“I scantly know, Blanche. ’Tis rarely beautiful, in some ways. Yet it soundeth to me alway very sorrowful.”
“Ay so, Mistress Clare!” returned Barbara. “It may belike to thee, poor sweet heart, whose father was killed thereon,—and to me, that had a brother which died far away on the Spanish main.”
“I suppose,” answered Clare sighing, “matters sound unto us according as we are disposed.”
“Marry, and if so, some folks’ voices should sound mighty discordant,” retorted Barbara.
Blanche was soon asleep; but there was little sleep for Clare that night. Nor was there much for Rachel. Since Margaret’s marriage, Lucrece had shared her aunt’s chamber; for it would have been thought preposterous in the Elizabethan era to give a young girl a bedroom to herself. Rachel watched her niece narrowly; but Lucrece neither said nor did anything from which the least information could be gleaned. She was neither elated nor depressed, but just as usual,—demure, slippery, and unaccountable.
Rachel kept her eye also, like an amateur detective, upon Arthur. He came frequently, and generally managed to get a walk with Lucrece in the garden. On two occasions the detective, seated at her own window, which overlooked the garden, saw that Arthur was entreating or urging something, to which Lucrece would not consent.
The month of Sir Piers Feversham’s stay was drawing to a close, and still Rachel had not spoken to her brother about Lucrece. She felt considerably puzzled as to what it would be either right or wise to do. Lucrece was no foolish, romantic, inexperienced child like Blanche, but a woman of considerable worldly wisdom and strong self-reliance. It was no treachery to interfere with her, in her aunt’s eyes, since Lucrece herself had been the traitor; and for Clare’s sake Rachel longed to rescue Arthur, whom she considered infatuated and misled.
Before Rachel had been able to make up her mind on this point, one Saturday afternoon Sir Thomas sought her, and asked her to come to the library.
“Rachel,” he said, “I would fain have thy counsel. Sir Piers Feversham—much to mine amazing—hath made me offer of service (courtship) for Lucrece. What thinkest thereon?”
“Brother, leave her go!”