Chapter Thirteen.
Which is full of Surprises.
“Ah, who am I, that God hath saved
Me from the doom I did desire,
And crossed the lot myself had craved,
To set me higher?”
Jean Ingelow.
As Mr Marshall approached the White Bear that evening, he was unexpectedly pounced upon by Silence Abbott.
“Eh, Parson, I declare it’s you! How fares Mrs Agnes this cold even? Marry, I do believe we shall have snow ere the day break again. The White Bear’ll be a bit whiter, I reckon, if he be well snowed o’er. Are you going in there? You’ll have some work to peace Mrs Louvaine; she’s lamenting and weeping, you never heard!—and all for her son as cometh not home, and she is fair sure he’ll be hung, because she saith he was in with those rogues yonder.”
“He was nothing of the sort,” said Mr Marshall, breaking in sternly on the flow of Silence’s tide of words: “and let me tell you, Mrs Abbott, if you spread such a lie, you may have a death at your door, as like as not. Mr Louvaine, I have no doubt, is safe and well, and had no more ado with the Gunpowder Plot than you had: and I saw you with mine own eyes talking with Fawkes, that rascal that called himself Johnson.”
“Eh deary, Parson, but you’d never go to tell on a poor woman, and as honest as any in Westminster, if I did pass the time o’ day to a fellow, that I never guessed to be a villain? I do assure you, on my truth as—”
“I hope you are an honest woman, Mrs Abbott; and so is Mr Louvaine an honest man; and if you would have me keep my tongue off your doings, see that you keep yours off his. Now I have given you warning: that is a bargain.”
“Eh deary, deary! but I never heard Parson i’ such a way afore!” lamented Mrs Abbott to her daughter Mary, the only listener she had left, for Mr Marshall had walked straight into the White Bear. “I’ll say the lad’s a Prince of the Blood, or an angel, or anything he’s a mind, if he’ll but let me be. Me talk to Guy Fawkes, indeed! I never said no worser to him than ‘Fine morning,’ or ‘Wet, isn’t it?’ as it might be: and to think o’ me being had up afore the Lords of the Council for just passing a word like that—and the parson, too! Eh, deary me! whatever must I say to content him, now?”
“I fancy, Mother,” said Mary, who took after her quiet father, “he’ll be content if you’ll hold your peace.”
Mr Marshall found the ladies at the White Bear all assembled in the parlour. Mrs Louvaine had the ear of the House as he entered.
“So unfeeling as you are, Temperance, to a poor widow! and my only child as good as lost, and never found again. And officers and third-boroughs and constables all going about, making all manner of inquirations, trying to bring folks to justice, and Aubrey in with those wicked people, and going to sup with them, and all—and nobody ever trying to prevent him, and not a soul to care but me whether he went right or wrong—I do believe you thought more of the price of herrings than you ever did of the dear boy—and now, he’s completely lost and nobody knows what has become of him—”
Mr Marshall’s quiet voice effected a diversion.
“Mrs Louvaine, pardon me. Aubrey is at my house, safe and sound. There is no need for your trouble.”
“Of course!” responded Temperance. “I told her so. Might as well talk to the fire-bricks, when she takes a fancy of this sort. If the lad had come to any harm, we should have heard it. Faith never will think that ‘no news is good news.’”
“I am glad Aubrey is with you, Mr Marshall,” said the gentle voice of Lady Louvaine.
“I met with him, Madam, in a walk this afternoon, and brought him so far with me.”
“And why not a bit further, trow?” asked Temperance.
“That am I come to say. Madam,”—and he addressed himself to Lady Louvaine,—“having told you that your grandson is well in body, and safe at my lodging, I trust it shall not greatly touch you to learn that he is in some trouble of mind.”
“Didn’t I tell you?” demanded Mrs Louvaine, in tones suited to Cassandra amid the ruins of Troy. “I said I was sure some harm had come to the boy, and you laughed me to scorn, and not one of you went to see—”
“Nobody laughed at you but me, my dear,” said her sister: “and as to going to see, when his mother did not reckon it worth while to budge, I don’t see why his aunts should not sit quiet.”
“Why, you never looked for me to go?” responded Mrs Louvaine, with a faint scream of horror. “Me, a poor widow, and with my feeble health! When I haven’t been out of the door except to church for nigh a month!”
“More’s the pity! If you knocked about a bit more, and went to market of a morrow, and such like, maybe your health would not be so feeble.”
“Temperance, you barbarous creature, how can you?”
“Well, I know there are folks that can, Faith, and there are folks that can’t. You never heard me ask my Lady Lettice why she didn’t stir up and go a-marketing. She can’t; she’d be only too glad if she could, and would want no asking. But you could if you would—it’s true, my dear, and you don’t need to stare, as if you’d never seen me before this evening. As for looking for you to go, I didn’t indeed; I never look for aught but cumber, and so I’m not disappointed.—Mr Marshall, I ask your pardon; I’m staying you from speaking.”
Mr Marshall accepted the apology with a smile.
“Well, the upshot of the matter is this. Mr Louvaine, though in truth, as I do verily believe, innocent of all ill, is in danger to fall in some suspicion through a certain jewel of his being found in the lodging of one of the caitiffs lately execute. He saith that he knew not where he had lost it: no doubt it dropped out of his apparel when he was there, as he allows he hath been divers times. He never heard, saith he, a word of any traitorous designs, nor did they tamper at all with his religion. But this jewel being carried to my Lady Oxford—truly, whether by some suspicion that it should be Mr Louvaine’s, or how, I know not, nor am sure that he doth himself—she charged him withal, yet kindly, and made haste to have him forth of the house, warning him that he must in no wise tarry in the town, but must with all haste hie him down into the country, and there lie squat until all suspicion had passed. She would not even have him come hither, where she said he should be sought if any inquiry were made. The utmost she would suffer was that he should lie hid for a day or twain in my lodging, whither you might come as if to speak with Agnes, and so might agree whither he should go, and so forth. My Lady paid him his wage, well-nigh nine pound, and further counted ten pounds into his hand to help him on his journey. Truly, she gave him good counsel, and dealt well with him. But the poor lad is very downcast, and knows not what to do; and he tells me he hath debts that he cannot pay. So I carried him to my lodging, where he now lieth: and I wait your further wishes.”
“I thank you right truly for that your goodness,” said Lady Louvaine.
“There, now! didn’t I say the boy was sure to run into debt?” moaned Mrs Louvaine.
“How much be these debts, Mr Marshall?” asked the old lady.
“Twenty pounds borrowed from Mr Thomas Rookwood; twenty lost at play; and about sixty owing to tailors, mercers, and the like.”
“Ay, I reckoned that velvet would be over a penny the yard.”
“I see, the lad hath disburdened himself to you,” said Lady Louvaine, with a sad smile. “Truly, I am sorry to hear this, though little astonied. Mr Marshall, I have been much troubled at times, thinking whether, in suffering Aubrey to enter my Lord Oxford’s service, I had done ill: and yet in very deed, at the time I could see nothing else to do. It seemed to be the way wherein God meant us to go—and yet—”
“Madam, the Lord’s mercies are great enough to cover our mistakes along with our sins. And it may be you made none. I have never seen Mr Louvaine so softened and humbled as he now looks to be.”
“May the Lord lead him forth by the right way! What do you advise, true friend?”
“I see two courses, Madam, which under your good leave I will lay before you. Mr Louvaine can either lie hid in the country with some friend of yours,—or, what were maybe better, some friend of your friend: or, if he would be doing at once towards the discharging of his debts, he can take the part Mr Floriszoon hath chosen, and serve some tradesman in his shop.”
“Trade! Aubrey!” shrieked Mrs Louvaine in horror. “He never will! My boy hath so delicate a soul—”
“He said he would,” answered Mr Marshall quietly, “and thereby won my high respect.”
“Nay, you never mean it!” exclaimed Temperance. “Bless the lad! I ne’er gave him credit for half the sense.”
“If Aubrey be brought down to that, he must have learned a good lesson,” said his grandmother. “Not that I could behold it myself entirely without a pang.”
Edith, who had hitherto been silent, now put in a suggestion.
“Our Charity is true as steel,” she said. “Why not let Aubrey lie close with her kindred, where none should think to look for him?”
“In Pendle?—what, amid all the witches!” said Temperance.
