CHAPTER IV.
Besides Zedekiah Truman and the maiden Abigail (for Abigail had never been married), the establishment at Bethlehem Hall, of which we have been recently treating, embraced another individual, who, being Master Shedlock’s wife, might with propriety be considered its mistress. But if Dame Shedlock was such in name, or, to take a higher ground, by right, a very limited acquaintance with the economy of the Hall, on occasions of a general nature, would show that she was not so in fact. So far, indeed, from governing others, she was scarcely mistress of herself, but was held responsible by her lord for whatever she did, and was continually being subjected, according to the turn of his capricious temper, to all those mortifications and trials, which too often form the portion of the uncomplaining wife.
Few women could have borne this treatment with the meekness and patience that were manifested by Dame Shedlock. Her equanimity was, to all appearance, above the reach of those circumstances which influence most tempers, and was founded on qualities too sterling to be corrupted, and too solid to be undermined. She met insult, however gratuitous, with the most calm endurance; she submitted to degradation, without a murmur; and, what was stranger still, as opposed to the strongest principles of our nature, she repaid the tyranny of her husband with the deepest and most absolute love.
It is a difficult thing to tear the affections from one who, in times past, has been their stay and centre; and it may be doubted whether the heart can ever wholly alienate a once-cherished object; but that love, which comprehends the softest feelings of our nature, bound together by the most tender memories, should be proof to a continuous succession of outrageous assaults, and survive all fellowship and reciprocity, seems almost impossible. Yet Dame Shedlock, in her attachment to her husband, realised this seeming anomaly. After a life of ill-usage, she still clung to him as fondly, as devotedly, and even as passionately, as on the day that, glowing with maidenly confusion, she first surrendered to him her hand and heart. He might be a bad man; she might know that, in his dealings with the world, he often committed very unscrupulous acts; but yet her bosom found him an excuse, or awarded him a justification. Such a deed might appear evil in her eye, but it had, no doubt, a sanction in the practice of the world, or was called for and justified by the circumstances of the times. She would not acknowledge that the absolute possessor of her most precious sympathies, on whom she reposed her happiness here, and her wishes of hereafter, was stained and defiled with the hideous colours of guilt: even if he were so, it was not by her, the wife and partner of his bosom, that his actions were to be questioned, or his conduct condemned. In short, despite his ill-usage, and the groveling selfishness of his nature, which he seemed to pride himself in making apparent, she loved him; and this explains, in one word, every trait in her conduct that appears singular or unnatural.
If Dame Shedlock had been a mother, her love for her husband might, from the division of her affections, have been less stable, and more alive to those slights and provocations, which fall on the heart with a depressing influence. Less possessed by her love, she would have viewed his character more closely: she would have deemed his affectation of sanctity, which she now considered pure and genuine, sheer hypocrisy, and his violations of right, oppressive and sinful. His selfishness, dissimulation, and avarice, however disguised, would have deprived him of her respect; and his tyrannical disposition would probably have provoked her contempt. But, secluded from all society, having no channel but him for the sweetest effusions of her amiable and gentle nature, her love was without restraint, and she could see in his heart no shade of evil, or trace of blemish.
It is not always that an individual’s temper, as far as regards its principal characteristics, may be seen in the face; but in Dame Shedlock’s, it was written distinctly. Her complexion was dark, and, though she might be in her fiftieth year, her hair, where it was visible, was still dark also, yet not unmingled with grey. Her eyes were of a deep brown, and amply answered, by their quiet and subdued light, for the evenness of her disposition, and the docility of her nature. The impression they created was confirmed, on a closer survey, by her other features, which, though not of a classic mould, were regular and harmonious, and were more charming from their sweet melancholy, chastened by the soft light of resignation and endurance, than they would have been in the full glow of mere youth and beauty.
Such was the person who, a few minutes previous to the period that closed our last chapter, while Shedlock and Sir Walter Raleigh were yet in the avenue, passed into the pleasure-ground that surrounded Bethleham Hall, and proceeded down a secluded side-walk. For some few minutes she walked leisurely along, without sustaining any interruption, or, indeed, encountering or seeing a single individual. But after a while, she came to a spot where, pushed out by a small shrubbery, the path swept close up to the park-fence, in which there was a blind gate, communicating with the lane beyond. Though she was within a pace or two of the gate, she did not observe that it was slightly ajar; and it was not till she came abreast of it, and, thinking she heard a rustling noise in that quarter, turned an inquiring gaze thitherwards, that the fact incurred her notice. Her gaze was still turned on the door, when it was suddenly pushed open, and a man, whom it had served as a place of ambush, presented himself at the aperture.
She gave a slight start as she glanced in the man’s face, and then turned an anxious gaze around her, as if to ascertain, by this hasty survey, whether any other person was within sight. But the view was, from the curve in the walk, very limited, and in neither direction extended more than a dozen yards, when it was lost in the sweep of the adjacent shrubbery. So far as her glance reached, however, there was no person in view, and, satisfied of this, she turned her eye on the man again.
“Bernard Gray, what wouldst thou?” she inquired.