The House of Commons had petitioned the King for the militia, and they were already active in raising men. Sir Oliver Heywood, refusing to act in this matter, resigned his office of magistrate and justice of the peace, and took a decided part for the King. But although he had good will to the royal cause, and spoke his sentiments loudly and bitterly, although he was ready to make some personal exertions and some pecuniary sacrifices for his party, he was, as has been observed before, an indolent, self-indulgent old gentleman, a lover of ease and of his own way; methodical in all his habits, and obstinate in all his prejudices. The frequent visits of those hard and active men of business, who were employed to forward the royal cause by negotiating with all the Cavalier gentry for supplies of men and money, before the commission of array was actually issued, disturbed him sadly, and his temper became very irritable. Sir Charles Lambert had been long re-established in his good graces, and to the deep sorrow of Katharine had become once more a constant guest at Milverton. It is true that a great improvement had apparently taken place in his outward conduct, but Katharine disliked, mistrusted, feared him. She saw that he again entertained hopes of accomplishing his purposes upon her weak father, and of thus obtaining possession of her hand in marriage. It was an inconceivable mystery to her that any human being should desire to be united to another, when aware that his very touch was evaded with a shudder, and that from his gaze the face was averted with loathing.
Some changes had taken place at the Hall within the last year, which had glided away with the swiftness of a shadow. In the January immediately preceding the season of which we are now writing, Mistress Alice had been summoned by that call, which, sooner or later, all must obey, and laid in a peaceful grave:—the snows that fell upon it were not more pure and spotless than had been her kind and innocent life, and her dissolution had been as gentle and as soft as their quick and silent melting.
The family and household were still in their mourning for her; and had any stranger gazed upon Katharine Heywood, as in her sad robes of black she paced the terrace alone with slow and thoughtful steps, he would have wept for sympathy, and deemed her one of those silent mourners for the dead who refuse to be comforted, and cherish the sweet memory of a vanished image; but it was far otherwise,—her griefs were those of doubt and apprehension about the living. If ever a glance of the mind looked after the departed Alice, it did so with affection and complacency; with a calm joy that she was taken from the evil to come, and with an envy of her quiet tomb. But such movements of impatience at the difficulties of her path and the dreariness of that waste which lay before her in her appointed pilgrimage were never of any long continuance. She knew them to be wicked, and she knew them to be vain: she wore divine and secret armour, and she neither fled nor fainted in her hours of trial. The occasional, though less frequent, visits of George Juxon were a great relief to her,—and Jane Lambert continued to be her constant friend and beloved companion. Over the character of Jane there had come a change, which, though at times it was viewed with serious anxiety by Katharine, did upon the whole suit far better with those habits of her own soul which care had begotten.
Jane Lambert’s eyes, which were used to be lighted up with bright and joyous expression, and a certain lively and winning archness, did now often fill with unbidden tears, or were fixed gravely upon vacancy.
One day, as the friends were walking together in a silent mood, the hand of Katharine resting gently upon the shoulder of Jane, and their steps slow as those of vestals in their groves, Juxon came suddenly upon them in their path; and so deep was the abstraction of both, that he was not seen of either till they met closely.
“I am sorry,” he observed, “to break the spell by which you are both bound, but I could not turn back, for I have business with Sir Oliver; however, it was to all seeming a spell so black and melancholy that perhaps it is better broken.”
“It is a good omen for us that it is broken by you, Master Juxon, for you are always a prophet of good, and misfortune never makes choice of such a messenger,” said Katharine, with an effort at cheerfulness. Jane, too, suddenly recollecting herself, endeavoured to put on a careless smile, of welcome, but the effort failed her, and she burst into a flood of tears.
Juxon, distressed and affected by the sight, made no reply to Katharine, but stood rivetted to the spot, hesitating whether he should proceed towards the house, and leave Jane to recover herself under the care of her friend, or whether he should remain to render what service he could, by diverting and calming a sorrow, the secret cause of which he fancied that he knew.
Meanwhile, Katharine pressed Jane to her heart, and, covering her from observation, as though she were a child, said, “This is the natural effect of a night without sleep, and a nervous headache: it will do her good; you need not stay with us; we shall do very well, and Jane will be all the brighter for it at supper. You will find my father in the vineyard.”
Jane, however, in part relieved by these tears, quickly raised her head, and, with one of her most natural smiles dimpling her wet cheeks, said, “Pray do not let me drive you away: this is just nothing at all but what my old nurse used to call the mopes and the megrims: there, it is all over; that’s one advantage we women have over you lords of the creation; that is, such of us as are not heroines, which I shall never be for one: we may now and then have a good cry; and, take my word for it, it is a fine cure for all nonsenses,—another favourite noun plural of my dear old nurse when I was little and naughty.” This flash of affected gaiety did only light up her features, however, for a passing moment, and ere her few words were uttered an air of extreme depression returned upon her.