“Edith, I’m amazed at you! I could never lie quiet in my bed!” wailed Mrs Louvaine. “Only to think of the poor boy being bewitched by those wicked creatures! Why, they spend Sunday nights dancing round the churchyard with the devil.”
“And the place is choke-full of ’em, Charity says,” added Temperance. “She once met Mother Demdike her own self, muttering under her breath, and she gave her the evillest look as she passed her that the maid ever saw.”
“Ay, saying the Lord’s Prayer backwards, of course.”
“Well, I can’t say,” said Temperance, dubiously: “it did not seem to do Charity any ill. I shouldn’t wonder, truly—”
“For mercy’s sake, stop her!” cried Mrs Louvaine. “She’s going to say something wicked—I know she is! She’ll say there are no witches, or no devil, or something horrible.”
“Nay, I’ll say nought o’ the sort,” responded Temperance. “Whether there be witches or no, the Lord knows, and there I leave it; but that there is a devil I’m very sure, for he has tempted me over and over again. All I say is, if Charity could meet a witch, and get no ill, why should not Aubrey too?”
“I won’t have it!” cried Mrs Louvaine in an agony. “My poor darling boy! I won’t have it! My fatherless child shall not go among snakes and witches and demons—”
“Now, Faith, do be quiet, or you’ll have a fit of the mother (hysterics). Nobody wants to send the lad amongst snakes—I don’t know that there’s so much as an adder there. As to devils, he’ll find them where’er he goeth, and some of them in men’s and women’s bodies, or I mistake.”
“If your Ladyship liked better,” suggested Mr Marshall, quietly, “to take the other road I named, I am acquaint with a bookseller in Oxford town, that is a cousin of my sister’s husband, a good honest man, and a God-fearing, with whom, if you so pleased, he might be put. ’Tis a clean trade, and a seemly, that need not disgrace any to handle: and methinks there were no need to mention wherefore it were, save that the place were sought for a young gentleman that had lost money through disputes touching lands. That is true, and it should be sufficient to account for all that the master might otherwise note as strange in a servant.”
“My poor fatherless boy!” sobbed Mrs Louvaine, with her handkerchief at her eyes. “Servant to a tradesfellow!”
“We are all servants,” answered Mr Marshall: “and we need think no scorn thereof, since our Lord Himself took on Him the form of a servant. Howbeit, for this even, the chief question is, Doth any of you gentlewomen desire to return with me?—Mrs Louvaine?”
“I could not bear it!” came in a stifled voice from behind the handkerchief. “To see my poor child in his misery—it would break mine heart outright. ’Tis enough to think of, and too-too (exceedingly) great to brook, even so.”
“Let her pass; she’ll be ne’er a bit of good,” said Temperance in a contemptuous whisper. Then raising her voice, she added,—“Now, Lady Lettice, don’t you think thereof. There’s no need, for Edith and I can settle everything, and you’d just go and lay yourself by, that you should have no good of your life for a month or more. Be ruled by me, and let Edith go back and talk matters o’er with Aubrey, and see whether in her judgment it were better he lay hid or went to the bookseller. She’s as good a wit as any of us, yourself except. Said I well?”
“If your Ladyship would suffer me to add a word,” said the clergyman, “I think Mrs Temperance has well spoken.”
There was a moment’s hesitation, as if Lady Louvaine were balancing duties. Mr Marshall noticed how her thin hand trembled, and how the pink flush came and went on her delicate cheek.
“Well, children, have it as you will,” said the old lady at last. “It costs me much to give it up; but were I to persist, maybe it should cost more to you than I have a right to ask at your hands. Let be: I will tarry.”
“Dearest Mother, you have a right to all that our hands can give you,” answered Edith, tenderly: “but, I pray you, tarry until the morrow, and then if need be, and your strength sufficient, you can ride to Shoe Lane.”
So Edith went with Mr Marshall alone. Even after all she had heard, Aubrey’s condition was a delightful surprise. Never before had she seen him in so softened, humbled, grateful a mood as now. They talked the matter over, and in the end decided that, subject to Lady Louvaine’s approval, Aubrey should go to the bookseller.
When the White Bear was reached on her return, Edith found Lady Oxford in the parlour. The sternness with which the Countess had treated Aubrey was quite laid aside. To Lady Louvaine she showed a graceful and grateful mixture of sympathy and respect, endeavoured to reassure her, hoped there would be no search nor inquiry, thought it was almost too late, highly approved of Edith’s decision, promised to send over all Aubrey’s possessions to the White Bear, and bade them let her know if she could do them any service.
“Will you suffer me to ask you one thing?” she said. “If Mr Louvaine go to Oxford, shall you tarry here, or no?”
“Would it be safe for us to follow him?”
“Follow him—no! I did but think you might better love to be forth of this smoky town.”
“Amen, with all my heart!” said Temperance. “But, Madam, and saving your Ladyship’s presence, crowns bloom not on our raspberry bushes, nor may horses be bought for a groat apiece down this way.”
Mrs Louvaine, behind the cambric, was heard to murmur something about a sordid spirit, people whose minds never soared, and old maids who knew nothing of the strength of maternal love.
“Strength o’ fiddlesticks!” said Temperance, turning on her. “Madam, I ask your Ladyship’s pardon.”
“My dear lady, I cannot answer you as now,” was Lady Louvaine’s reply. “The pillar of cloud hath not moved as yet; and so long as it tarrieth, so long must I also. It may be, as seemeth but like, that my next home will be the churchyard vault, that let my Father judge. If it had been His will, that I might have laid my bones in mine own country, and by the side of my beloved, it had been pleasant to flesh and blood: but I know well that I go to meet him, wherever my dust may lie. I am well-nigh fourscore years old this day; and if the Lord say, ‘Go not over this Jordan,’ let Him do as seemeth Him good. Methinks the glory of the blessed City burst no less effulgent on the vision of Moses, because he had seen the earthly Canaan but far off. And what I love the best is not here, but there.”
Temperance and Edith accompanied Lady Oxford to her coach. She paused a moment before stepping in.
“Mrs Edith,” she said, “methinks your good mother would fain see Mr Louvaine ere he depart. If so, she shall not be balked thereof. I have made inquiry touching Mr Marshall’s house, and I find there is a little gate from the garden thereof into Saint Andrew’s churchyard. I will call for her as to-morrow in my coach, and carry her to take the air. An ancient servant of mine, that is wedded to the clerk of Saint Andrew’s, dwelleth by the churchyard, and I will stay me there as though to speak with her, sending away the coach upon another errand that I can devise. Then from her house my Lady may safely win to Mr Marshall’s lodging, and be back again ere the coach return.”
“Your Ladyship is most good unto us,” responded Edith, thankfully. “I am assured it should greatly comfort my dear mother.”
Lady Oxford turned with a smile to Temperance.
“It seems to me, Mrs Temperance, that your words be something sharp.”
“Well, Madam, to tell truth, folks do put me out now and again more than a little. Many’s the time I long to give Faith a good shaking; and I could have laid a stick on Aubrey’s back middling often,—I’ll not say I couldn’t: but if the lad sees his blunders and is sorry for ’em, I’ll put my stick in the corner.”
“I think I would leave it tarry there for the present,” said Lady Oxford, with a soft little laugh. “God grant you a good even!”
The coach had only just rolled away, and four youthful Abbotts, whom it had glued to the window, were still flattening their noses against the diamond panes, when a clear, strong, sweet voice rang out on the evening air in the back road which led by the palings of Saint James’s Park. Both Edith and Temperance knew well whose voice it was. They heard it every night, lifted up in one of the Psalms of David, as Hans Floriszoon came home from his work with the mercer. Hans was no longer an apprentice. Mr Leigh had taken such a fancy to him, and entertained so complete a trust both in his skill and honesty, that six months before he had voluntarily cancelled his indentures, and made him his partner in the business. Nothing changed Hans Floriszoon. He had sung as cheerily in his humble apprenticeship, and would have done so had he been Lord Mayor of London, as now when he came down the back road, lantern in hand, every evening as regularly as the clock struck four, Mrs Abbott declared that she set her clock by Hans whenever it stopped, which it did frequently, for it was an ancient piece of goods, and suffered from an asthmatic affection.
“There’s Mestur ’Ans!” said Charity. “See thee, Rachel, I’ll teem them eggs into th’ pan; thou doesn’t need to come.”
