The wedding festivities a few weeks later left nothing to be desired. Day after day Joyce found herself the caressed centre of a brilliant throng that held but one disappointing figure—her boy bridegroom. 'He has eyes like a weasel, and a nose like a ferret,' was the bride's secret criticism, when the introduction took place. But, after all, the bridegroom was one of the least important parts of the wedding: far less important than the Prince of Wales, who led her out to dance, and whom she much preferred: far less important also than the bridegroom's cousin, Abigail, a bold, black-eyed girl who took country-bred Joyce under her protection at once, and saved her from many a mistake. Abigail was already at the school to which Joyce was to be sent. She herself was betrothed, though not as yet married, to my Lord Darcy, and was therefore able to instruct Joyce herself in many of the needful accomplishments of her new position.
The school days that followed were not unhappy ones, since, far better than their books, both girls loved their embroidery work and other 'curious and ingenious manufactures,' especially the new and fashionable employment of making samplers, which had just been introduced. But when, in a short time, the Civil Wars broke out, their peaceful world collapsed like a house of cards. The 'position' of the young Viscountess and her husband vanished into thin air. One winter at Court the young couple spent together, it is true, when the King and Queen were in Oxford, keeping state that was like a faint echo of Whitehall.
All too soon the fighting began again. In one of the earliest battles young Lord Danvers was severely wounded and sent home maimed for life. His days at Court and camp were over. Summoning his wife to nurse him, he returned to his estate near Beverley in Yorkshire, where the next few years of Joyce's life were spent, to her ill-concealed displeasure.
Her husband's days were evidently numbered, and as he grew weaker, he grew more exacting. Patience had never been one of Joyce's strong points, and, though she did her best, time often dragged, and she mourned the cruel fate that had cast her lot in such an unquiet age. Instead of wearing her coronet at Court, here she was moping and mewed up in a stiff, puritanical countryside.
After the triumph of the Parliamentarians, things grew worse. It would have gone hard with the young couple had not a neighbour of theirs, of much influence with the Protector, one Justice Hotham, made representations as to the young lord's dying state and so ensured their being left unmolested.
Justice Hotham was a fatherly old man with a genius for understanding his neighbours, especially young people. He was a good friend to Joyce, and perpetually urged her to cherish her husband while he remained with her. Judge then of the good Justice's distress, when, one fine day, a note was brought to him from his wilful neighbour to say that she could bear her lot no longer, that her dear friend Abigail, Lady Darcy, was now on her way to join the Queen in France, and had persuaded Joyce to leave her husband and accompany her thither.
The Justice looked up in dismay: a dismay reflected on the face of the waiting-woman to whom Joyce had entrusted her confidential letter. This was a certain blue-eyed Cecily, now a tall and comely maiden, who had followed her mistress from her old home at Drayton-in-the-Clay.
'She must be stopped,' said the good Judge. 'Spending the night with Lady Darcy at the Inn at Beverley is she, sayest thou? And thou art to join her there? Hie thee after her then, and delay her at all costs. Plague on this gouty foot that ties me here! Maiden, I trust in thee to bring her home.'
Cecily needed no second bidding. 'She will not heed me. No mortal man or woman can hinder my lady, once her mind is made up. Still I will do my best,' was her only answer to the Judge; while 'It would take an angel to stop her! May Heaven find one to do the work and send her home, or ever my lord finds out that she has forsaken him,' she prayed in the depths of her faithful heart.
Was it in answer to her prayer that the rain came down in such torrents that for two days the roads were impassable? Cecily was inclined to think so. Anyhow, Joyce and Abigail, growing tired of the stuffy inn parlour while the torrents descended, and having nothing to do, seeing that the day was the Sabbath, and therefore scrupulously observed without doors in Puritan Beverley, strolled through the Minster, meaning to make sport of the congregation and its ways thereafter. The sermon was long and tedious, but it was nearing its end as they entered. At the close a stranger rose to speak in the body of the Church, a tall stranger, who stood in the rays of the sun that streamed through a lancet window behind him. His first words arrested careless Joyce, though she paid small heed to preaching as a rule.