"In part from the bad man from whom my benefactor delivered me," answered Ida Mara; "but it was of the plague my mother died; and a good and great mediciner of my native town afterwards told me, what we should have done to save her.--Oh, here is the wine. Now give me one of those spoons--that one, that one."
"What matters it, girl?" said the old housekeeper, reaching the spoon to gratify her.
"Do you not see," said Ida Mara, "this has got the image of St. Luke, the good physician, upon it?" and while the old housekeeper called her a poor benighted papist, the girl hastened back to the bedside of the old knight, and from time to time moistened his lips with the wine.
Just as the day dawned fully in the sky, Sir Harry West closed his eyes, and fell into a gentle sleep, and when the housekeeper stole in, about an hour after, she found him still in the same, while Ida Mara, kneeling by his bedside, and utterly exhausted by long watching, had suffered her fair head to droop forward on the bed clothes, and was buried in slumber also.
She withdrew without waking them, and till nearly noon the knight remained asleep. When he woke, all delirium was gone, and, though reduced to infant weakness, he was evidently better. His amendment was steady though slow, but would probably have been more rapid had it not been for the apprehensions he felt for his tender nurse, on whose cheek the rose had become somewhat pale, and whose eye had grown dim and heavy. These, however, were only the natural effects of anxiety and watching; and as soon as she could leave him, to enjoy the breath of the free air, her colour and her health returned.
It is a curious fact, indeed, but one not by any means rare in cases of pestilential disease, that none of those who remained with the old knight during his sickness, and saw him continually during the whole course of the malady, were infected by it; while three of the servants, who fled from the house after seeing their master only for a few minutes, were stricken with the plague, and died in the neighbouring hamlets, carrying the disease with them to the cottages of their relations. A firm and steadfast mind is one of the best preservatives against pestilence, as well as against many another evil.
For some months the house was shunned; and it was not till the plague began to disappear from England, that Ida Mara ventured to return to her fair mistress. She did not do so, however, without being rendered by the act of Harry West independent of human caprice. He could, indeed, have found it in his heart never to part with her; but evil-tongues were as prevalent in those days as in our own, and even age and respectability cannot hope for impunity from the malice or folly of men. He thought, too, that it would be better for the devoted girl herself to be about the person of one so kind and good as Arabella Stuart; and by settling upon her, with all legal form, a hundred crowns a year--then a considerable sum--he secured her against any change in the favour or fortunes of her mistress.
Arabella welcomed her back with great satisfaction, and never from that moment ceased to regard her with affection and esteem. The deep and fearless devotion which she had displayed, was of a character to touch most powerfully the heart of one, who knew how much such sincere attachment is needed by persons in high stations, and how seldom it is found. She was no longer considered as her servant; but more as her companion and her friend, in all those circumstances in which her inferior rank suffered her to take a part; and great was the consolation and comfort to Arabella herself, in all the pains, and cares, and anxieties of a Court, to have one always near her, on whose truth, sincerity, and regard she could fully rely.
The reader, learned in the history of those times, will know that, to a high-toned mind and feeling heart, the Court of England, under the reign of James I., was a place of constant trial, anxiety, and grief. Even had not the sickening selfishness, vulgarity, and wickedness of the King himself, affected greatly the comfort of all around him, the lightness of the Queen's manners, though perhaps not running to criminality, and the encouragement given to vice of every kind, rendered the palace a painful as well as disgusting abode, for any one of a pure spirit.[[3]] The freedom, indeed, from all those formal restraints which are, in fact, the shackles that vice imposes upon virtue, might prove not disagreeable, even to a noble mind like that of Arabella Stuart. To go whithersoever she would, unwatched and uncensured; to see whomsoever she would, without care or without fear; to be as free in her actions as her own principles would admit, could never be productive of any harm in one who sought not to abuse such liberty. But it was remarked of her, that unless when obliged to do so, as one of the Queen's train, she rarely, if ever, adopted the much misused habit of the day, in wearing a mask when travelling, or walking abroad. She wished her actions to be as free as the sunshine, but as open also.
In the meantime, a number of important events occurred, which require but brief notice here.