Rachel sat by the window, trying to finish making a new apron before supper.
“That’s a good lass,” she said. “Eh, but it’s a dark day; they’ll none see a white horse a mile off to-night.” (Note 1.)
“They’d have better e’en nor me to see it any night,” said Charity, breaking the eggs into the pan.
“Hearken to th’ lad!” said Rachel. “Eh, it’s gradely (excellent, exactly right) music, is that!”
“He sings well, does Mestur ’Ans.”
The words were audible now, as the singer unlatched the gate, and turned into the garden.
“And in the presence of my foes
My table Thou shalt spread:
Thou shalt, O Lord, fill full my cup,
And eke anoint mine head.
“Through all my life Thy favour is
So frankly showed to me,
That in Thy house for evermore
My dwelling-place shall be.”
Hans lifted the latch and came into the kitchen.
“Here’s a clean floor, Rachel! Tarry a minute, while I pluck off my shoes, and I will run across in my stocking-feet. It shall be ‘February Fill-dyke,’ methinks, ere the day break.”
“He’s as good as my Lady and Mrs Edith, for not making work,” said Charity as Hans disappeared.
“I would we could set him i’ th’ garden, and have a crop on him,” responded Rachel. “He’s th’ only man I ever knew that ’d think for a woman.”
“Eh, lass, yo’ never knew Sir Aubrey!” was Charity’s grave comment.
There was a good deal for Hans to hear that evening, and he listened silently while Edith told the tale, and Temperance now and then interspersed sarcastic observations. When at last the story was told, Hans said quietly—
“Say you that you look to see Aubrey again to-orrow?”
“Lady Lettice doth, and Edith. Not I,” said Temperance. “’Tis a case wherein too many cooks might spoil the broth, and the lad shall be all the easier in his mind for his old crusty Aunt Temperance to tarry at home. But I say, Edith, I would you had asked him for a schedule of his debts. ‘Tailors and silkmen’ is scarce enough to go to market withal, if we had the means to pay them.”
“So did I, Temperance, and he told me—twenty pounds to Mr Tom Rookwood, and forty to Patrick at the Irish Boy; fifteen to Cohen, of the Three Tuns in Knightriders’ Street; and about ten more to Bennett, at the Bible in Paternoster Row.”
“Lancaster and Derby! Why, however many suits can the lad have in his wardrobe? It should fit me out for life, such a sum as that.”
“Well! I would we could discharge them,” said Lady Louvaine with a sigh. “Twenty to Tom Rookwood, and forty to Patrick!”
“Make your mind easy, Madam,” came in the quietest tones from Hans: “not a penny is owing to either.”
“What can you mean, Hans?”
“I am sure of it.”
“Who told you so much?”
“Nay, ask Mr Rookwood, and see what he saith.”
“I’ll go this minute,” said Temperance, rising, “I wis not what bee thou hast in thy bonnet, but I don’t believe thee, lad.”
“Maybe you will when you come back,” was the calm response.
Away flashed Temperance, and demanded an interview with Mr Thomas Rookwood, if he were at home. Mr Thomas was at home, and did not express the surprise he felt at the demand. But when the subject of Aubrey’s debt was introduced, Mr Thomas’s eyebrows went up.
“Mr Louvaine owes me nothing, I do ensure you.”
“I heard you had lent him twenty pounds?”
“I did; but it was repaid a month ago.”
“By Aubrey?”
“So I suppose. I understood so much,” was the answer, in a slightly puzzled tone.
“He repaid it not himself, then?”
“Himself, nay—he sent it to me; but I gave the quittance as to Mr Louvaine.”
“I thank you, Mr Rookwood. Then that ends the matter.”
Out of the Golden Fish, and into the White Bear, ran Temperance, with drops of rain lying on her gown and hood.
“Madam,” she announced in a stern voice, “I am that flabbergasted as never was! Here’s Mr Tom Rookwood saith that Aubrey paid him his money a month gone.”
“Why, Aubrey told me this afternoon that he owed him twenty pounds,” replied Edith in a tone of astonished perplexity.
“Hans, what meaneth this?”
“Methinks, Madam, it means merely that I told you the truth. Mr Rookwood, you see, bears me out.”
“He saith Aubrey sent the money by a messenger, unto whom he gave the quittance. Dear heart, but if he lost it!”
“Yet Aubrey must have known, if he sent the money,” said Edith in the same tone as before.
“The messenger lost not the quittance,” said Hans. “It is quite safe.”
He had been out of the room for a minute while Temperance was away, and now, passing his hand into his pocket, he took out a slip of paper, which he laid in the hand of Lady Louvaine.
She drew forth her gold spectacles, and was fitting them on, when Edith impulsively sprang up, and read the paper over her mother’s shoulder.
“Received of Mr Aubrey Louvaine, gent, the sum of twenty pounds, for moneys heretofore lent by me, this fifteenth of January, the year of our Lord God 1605, according to the computation of the Church of England.
“Thomas Rookwood.”
“Northumberland, Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Durham!” was the comment from Temperance.
“Hans!” said Edith, a light flashing on her, “wert thou the messenger?”
“I was not sent,” was the placid answer.
“Hans, thou admirable rascal!” cried Temperance, laying her hands on his shoulders, “I do believe thou didst pay this money. If thou own not the truth, I’ll shake thee in twenty bits.”
Hans looked up laughingly into her face.
“Methinks, Mrs Temperance, you should shake yourself in forty ere you did it.”
“Answer me this minute, thou wicked knave! didst thou pay this money, or no?”
“I was there when it was paid.”
“I’ll wager my best boots thou wert! Was any else there?”
“Certainly.”
“Who beside?”
“The cat, I believe.”
Temperance gave him a shake, which he stood with complete calm, only looking a little amused, more about his eyes than his lips.
“Hans, tell me!” said Lady Louvaine. “Is it possible these debts were paid with thy money? How shall I repay thee, my true and dear friend?”
Hans freed himself from Temperance’s grasp, and knelt down beside Lady Louvaine.
“Nay, Madam! do you forget that you paid me first—that I owe unto you mine own self and my very life? From the time we came hither I have seen pretty clearly which way Aubrey was going; and having failed to stay him, methought my next duty was to save all I could, that you should not at some after-time be cumbered with his debts. Mr Rookwood’s and Patrick’s, whereof I knew, have I discharged; and the other, for which I have a sufficiency, will I deal withal to-morrow, so that you can tell Aubrey he is not a penny in debt—”
“Save to thee, my darling boy.”
“There are no debts between brothers, Madam, or should not be.”
“Hans, thou downright angel, do forgive me!” burst from Temperance.
“Dear Mrs Temperance, I should make a very poor angel; but I will forgive you with all mine heart when I know wherefore I should do it.”
“Why, lad, here have I been, like an old curmudgeon as I am, well-nigh setting thee down as a penny-father, because I knew not what thou didst with thy money. It was plain as a pikestaff what Aubrey did with his, for he set it all out on his back; but thy habit is alway plain and decent, and whither thy crowns went could I never tell. Eh, but I am sorry I misjudged thee thus! ’tis a lesson for me, and shall be my life long. I do believe thou art the best lad ever trod shoe-leather.”
“Well, ’tis a very proper deed, Hans, and I am glad to see in you so right a feeling,” said Mrs Louvaine.
“The Lord bless thee, my boy!” added Lady Louvaine, with emotion. “But how may I suffer thee to pay Aubrey’s debts?”
“I scarce see how you shall set about to help it, Madam,” said Hans with a little laugh of pleasure. “I thank God I have just enough to pay all.”
“And leave thyself bare, my boy?” said Edith.
“Of what, Mrs Edith?” asked Hans with a smile. “‘A man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.’ I am one of the richest men in England, I take it, and my wealth is not of a sort that shall make it hard to enter into the Kingdom of God. The corn and wine and oil may be good things, and are such, being God’s gifts: yet the gladness which He giveth is a better, and will abide when they are spent.”
Lady Oxford kept her word, and his grandmother and Aunt Edith had a farewell interview with Aubrey. His face was a study for a painter when the receipts were shown him. Tom Rookwood had refused him a second loan only a few weeks earlier, and had pressed him to repay the former: Hans Floriszoon had paid his debts without even letting him know it. Yet he had lent many a gold piece to Tom Rookwood, while the memory of that base, cruel blow given to Hans made his cheek burn with shame. Had he not been treasuring the pebble, and flinging away the pearl?
