Selwick Hall, February ye ii.
This day was called of old time Candlemas, by reason of the great number of candles, saith Father, which were brent afore the altar at the Purification of Saint Mary. Being an holy day, all we to church this morrow, after the which I was avised to begin my chronicling.
And afore I set down anything else, ’tis meet I should say that I do now see plain how I have played the fool, and have erred exceedingly. I would not think now to tear forth those pages I writ this last November, though they be such a record of folly and sin as few maids should need to set down. I would rather keep them, that I may see in future days all the ill that was once in Milisent Louvaine, and all the great mercy and goodness which the Lord my God did show me.
Oh, the bitter anger that was in mine heart that night toward dear Aunt Joyce!—who, next unto Father and Mother, hath been to me as an angel of God. For had she not stopped me in my madness, where and what had I been to-night? I can scarce bear to think on it. Perchance I feel it the more, sith I am ever put in mind thereof by the woefully changed face of poor Blanche—Blanche, but three months gone the merriest of us all, and now looking as though she should never know a day’s merriment again. Her whole life seems ruined: and Dr Bell, the chirurgeon at Keswick, told Mother but yesterday that Blanche should not live long. She hath, said he, a leaning of her nature toward the consumption of the lungs, the which was greatly worsened by those days that she hid in the copse, fearing to come home, until Aunt Joyce went to her.
And to think that I might have been thus now—with nought but a wasted life to look back on, and nought to look forward to but a rapid and early death! And to know well, as I do know, that I have but mine own headstrong foolery to thank for the danger, and am far from having any wisdom of mine to thank for the rescue. Verily, I should be the humblest of women, all the days of my life.
Oh, when will young maids learn, without needing to have it brent into them of hot irons, that they which have dwelt forty or sixty years in this world be like to know more about its ways than they that have lived but twenty; or that their own fathers and mothers, which have loved and cared for them since they lay in the cradle, be not like to wreck their happiness, even for a while, without they have good cause! Of force, I know ’tis not every maid hath such a father and mother as we—thank God for the same!—but I do think, nevertheless, there be few mothers that be good women at all, which should not be willing to have their daughters bring their sorrows and joys to them, rather than pour them into the ear of the first man that will flatter them. I have learned, from Aunt Joyce, that there is oft a deal more in folk than other folk reckon, and that if we come not on the soft spot in a woman’s heart, ’tis very commonly by reason that we dig not deep enough. Howbeit, Aunt Joyce saith there be women that have no hearts. The good Lord keep them out of my path, if His will be!
Selwick Hall, February ye v.
This morrow, we maids were sat a-work in the great chamber, where was Aunt Joyce a-work likewise, and Mother coming in and out on her occasions. Father was there, but he was wrapped in a great book that lay afore him. I cannot well mind how we gat on the matter, but Aunt Joyce ’gan speak of the blunders that men do commonly make when they speak of women.
“Why,” saith she, “we might be an other sort of animal altogether, instead of the one half of themselves. Do but look you what I have heard men to say in my life. A woman’s first desire is to be wed; that’s not true but of some women, and they be the least worthy of the sex. A woman can never keep a secret: that’s not true but of some. A woman can never take a joke: that’s as big a falsehood as Westminster Abbey. A woman cannot understand reason and logic: that’s as big an one as all England. Any woman can keep a house or manage a babe: heyday, can she so? I know better. Poor loons, what should they say if we made as great blunders touching them? And an other thing I will tell you which hath oft-times diverted me: ’tis the queer ways whereby a man will look to win favour of a woman. Nine men of every ten will suppose they shall be liked of a woman for telling her (in substance) that she is as good as if she had not been one. Now, that should set the man that did it out of my grace for ever and ever.”
“How mean you, Aunt, an’ it like you?” saith Nell.