Frenchman, if I stand that!” crieth Aunt Joyce. “Sir Robert Stafford, be so good as listen to me.”
“So I do, with both mine ears, I do ensure you,” saith he, laughing.
“Now shall we meet with our demerits!” saith Father. “I pity thee not o’er much, Robin, for thou hast pulled it on thine own head.”
“My head will stand it,” quoth Sir Robert. “Now then, Mistress Joyce, prithee go to.”
Then quoth she, standing afore him—“I know well you can find me places diverse where Paul did bid wives that they should obey their husbands; and therein hold I with Paul. But I do defy you in this company to find me so much as one place wherein he biddeth women to obey men. And as for teaching, in his Epistle unto Titus, he plainly commandeth that the aged women shall teach the young ones. Moreover, I pray you, had not Philip the evangelist four virgin daughters, which did prophesy—to wit, preach? And did not Priscilla, no whit less than Aquila, instruct Apollos?”
“Mistress Joyce, the Queen’s Bench lost an eloquent advocate in you.”
“That’s a man all over!” quoth Aunt Joyce, with a little stamp of her foot. “When he cannot answer a woman’s reasoning, trust him to pay her a compliment, and reckon that shall serve her turn, poor fool, a deal better than the other.”
Sir Robert laughed as though he were rarely diverted.
“Dulcie may do your bidding an’ she list,” saith Aunt Joyce, “but trust me, so shall not I.”
“Mistress Joyce, therein will I trust you as fully as may be,” saith he, yet laughing. “Yet, I pray you, satisfy my curious fantasy, and tell me wherein you count Paul a friend to the women?”
“By reason that he told them plainly they were happier unwed,” saith Aunt Joyce: “and find me an other man that so reckoneth. Mark you, he saith not better, nor holier, nor wiser; but happier. That is it which most men will deny.”
“Doth it not in any wise depend on the woman?” saith Sir Robert, with a comical set of his lips. “It depends on the man, a sight more,” saith she.
“But, my mistress, bethink you of the saw—‘A man is what a woman makes him.’”
“Oh, is he so?” crieth Aunt Joyce, in scorn. “She’s a deal more what he makes her. ‘A good Jack, a good Gill!’ Saws cut two ways, Sir Robert.”
“Six of one, and half-a-dozen of the other,” saith Father.
“Lettice, come thou and aid me,” saith Aunt Joyce. “Here be two men set on one poor woman.”
“Nay, I am under obedience, Joyce,” saith Mother, laughing.
“Forsooth, so thou art!” quoth she. “Bess, give me thine help.”
“I am beholden to you, Mistress Joyce,” saith Cousin Bess, “but I love not to meddle in no frays of other folk. I were alway learned that women were the meaner sort o’ th’ twain.”
“Go thy ways, thou renegade!” saith Aunt Joyce.
“Come, Joyce, shall I aid thee?” quoth Father.
“Nay, thou hypocrite, I’ll not have thee,” saith she. “Thou shouldst serve me as the wooden horse did the Trojans.” And she added some Latin words, the which I wist not. (Note 3.)
“‘Femme qui parle Latin
Ne vient jamais à bonne fin.’”
saith Sir Robert under his voice.
“That is because you like to have it all to yourselves,” saith Aunt Joyce, turning upon him. “There be few men would not fainer have a woman foolish than learned. Tell me wherefore?”
“I dispute the major,” quoth he, and shaked his head.
“Then I’ll tell you,” pursueth she. “Because—to give you French for your French—‘Parmi les aveugles, les borgnes sont rois.’ You love to keep atop of us; and it standeth to reason that the lower down we are the less toil shall you have in climbing.”
“‘Endless genealogies, which breed doubts more than godly edifying,’” saith Father. “Are we not landed in somewhat like them?”
“Well, Sir Robert, I’ll forgive you!” saith Aunt Joyce, and held forth her hand. “But mark you, I am right and you are wrong, for all that.”
Sir Robert lifted Aunt Joyce’s hand to his lips, with ever so much fun in his eyes, though his mouth were as grave as a whole bench of judges.
“My mistress,” said he, “I have been wed long enough to have learned never to gainsay a gentlewoman.”
“Nay, Dulcie never learned you that!” saith Aunt Joyce. “I know her better. Your daughters may have done, belike.”
Sir Robert did but laugh, and so ended the matter.
Selwick Hall, March the xxx.
So here I am come to the last day of our Chronicle—to-morrow being Sunday, when methinks it unseemly to write therein, without it were some godly meditations that should come more meeter from an elder pen than mine. To-morrow even I shall give the book into the hands of Aunt Joyce, that she may read the same, and write her own thoughts thereon: and thereafter shall Father and Mother and Anstace read it. There be yet fifteen leaves left of the book, and metrusteth Aunt Joyce shall fill them every one: for it standeth with reason that her thoughts should be better worth than of young maids like us.
I wis not well if I have been wise on the last page or no, as Father did seem diverted to hear me to say I would fain be. I am something afeared that I come nearer Milisent her reckoning, and have been wise on none. But I dare say that Helen hath fulfilled her hope, and been wise on all. Leastwise, Aunt Joyce her wisdom, as I cast no doubt, shall make up for our shortcomings.
I cannot but feel a little sorry to lay down my pen, and as though I would fain keep adding another line, not to have done. Wherefore is it, I marvel, that all last things (without they be somewhat displeasant) be so sorrowful? Though it be a thing that you scarce care aught for, yet to think that you be doing it for the very last time of all, shall cause you feel right melancholical.
Well! last times must come, I count. So farewell, my good red book: and when the Queen’s Majesty come to read thee (as Milly would have it) may Her Majesty be greatly diverted therewith; and when Father and Mother, may they pardon (as I reckon they shall) all faults and failings thereof, and in particular, should they find such, any displeasance done to themselves, more especially of that their loving and duteous daughter, that writes her name Editha Louvaine.
Note 1. At this time separate articles from the dress, and fastened in when worn, according to taste.
Note 2. Silk stockings. New and costly things, being about two guineas the pair.
Note 3. “Timeo Danaos, ac dona ferentes.”