“Hans has paid my debts!” he said, in an exceedingly troubled voice. “Hans! out of his own pocket? May God forgive me! Tell him,”—and Aubrey’s voice was almost choked—“tell him he hath heaped coals of fire on mine head.”
Edith asked no questions, but she gave a shrewd guess which was not far off the truth, and she was confirmed in it by the fact that Hans received the message with a smile, and expressed no doubt what it meant.
That night there were twenty-two miles between Aubrey and London: and the next day he rode into Oxford, and delivered Mr Marshall’s letter of recommendation to the bookseller, Mr Whitstable, whose shop was situated just inside the West Gate—namely, in close contiguity to that aristocratic part of the city now known as Paradise Square.
Mr Whitstable was a white-haired man who seemed the essence of respectability. He stooped slightly in the shoulders, and looked Aubrey through and over, with a pair of dark, brilliant, penetrating eyes, in a way not exactly calculated to add to that young gentleman’s comfort, nor to restore that excellent opinion of his own virtues which had been somewhat shaken of late.
“You are of kin to the writer of this letter, Mr Marshall?”
Aubrey admitted it.
“And you desire to learn my trade?”
“I am afeared I scarce do desire it, Master: but I am content, and needs must.”
“What have you hitherto done?”
“Master,” said Aubrey, looking frankly at his questioner, “I fear I have hitherto done nothing save to spend money and make a fool of myself. That is no recommendation, I know.”
“You have done one other thing, young man,” said the old bookseller: “you have told the truth. That is a recommendation. Mr Marshall tells me not that, yet can I read betwixt the lines. I shall ask you no questions, and as you deal with me, so shall I with you. Have you eaten and drunk since you entered the city? Good: take this cloth, and dust that row of books. I shall give you your diet, three pound by the year, and a suit of livery.”
And Mr Whitstable walked away into the back part of his shop, leaving Aubrey to digest what he had just heard.
The idea of wearing livery was not in his eyes, what it would be in ours, a part of his humiliation, for it was then customary for gentlemen, as well as servants, to wear the livery of their employers. Even ladies did it, when in the service of royal or noble mistresses. This, therefore, was merely what he might expect in the circumstances: and as his own meanest suit was not in keeping with his new position, it was rather a relief than otherwise. But he was slightly disconcerted to find how accurately his master had read him in the first minute. A little wholesome reflection brought Aubrey to the conclusion that his best plan—nay, his only plan in present circumstances—was to accommodate himself to them, and to do his very best in his new calling. Almost unconsciously, he set Hans before him as a suitable example, and dusted the row of books under this influence in a creditable manner.
His experiences for the evening were new and strange. Now an undergraduate entered for the Epistles of Casaubon or the Paraphrases of Erasmus; now a portly citizen demanded the Mirrour of Magistrates; a labouring man asked for the Shepherd’s Calendar; a schoolmaster required a dozen horn-books, and a lady wanted a handsomely-bound Communion Book. Psalters, at two shillings each; grammars, from sixpence to a shilling; Speed’s Chronicle at fifty shillings, a map of England at thirty, the Life of Sir Philip Sidney at fourpence, a “paper book” at sixteen pence, an Italian Dictionary at fifteen shillings—classics, song-books, prayer-books, chronicles, law-books—Aubrey learned to handle them all, and to repeat their prices glibly, in a style which astonished himself. At the end of a week, Mr Whitstable told him, in his usual grave and rather curt manner, that if he would go on as he had begun, he should be satisfied with him.
The going on as he had begun was precisely the difficulty with Aubrey. To do some magnificent deed by a sudden spurt of heroism, or behave angelically for a day, might be possible to him; but that quiet daily fulfilment of uninteresting duties—that patient continuance in well-doing, which seemed as if it came naturally to Hans, was to Aubrey Louvaine the hardest thing on earth. Had the lesson been a little less sharp, humanly speaking, he would have failed. But Aubrey’s conscience had been startled into life, and he was beginning to see that it would be too little profit to gain the whole world, if in so doing he lost his own soul, which was himself. Men are apt to look on their souls not as themselves, but as a sort of sacred possession, a rich jewel to be worn on Sundays, and carefully put up in cotton-wool for the rest of the week—of immense value, theoretically, of course, yet not at all the same thing as the “me” which is the centre of sensation to each one, and for which every man will give all that he hath. The mountain was terribly steep, but Aubrey climbed it—only God knew with how much inward suffering, and with how many fervent prayers. The Aubrey who sold Mr Whitstable’s books that spring in the shop, at the West Gate of Oxford, was a wholly different youth from my Lord Oxford’s gentleman only a few weeks before.
Three months had passed by, and no further apprehensions were entertained at the White Bear of any Government inquiries. If Lady Oxford still felt any, she kept them to herself.
It was a summer evening; Hans had come home, and the little family party were seated in the parlour, when a summons of Charity to the front door was followed by her appearance before the ladies.
“Madam,” said she, “here’s one would have speech of your Ladyship, and he’ll not take a civil nay, neither. I told him he might ha’ come i’ daylight, and he said you’d be just as fain of him i’ th’ dark. He’s none aila (bashful), for sure.”
“Well, let him come in, Charity,” said Lady Louvaine smiling.
Charity drew back, and admitted a man of about five-and-twenty years, clad in respectable but not fashionable garments, and with an amused look in his eyes.
“I do believe your maid thinks I’ve come to steal the spoons,” said he. “I could scarce win her to let me in. Well, does nobody know me? Don’t you, Grandmother?”
“Why, sure! ’tis never David Lewthwaite?” responded Lady Louvaine in some excitement.
“’Tis David Lewthwaite, the son of your daughter Milisent,” said he, laughing.
“Why, who was to know you, my boy?” asked his Aunt Edith. “We have not seen you but once since we came, and you have changed mightily since then.”
“When last we saw you,” said Temperance, “your chin was as smooth as the hearthstone, and now you’ve got beard enough to fit out a flock of goats.”
“Ah! I’d forgot my beard was new. Well, I have been remiss, I own: but I will expound another time the reasons why you saw us not oftener. To-night, methinks, you’ll have enough to do to hearken to the cause which has brought me at last.”
“No ill news, David, I trust?” asked his grandmother, growing a shade paler.
“None, Madam. And yet I come to bring news of death.”
“Of whose death?”
“Of the death of Oswald Louvaine, of Selwick Hall.”
There was a cry from Edith—“O David, can you possibly mean—is Selwick come back to us?”
“Oswald Louvaine died unwedded, and hath left no will. His heir-at-law is my cousin Aubrey here.”
“May the Lord help him to use it wisely!” said his grandmother, with emotion.
“Amen!” said David, heartily. “And now, Madam, as I have not stolen the spoons, may I let somebody else in, that I left round the corner?—whom, perchance, you may care rather to see than me.”
“Prithee bring whom thou wilt, David; there shall be an hearty welcome for him.”
“Well, I rather guess there will be,” said David, as he walked out of the parlour. “Dear heart, but who is talking fast enough to shame a race-horse?”
“Well, now, you don’t say so!” was what met David’s ear as he unlatched the gate of the White Bear. “And you’ve come from Camberwell, you say? Well, that’s a good bit o’ walking, and I dare be bound you’re weary. I’d—”
“I cry you mercy,—Cumberland,” said a silvery voice in amused tones.
“Dear heart! why, that’s a hundred mile off or more, isn’t it? And how many days did it take you?—and how did you come—o’ horseback?—and be the roads very miry?—and how many of you be there?—and what kin are you to my Lady Lettice, now? and how long look you to tarry with her?”
“My mistress,” said David, doffing his hat, “an’t like you, I am a lawyer; and to-morrow morning, at nine o’clock, if you desire it, will I be at your service in the witness-box, for two shillings the week and my diet. For to-night, I wish you good even.”
“Lack-a-daisy!” was all that Mrs Abbott could utter, as David rescued the owner of the silvery voice, and bore her off, laughing, to the White Bear.
“Madam, and my mistresses,” he said, as he threw open the door, “I have the honour to announce the most excellent Mistress Milisent Lewthwaite.”
Tears and laughter were mixed for more than one present, as Milisent flew into her mother’s arms, and then gave a fervent hug to her sister Edith.
