CHAPTER X
PRISONER OF WAR
The dream of the steep hill was only a dream. In time it ended, and Merrylips found herself, such a weak little shadow of a Merrylips, lying in her chamber at Larkland. Round her bed moved her own maid, Mawkin, and other people whom she did not know. There were strange serving-women, and a doctor dressed in black, and a tall, pale woman, with hands that were dry and cold.
Little by little Merrylips guessed that the other dream that had troubled her was no dream. By and by she got strength to ask questions, and then she found that it was indeed true that Lady Sybil had gone from Larkland and left her behind.
Mawkin told her the story one night when she watched at the bedside. She told how the Roundhead soldiers had been almost at the gates of Larkland; how, to save the jewels, which she dared trust to no other hand, Lady Sybil had fled on horseback; and how she had been obliged to leave Merrylips, who had that very night been stricken with fever.
"No doubt you took the sickness from that rascal boy whom you did bring to shelter here," said Mawkin. "As if that little vagabond had not brought trouble enough upon us without this! But in any case, you have been most grievous ill. Full three weeks you have lain in sick-bed, and we have all been in great fear for you."
At the moment Merrylips had strength only to wonder whom Mawkin meant by "all." She asked no questions then, but as the slow days passed, she came to know that Mistress Lowry, Will Lowry's wife and Lady Sybil's cousin, was living at Larkland.
Upon Lady Sybil's flight, Will Lowry had seized her house. He said that he had a right to it, because his wife was nearest of kin to Lady Sybil, and Lady Sybil had proved herself an enemy to the Parliament, by fleeing to the king's friends, and so had justly forfeited her house and lands. Doubtless Mr. Lowry would have found it hard to make good his claim to Larkland in the courts of law, but at such a time, when the country was plunging into civil war, the courts had little to say.
So Lowry's men and maids served in the house of Larkland. Lowry's steward gathered the harvests and collected the rents. And Lowry's wife, who was sickly and wished the air of the Sussex Weald, left her own house by the sea and came to rule in Lady Sybil's place.
Of the old household only Mawkin and Merrylips were left. Mawkin was there because Merrylips needed her, and Merrylips was there because, at first, she was too sick to be moved, and because afterward—but afterward was some time in coming.