Besides, I know just what she would say. She does not like to think or speak of my being a nun, and indeed I think my father is coming to mislike the notion. I believe I will let matters take their course. Perhaps if Dick has grown the fine court Squire that Mistress Bullen said, he will not care to pay me any attention. I do not believe it any the more for her saying so.
The poor Queen! My heart aches to think of her sitting alone and forlorn, while her husband goes junketting about with Mistress Anne. His conscience, forsooth! Methinks a retreat—say among the monks of La Trappe for him, and the Poor Clares, or the silent Carmelites for her, would be good for both of them. If I had the ordering of their haircloth and parched pease, methinks both would be of the hardest. Father says it is so with every one in London. The women are all for the Queen, and the men take the part of the King, or Mistress Bullen.
This morning the men went to Biddeford with the wagons, to bring up some goods of my father's and mother's, which have been sent round by sea, from London. My father and Harry went with them, to see all safe, and hearing that there was a great chest of books among the things, Master Ellenwood must needs go too. I was standing at the door watching to see the last of them, when my stepmother came to me.
"Rosamond!" said she, after she had asked after my health, and found that I was feeling as well as usual. "There is a certain thing, which needs to be done, and this day of your father's absence is a good time to undertake it; but I do not wish to move in the matter, unless you feel able to help me. I mean the opening, airing, and ordering of your mother's room and clothes. They must needs be attended to, or the moths and damp will ruin them. Moreover, Alice thinks that she should have her share of the clothes and jewels, and maybe she is right."
(I forgot to say, in the right place, that my step-dame had refused to occupy my mother's private apartment, but had chosen one on the other side of the house, where she had her dressing room, and her private closet, in which she spent an hour every morning.)
I was moved at first, which my step-dame saw.
"I know it will be hard for you, my child," said she, "but think what your mother would wish in the matter."
"It must be done, of course," said I, recovering myself, "and I will help you. Dear Madam, how kind you are to me."
"And why should I not be kind, sweetheart?" she asked me, smiling. "You are my dear home daughter, and it would sure be an unnatural mother who did not love her child."
"And you are my dear mother," I whispered, kissing her hand, whereat she embraced me tenderly, and we went together to open my mother's room.