“I would come with Robin!” she cried. “It feels like a whole age since I saw one of you!”
“My dear heart, such a journey!” said her mother. “And where is the dear Robin, then?”
“Oh, he shall be here anon. He tarried but to see to the horses, and such like; and I set off with Davie—I felt as though I could not bear another minute.”
“Madam, I give you to wit,” said David, with fun in his eyes, “this mother of mine, that had not seen me for an whole year, spake but three words to me—‘How fare you, my boy?’ ‘Help me to ’light,’ and ‘Now let us be off to Westminster.’”
“Well, I had seen thee in a year,” answered Milisent, echoing his laugh, “and them not for three years, less a month.”
A little soft echoing laugh came from Lady Louvaine.
“Shall I tell thee, my dear heart, what I think Aunt Joyce should say to thee? ‘Well done, Lettice Eden’s daughter!’”
“Ah, Mother dear!” said Milisent, kissing her mother’s hand, “I may be like what you were as a young maid, but never shall I make by one-half so blessed a saint in mine old age.”
“That must you ask your grandchildren,” said Temperance.
“Nay, I will ask somebody that can judge better,” replied Milisent, laughing. “What sayest thou, Robin?”
Mr Lewthwaite had entered so quietly that only his wife’s quick eyes had detected his presence. He came forward now, kissed Lady Louvaine’s hand, and then laying his hand on Milisent’s bright head, he said softly—
“‘The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her; she will do him good and not evil all the days of her life. She openeth her mouth with wisdom, and in her tongue is the law of kindness. Her children arise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her.’”
Whether he would have gone further was never to be known, for a sudden rap at the door preceded Charity.
“Madam, here’s Mistress Abbott, and hoo will come in. I cannot keep her out. I’ve done my best.”
And they were all feeling so happy, and yet, for various reasons, so humble,—the two are very apt to go together,—that, as Edith observed afterwards, there was charity enough and to spare even for Silence Abbott.
Note 1. “On Candlemas Day, you should see a white horse a mile off,” is a proverb in the North, and perhaps elsewhere.
Chapter Fourteen.
Ends with Joyce Morrell.
“Vanished is each bright illusion;
They have faded one by one:
Yet they gaze with happy faces,
Westwards to the setting sun:—
“Talking softly of the future,
Looking o’er the golden sands,
Towards a never-fading city,
Builded not with earthly hands.”
Cyrus Thornton.
“Well, to be sure! My man wouldn’t let me come no sooner—’tis his fault, not mine. But I did want to know which of them lads o’ ours told his tale the Tightest. Here’s Seth will have it you’ve had a thousand left you by the year, and Ben he saith young Master Floriszoon’s to be a lord.”
“Dear! I hope not,” said Hans.
“Well! but they’re a-saying so much all up and down the King’s Street, I can tell you.”
“How could it have crept forth?” said Edith. “Then ’tis true? Eh, but I’m as glad as if I’d had forty shillings left me,—I am, so!” cried Mrs Abbott; and she was sincere, for a fresh subject for conversation was worth quite that to her. “And is it true, as our Seth said, that you’ve a fine house and a park in Northamptonshire come to you, and fifteen hundred head o’ red deer and a lake to fish in?”
“Quite true,” said Robert Lewthwaite, with a grave bow, “allowing, my mistress, of four corrections: there is not a park, it is not in Northamptonshire, there be no red deer, and the lake ’longeth not to the house.”
“And jewels worth ever so many thousands, as our Ben saith, for Mistress Lettice, and ten Barbary horses o’ th’ best, and a caroche fine enough for the King’s Majesty?”
“Ah, I would that last were true,” said Edith.
“My mistress, the Barbary horses be all there saving ten, and the caroche is a-building in the air: as to the jewels, seeing they be Mistress Lettice’s, I leave her to reply.”
Lettice was in no condition to do it, for she was suffering torments from suppressed laughter. Her Uncle Robert’s preternatural gravity, and Mrs Abbott’s total incapacity to see the fun, were barely endurable.
“Eh, but you will be mortal fine!” said Mrs Abbott, turning her artillery on the afflicted Lettice. “I only wish our Mall had such a chance. If she—”
“Mrs Abbott, I cry you mercy, but here comes your Caleb,” said Hans calmly. “I reckon he shall be after you.”
“I reckon he shall, the caitiff! That man o’ mine, he’s for ever and the day after a-sending the childer after me.”
“I rejoice to hear you have so loving an husband,” Mr Lewthwaite was sufficiently inconsiderate to respond.
“Eh, bless you, there’s no love about it. Just like them men! they’d shut a woman’s mouth up as tight as a fish, and never give her no leave to speak a word, if they had their way. But I’m not one of your meek bag-puddings, that’ll take any shape you pinch ’em,—not I, forsooth; and he knows it. I’ll have my say, soon or late, and Prissy, she’s a downright chatterbox. Not that I’m that, you know—not a bit of it: but Prissy, she is; and I can tell you, when Prissy and Dorcas and Ben they’re all at it, the house isn’t over quiet, for none on ’em hearkens what t’others are saying, and their father whacks ’em by times—ay, he doth! Now, Caleb, what’s to do?”
“Nothing particular, Mother,” said slow, deliberate Caleb through the open window: “only there’s yon pedlar with the mercery, and he willn’t tarry only ten minutes more—”
“Thou lack-halter rascal, and ne’er told me while I asked thee!”
The parlour of the White Bear was free in another moment.
“There’s a deliverance!” said Mr Lewthwaite. “Blessed be the pedlar!—Have you been much pestered by that gadfly?”
“There’s been a bit of buzzing by times,” replied Temperance.
“Now, Mother, darling,” said Milisent, “how are we to carry you down home?”
“My dear child!” was the response. “Methinks, if you would do that, it should be only in my coffin. I have one journey to go soon, and it is like to be the next.”
“Mother, sweet heart, I won’t have it! You shall yet win to Selwick, if I carry you every foot of the way.”
“Nay, nay, my dear heart, I cannot hope that at fourscore.”
“Fourscore! ay, or forty score!” cried Milisent. “Why, old Mistress Outhwaite journeyed right to the Border but just ere we came, and she’s four years over the fourscore—and on horseback belike. Sure, you might go in a waggon or a caroche!”
“Where is the caroche, Milly?”
“Well! but at any rate we might find a waggon.”
“There is a travelling waggon,” said Hans, “leaves the Chequers in Holborn for York, once in the month—methinks ’tis the first Thursday in every month.”
“That is three weeks hence. Why not? Sure, your landlord would suffer you to let this house, and you might leave some behind till it were off your hands. What saith Temperance?—or Hans?”
“That where my Lady goeth, I go,” was the answer from Hans.
“Is it needful, Milly, to settle all our futures ere the clock strike?” humorously inquired Mr Lewthwaite. “Methinks we might leave that for the morrow.”
Milisent laughed, and let the subject drop.
Mr Lewthwaite and Temperance happened to be the last up that night. When all the rest had departed, and Charity came with the turf to bank up the parlour fire for the night, Temperance was saying—
“One thing can I promise you,—which is, if Aubrey return to Selwick as lord and master, you may trust Faith to go withal. As for me, I live but in other lives, and where I am most needed, there will I be, if God be served: but truly, I see not how we shall move my Lady Lettice. I would fain with all my heart have her back yonder, and so she would herself,—of that am I right sure. But to ride so far on an horse, at her years, and with her often pains—how could she? And though the waggon were safer, it were too long and weary a journey. Think you not so?”
Charity, having now settled her peat-sod to her satisfaction, left the room, with a hearty—“Good-night, Mrs Temperance! Good-night, Mestur Robin!”
“Truly, I think with you,” said Mr Lewthwaite, when she was gone: “but there is time to consider the matter. Let us decide nothing in haste.”
The next morning, for the first time for many weeks, Charity asked for a holiday. It was granted her, and she was out till twelve o’clock, when she came home with a very satisfied face.
Ways and means were discussed that day, but to little practical purpose. Of course Aubrey must be informed of the good fortune which had fallen to him: and after some consideration, it was settled that if Hans could make arrangements with Mr Leigh, he should be the messenger in this direction, setting forth when Sunday was over. People did not rush off by the next train in those days, and scald their tongues with hot coffee in order to be in time.
The Saturday evening came, and with it the calm quiet which most Puritan families loved to have on the eve of the Lord’s Day. While it was not necessary, it was nevertheless deemed becoming to lay aside secular occupations, and to let worldly cares rest. There was therefore some astonishment in the parlour when a sudden rap came on the door, and Charity’s face and cap made their appearance.
“If you please, Madam, when’ll you be wanting your coach, think you?”
“My coach, Charity!” said Lady Louvaine in amazement.
Everybody was staring at Charity.
“It’s ready, Madam,” said that damsel with much placidity. “He’s only got to put the horses to, hasn’t ’Zekiel, and they’re at Tomkins’ stable yon, by th’ Tilt Yard—Spring Gardens, I reckon they call it.”
“Charity, lass, are you in your right senses, think you?” demanded Temperance.
“Well, Mrs Temperance, I reckon you’ll be best judge o’ that,” said Charity coolly. “Seems to me I am: but that scarce makes sure, I count.”
“But, Charity!—what Ezekiel?”
“’Zekiel Cavell, Mrs Edith. He’s i’ th’ kitchen: you can see him if you’ve a mind.”
“Ezekiel Cavell! Aunt Joyce’s coachman! Where on earth has he come from?”
“Well, I rather think it was somewhere on earth,” answered the calm Charity, “and I expect it was somewhere i’ Oxfordshire. Howbeit, here he is, and so’s th’ coach, and so’s th’ horses: and he says to me, ‘Charity,’ says he, ‘will you ask my Lady when she’ll be wanting th’ coach?’ So I come.”
Everybody looked at everybody else.
“Is it possible?” cried Edith. “Has dear Aunt Joyce sent her coach to carry down Mother home?”
“Nay, it’s none hers, it’s my Lady’s,” said Charity, “and nobry else’s; and if she’s a mind to bid me chop it up for firewood, I can, if Mestur ’Ans ’ll help me. We can eat th’ horses too, if she likes; but they mun be put in salt, for we’s ne’er get through ’em else. There’s six on ’em. Shall I tell Rachel to get th’ brine ready?”
“Charity, what have you been doing?” said Hans, laughing.
“I’ve done nought, Mestur ’Ans, nobut carry a letter where it belonged, and serve ’Zekiel his four-hours.”
They began to see light dawning on the mystery.
“A letter to whom, Charity? and who writ it?”
“To Mestur Marshall: and Mrs Joyce Morrell writ it—leastwise her man did, at her bidding.”
“What said it?”
“I didn’t read it, Sir,” responded Charity, demurely.
“Come, I reckon you know what was in it,” said Mr Lewthwaite. “Out with it, Charity.”
“Come forward into the room, Charity, and tell your tale like a man,” said Temperance.
“I amn’t a man, Mrs Temperance,” answered Charity, doing as she was bid: “but I’ll tell it like a woman. Well, when I were with Mrs Joyce, afore we came hither, hoo gave me a letter,—let’s see! nay, it were two letters, one lapped of a green paper, and one of a white. And hoo said, as soon as yo’ geet (got) here, I were to ask my way to Shoe Lane, just outside o’ th’ City gate, and gi’e th’ letter i’ th’ white paper to Mestur Marshall. And th’ green un I were to keep safe by me, till it came—if it did come—that my Lady lacked a coach either to journey home or to Minster Lovel, and when I heard that, I were to carry it to Mestur Marshall too. So I did as I were bid. What were i’ th’ letters I cannot tell you, but Mestur Marshall come to see you as soon as he geet th’ white un, and when he geet th’ green un come ’Zekiel wi’ th’ coach and th’ tits. Mrs Joyce, hoo said hoo were feared nobry’d tell her if a coach were wanted, and that were why she gave me th’ letter. So now you know as much as I know: and I hope you’re weel pleased wi’ it: and if you please, what am I to say to ’Zekiel?”
“Dear Aunt Joyce!” said Edith under her breath.
“Make Ezekiel comfortable, Charity,” said Lady Louvaine, as she drew off her glasses and wiped them: “and on Monday we will talk over the matter and come to some decision thereupon.”
The decision unanimously come to on the Monday was that Hans should ride down to Oxford and see Aubrey before anything else was settled. Lady Louvaine would have liked dearly to return home to Selwick, but Aubrey was its master, and was of age, and he might be contemplating matrimony when he could afford it. If so, she would make a long visit—possibly a life-long one—to her beloved Joyce at Minster Lovel, accompanied by Edith. Temperance and Lettice were to return to Keswick: Faith must please herself. That Faith would please herself, and would not much trouble herself about the pleasing of any one else, they were tolerably convinced: and of course Aubrey’s own mother had a greater claim on him than more distant relatives. She would probably queen it at Selwick, unless Aubrey provided the Hall with a younger queen in her place.
It was on a lovely summer afternoon that Hans rode into Oxford by the Water Gate or Little Gate, from which a short street led up northwards to Christ Church and Saint Aldate’s. Just beyond these, he passed through the city portal of South Gate, and turning to the left down Brewers’ Street, he soon came to Mr Whitstable’s shop under the shadow, of West Gate. Just on the eastern side was a livery-stable, where Hans put up his horse: and then, wishing to see Aubrey before he should be recognised, he walked straight into the shop. At the further end, Aubrey was showing some solid-looking tomes to two solid-looking dons, while Mr Whitstable himself was just delivering a purchase to a gentleman in canonicals. Hans stepped up to the bookseller, and in a low tone asked him for a Book of Articles. This meant the famous Thirty-Nine, then sold separate from the Prayer-Book at a cost of about sixpence.
Mr Whitstable laid three copies on the counter, of which Hans selected one, and then said, still speaking low—
“May I, with your good leave, tarry till my brother yonder is at liberty, and have speech of him? I have ridden from London to see him.”
The keen eyes examined Hans critically.
“You—brothers?” was all the reply of the old bookseller.
“Not by blood,” said Hans with a smile, “nor truly by nation: but we were bred up as brothers from our cradles.”
“You may tarry. Pray you, sit.”
Hans complied, and sat for a few minutes watching Aubrey. He perceived with satisfaction that his costume was simple and suitable, entirely devoid of frippery and foppery; that his mind seemed to be taken up with his employment; that he was looking well, and appeared to understand his business. At last the grave and reverend signors had made their choice; Bullinger’s Decades, at nine shillings, was selected, and Beza’s New Testament, at sixteen: Aubrey received the money, gave the change, and delivered the books. He was following his customers down the shop when his eyes fell on Hans. Whether on this occasion he was welcome or not, Hans was not left to doubt. Every feature of Aubrey’s face, every accent of his voice, spoke gratification in no measured tones.
“Hans, my dear brother!” he said as they clasped hands. “When came you? and have you had to eat since? How left you all at home?”
Mr Whitstable was looking on, with eyes that saw.
“I came but now, and have left all well, God be thanked,” said Hans. “I have not yet eaten, for I wished to see you first. I will now go and break bread, and we can meet in the evening, when you are at large.”
There was a momentary look of extreme disappointment, and then Aubrey said—
“That is right, as you alway are. Where meet we? under West Gate?”
Mr Whitstable spoke. “Methinks, Mr Louvaine, it were pity to snatch the crust from an hungry man. Go you now with your brother, until he make an end of his supper; then return here in time to make up accounts and close. If this gentleman be the steady and sober man that his looks and your words promise, you can bring him hither to your chamber for the night.”
“I thank you right heartily, Master. He is sober as Mr Vice-Chancellor, and good as an angel,” said Aubrey.
Hans followed him, with an amused look, to the Golden Lion, where they supped on chicken and Banbury cakes, and Aubrey heard all the news—the one item excepted which Hans had come especially to tell. The tongues went fast, but no sooner had the hour rung out from the clock of Saint Ebbe’s than Aubrey sprang up and said he must return.
“Thou canst wander forth for an hour, only lose not thyself,” he said to Hans, “and when my work is done, I will join thee beneath the arch of West Gate.”
Hans obeyed with amused pleasure. This was an altered Aubrey. When had he cared to keep promises and be in time for work? They met presently under West Gate, and Aubrey played cicerone until dusk set in, when he took Hans to his own quiet little chamber at the bookseller’s shop. It was very plainly furnished, and Hans quickly saw that on the drawers lay a Bible which bore evidence of being used.
“Thou little wist,” said Hans affectionately, when they were thus alone, “how glad I am to see thee, Aubrey, and to perceive thy good welfare in this place.”
He did not add “good conduct,” but he meant it.
“How much richer shouldst thou have been, Hans, if thou hadst never beheld me?” was the answer.
“I should have been poorer, by the loss of the only brother I ever had.”
There was more feeling in Aubrey’s look than Hans was wont to see, and an amount of tenderness in his tone which he had no idea how it astonished Hans to hear.
“My brother,” he said, “you have had your revenge, and it is terrible.”
Hans looked, as he felt, honestly surprised. It was his nature to remember vividly benefits received, but to forget those which he conferred.
“Dost thou not know?” said Aubrey, reading the look. “After my unworthy conduct toward thee, that thou shouldst take my debts upon thine own—”
“Prithee, shut thy mouth,” answered Hans with a laugh, “and make me not to blush by blowing the trumpet over that which but gave me a pleasure. I ensure thee, my brother,” he added more gravely, “that I had a sufficiency to cover all was a true contentment unto me. As to revenge, no such thought ever crossed my mind for a moment.”
“The revenge had been lesser if it were designed,” was the reply.
“And how goeth it with thee here?” asked Hans, not sorry to change the subject. “Art thou content with thy work?—and doth Mr Whitstable entreat thee well?”
“Mr Whitstable is the manner of master good for me,” responded Aubrey with a smile: “namely, not unkindly, but inflexibly firm and just. I know that from him, if I deserve commendation, I shall have it; and if I demerit blame, I am evenly sure thereof: which is good for me. As to content—ay, I am content; but I can scarce go further, and say I find a pleasure in my work. That were more like thee than me.”
“And if it so were, Aubrey, that the Lord spake unto thee and me, saying, ‘Work thus no more, but return unto the old life as it was ere ye came to London town,’—how shouldst thou regard that?”
The momentary light of imagination which sprang to Aubrey’s eyes was succeeded and quenched by one of wistful uncertainty.
“I cannot tell, Hans,” said he. “That I were glad is of course: that I were wise to be glad is somewhat more doubtful. I am afeared I might but slip back into the old rut, and fall to pleasing of myself. Riches and liberty seem scarce to be good things for me; and I have of late,”—a little hesitation accompanied this part of the sentence—“I have thought it best to pray God to send me that which He seeth good, and not to grant my foolish desires. Truly, I seem to know better, well-nigh every day, how foolish I have been, and how weak I yet am.”
There was a second of silence before Hans said—
“Aubrey, what God sees good for thee, now, is the old home at Selwick Hall. May He bless it to thee, and fit thee for it!”
“What mean you?” asked the bewildered Aubrey.
A few minutes put him in possession of the facts. Nothing which had passed convinced Hans of a radical change in Aubrey’s heart, so completely as the first sentence with which he greeted the news of his altered fortune.
“Then my dear old grandmother can go home!”
“Thou wilt be glad to hear,” added Hans, quietly, “that Mrs Joyce Morrell hath sent her a caroche and horses wherein to journey at her ease. Mrs Temperance and Lettice go back to Keswick.”
“Not if I know it!” was the hearty response. “I lack Aunt Temperance to keep me straight. Otherwise I should have nought save soft south-west airs playing around me, and she is a cool north breeze that shall brace me to my duty. But how quick, Hans, canst thou get free of Mr Leigh? for we must not tarry Grandmother at her years, and in this summer weather when journeying were least weariful.”
“Wilt thou have me, then, Aubrey?”
“Hans, that is the worst cut thou hast ever given me. I have a mind to say I will not turn back without thee.”
Hans smiled. “I thank thee, my dear brother. I dare say that I can be quit with Mr Leigh as soon as thou canst shake thee free of Mr Whitstable.”
Mr Whitstable smiled rather cynically when the matter was laid before him.
“Well, young gentleman!” said he to Aubrey. “Methinks you shall make a better country squire than you should have done three months gone, and maybe none the worse for your tarrying with the old bookseller.”
“Mr Whitstable, I con you hearty thanks for your good and just entreatment of me,” said Aubrey, “and if ever your occasions call you into Cumberland, I promise you a true welcome at Selwick Hall.”
That night, Aubrey seemed to be in a brown study, and the sagacious Hans let him alone till his thoughts should blossom forth into words of themselves. They came at last.
“Hans, thou wist it is customary for chaplains to be entertained in great houses?”
“Ay,” said Hans, smiling to himself.
“I desire not to ape the great: but—thinkest thou we might not have a prophet’s chamber in some corner at Selwick—the chamber over the east porch, belike?”
“Truly, if the prophet were to hand,” said Hans, looking as grave as if he were not secretly amused.
“The prophet is to hand rather than the chamber,” was the answer. “Couldst thou not guess I meant Mr Marshall?”
Hans had guessed it some seconds back.
“A good thought, truly,” he replied.
“That will I ask my grandmother,” said Aubrey.
It was the evening after Aubrey’s return to the White Bear when that proposal was suggested to Lady Louvaine. A light of gladness came to the dim blue eyes.
“My dear lad, how blessed a thought!” said she.
“But what should come of Mrs Agnes, then?” suggested Temperance.
“Oh, she could easily be fitted with some service,” answered Mrs Louvaine, who for once was not in a complaining mood. “Hans, you might ask of Mr Leigh if he know of any such, or maybe of some apprenticeship that should serve her. She can well work with the needle, and is a decent maid, that should not shame her mistress, were she not over high in the world.”
“Mother!”
The indignant tone of that one word brought the handkerchief instantly out of Mrs Louvaine’s pocket.
“Well, really, Aubrey, I do think it most unreasonable! Such a way to speak to your poor mother, and she a widow! When I have but one child, and he—”
“He is sorry, Mother, if he spake to you with disrespect,” said Aubrey in a different tone. “But suffer me to say that if Mr Marshall come with us, so must Mrs Agnes.”
“Now, Faith, do be quiet! I’ve been counting on Mrs Agnes to see to things a bit, and save Edith,—run about for my Lady Lettice, see you, and get our Lettice into her good ways.”
“You don’t say, to spare me,” wailed Mrs Louvaine.
“No, my dear, I don’t,” replied Temperanoe, significantly. “I’ll spare you when you need sparing; don’t you fear.”
Mr Marshall and Agnes were as glad as they were astonished—and that was no little—to hear of the provision in store for them. To pass from those three rooms in Shoe Lane to the breezy hills and wide chambers of Selwick Hall—to live no more from hand to mouth, with little in either, but to be assured, as far as they could be so, among the changes and chances of this mortal life, of bread to eat and raiment to put on—to be treated as beloved and honoured friends instead of meeting with scornful words and averted looks—this was glad news indeed. Mr Marshall rejoiced for his daughter, and Agnes for her father. Hers was a nature which could attain its full happiness only in serving God and man. To have shut herself up and occupied herself with her own amusement would have been misery, not pleasure. The idea of saving trouble to Lady Louvaine and Edith, of filling in some slight degree the empty place of that beloved friend whom Selwick Hall called “Cousin Bess” and Agnes “Aunt Elizabeth”—this opened out to Agnes Marshall a prospect of unadulterated enjoyment. To her father, whose active days were nearly over, and who was old rather with work, hardship, and sorrow, than by the mere passage of time, the lot offered him seemed equally happy. The quiet rest, the absence of care, the plenitude of books, the society of chosen friends who were his fellow-pilgrims, Zionward,—to contemplate such things was almost happiness enough in itself. And if he smothered a sigh in remembering that his Eleanor slept in that quiet churchyard whence she could never more be summoned to rejoice with him, it was followed at once by the happier recollection that she had seen a gladder sight than this, and that she was satisfied with it.
It was but natural that the journey home should be of the most enjoyable character. The very season of the year added to its zest. The five ladies and two girls travelled in the coach—private carriages were much more roomy then than now, and held eight if not ten persons with comfort—Mr Lewthwaite, Aubrey, Hans, and the two maids, were on horseback. So they set forth from the White Bear.
“Farewell to thee!” said Charity to that stolid-looking animal, as she rode under it for the last time. “Rachel, what dost thou mean, lass?—art thou crying to leave yon beast or Mistress Abbott?”
“Nay, nother on ’em, for sure!” said Rachel, wiping her eyes; “I’ve nobut getten a fly into my eye.”
Mrs Abbott, however, was not behindhand. She came out to her gate to see the cavalcade depart, followed by a train of youthful Abbotts, two or three talking at once, as well as herself. What reached the ears of the ladies in the coach, therefore, was rather a mixture.
“Fare you well, Lady Louvaine, and all you young gentlewomen—and I hope you’ll have a safe journey, and a pleasant; I’m sure—”
“I’ll write and tell you the new modes, Mrs Lettice,” said Prissy; “you’ll have ne’er a chance to—”
“Be stuck in the mud ere you’ve gone a mile,” came in Seth’s voice.
“And where tarry you to-night, trow?” demanded Mrs Abbott. “Is it to be at Saint Albans or—”
“Up atop of yon tree,” screamed Hester; “there she was with a kitten in her mouth, and—”
“All the jewels you could think of,” Dorcas was heard to utter.
The words on either side were lost, but nobody—except, perhaps, the speakers—thought the loss a serious one.
Under way at last, the coach rumbled with dignity up King Street, through the Court gates, past Charing Cross and along the Strand—a place fraught with painful memories to one at least of the party—past the Strand Cross, through Temple Bar, up Fetter Lane, over Holborn Bridge and Snow Hill, up Aldersgate Street, along the Barbican, and by the fields to Shoreditch, into the Saint Alban’s Road. As they came out into the Shoreditch Road, a little above Bishopsgate, they were equally surprised and gratified to find Lady Oxford’s groom of the chambers standing and waiting for their approach. As he recognised the faces, he stepped forward. In his hand was a very handsome cloak of fine cloth, of the shade of brown then called meal-colour, lined with crimson plush, and trimmed with beaver fur.
“Madam, my Lady bids you right heartily farewell, and prays you accept this cloak to lap you at night in your journey, with her loving commendations: ’tis of her Ladyship’s own wearing.”
It was considered at that time to add zest to a gift, if it had been used by the giver.
Lady Louvaine returned a message suited to the gratitude and pleasure which she felt at this timely remembrance, and the coach rolled away, leaving London behind.
“Weel, God be wi’ thee and all thine!” said Charity, looking back at the great metropolis: “and if I ne’er see thee again, it’ll none break my heart.”
“Nay, nor mine nother!” added Rachel. “I can tell thee, lass, I’m fair fain to get out o’ th’ smoke and mire. Th’ devil mun dwell i’ London, I do think.”
“I doubt it not,” said Hans, who heard the remark, “but he has country houses, Rachel.”
“Well!” said that damsel, in a satisfied tone: “at any rate, we shalln’t find him at Selwick!”
“Maybe not, if the house be empty,” was Hans’s reply: “but he will come in when we do, take my word for it.”
“Yo’re reet, Mestur ’Ans,” said Charity, gravely.
Four days’ travelling brought them to the door of the Hill House at Minster Lovel. They had had no opportunity of sending word of their coming.
“How amazed Aunt Joyce will be, and Rebecca!” said Edith, with a happy laugh.
“I reckon they’ll have some work to pack us all in,” answered Temperance.
“Let be, children,” was the response of Lady Louvaine. “The Hill House is great enough to hold every one of us, and Aunt Joyce’s heart is yet bigger.”
For a coach and six to draw up before the door of a country house was then an event which scarcely occurred so often as once a year. It was no great wonder, therefore, if old Rebecca looked almost dazed as she opened the door to so large a party.
“We are going home, Rebecca!” cried Edith’s bright, familiar voice. “How fares my Aunt?”
“Eh, you don’t mean it’s you, mine own dear child?” cried the old servant lovingly. “And your Ladyship belike! Well, here is a blessed even! It’ll do the mistress all the good in the world. Well, she’s very middling, my dear—very middling indeed: but I think ’tis rather weariness than any true malady, and that’ll flee afore the sight of you like snow afore the warm sun. Well, there’s a smart few of you!—all the better, my dear, all the better!”
“You can hang one or two of us up in a tree, if you can’t find us room,” said Aubrey as he sprang from his saddle.
“There’s room enough for such good stuff, and plenty to spare,” answered old Rebecca. “If you was some folks, now, I might be glad to have the spare chambers full of somewhat else—I might! Come in, every one of you!”
“We’ll help you to make ready, all we can,” said Rachel, as she trudged after Rebecca to the kitchen.
“Ay, we will,” echoed Charity.
Warmer and tenderer yet was the welcome in the Credence Chamber, where Aunt Joyce lay on her couch, looking as though not a day had passed since she bade them farewell. She greeted each of them lovingly until Aubrey came to her. Then she said, playfully yet meaningly,—“Who is this?”
“Aunt Joyce,” replied Aubrey, as he bent down to kiss her, “shall I say, ‘A penitent fool?’”
“Nay, my lad,” was the firm answer. “A fool is never a penitent, nor a penitent a fool. The fool hath been: let the penitent abide.”
“This is our dear, kind friend, Mr Marshall, Joyce,” said Lady Louvaine. “He is so good as to come with us, and be our chaplain at Selwick: and here is his daughter.”
“I think Mrs Joyce can guess,” said the clergyman, “that the true meaning of those words is that her Lady ship hath been so good as to allow of the same, to our much comfort.”
“Very like you are neither of you over bad,” said Aunt Joyce with her kindly yet rather sarcastic smile. “I am glad to see you, Mr Marshall; hitherto we have known each other but on paper. Is this your daughter? Why, my maid, you have a look of the dearest and blessedest woman of all your kin—dear old Cousin Bess, that we so loved. May God make you like her in the heart, no less than the face!”
“Indeed, Mistress, I would say Amen, with all mine heart,” answered Agnes, with a flush of pleasure.
There was a long discussion the next day upon ways and means, which ended in the decision that Aubrey and Hans, Faith and Temperance, with the two maids, should go forward to Selwick after a few days’ rest, to get things in order; Lady Louvaine, Edith, Lettice, Agnes, and Mr Marshall, remaining at Minster Lovel for some weeks.
“And I’m as fain as I’d be of forty shillings,” said old Rebecca to Edith. “Eh, but the mistress just opens out when you’re here like a flower in the sunlight!”
“Now, don’t you go to want Faith to tarry behind,” observed Temperance, addressing the same person: “the dear old gentlewomen shall be a deal happier without her and her handkerchief. It shall do her good to bustle about at Selwick, as she will if she’s mistress for a bit, and I’ll try and see that she does no mischief, so far as I can.”
Aunt Joyce, who was the only third person present, gave an amused little laugh.
“How long shall she be mistress, Temperance?”
“Why, till my Lady Lettice comes,” said Temperance, with a rather perplexed look.
“For ‘Lady Lettice,’ read ‘Mrs Agnes Marshall,’” was the answer of Aunt Joyce.
“Aunt Joyce!” cried Edith. “You never mean—”
“Don’t I? But I do, Mistress Bat’s-Eyes.”
“Well, I never so much as—”
“Never so much as saw a black cow a yard off, didst thou? See if it come not true. Now, my maids, go not and meddle your fingers in the pie, without you wish it not to come true. Methinks Aubrey hath scarce yet read his own heart, and Agnes is innocent as driven snow of all imagination thereof: nevertheless, mark my words, that Agnes Marshall shall be the next lady of Selwick Hall. And I wouldn’t spoil the pie, were I you; it shall eat tasty enough if you’ll but leave it to bake in the oven. It were a deal better so than for the lad to fetch home some fine town madam that should trouble herself with his mother and grandmother but as the cuckoo with the young hedge-sparrows in his foster-mother’s nest. She’s a downright good maid, Agnes, and she is bounden to your mother and yon, and so is her father: and though, if Selwick were to turn you forth, your home is at Minster Lovel, as my child here knows,”—and Aunt Joyce laid her hand lovingly on that of Edith—“yet while we be here in this short wilderness journey, ’tis best not to fall out by the way. Let things be, children: God can take better care of His world and His Church than you or I can do it.”
“Eh, I’ll meddle with nought so good,” responded Temperance, heartily. “If the lad come to no worse than that, he shall fare uncommon well, and better than he deserveth. As for the maid, I’m not quite so sure: but I’ll hope for the best.”
“The best thing you can do, my dear. ‘We are saved by hope’—not as a man is saved by the rope that pulleth him forth of the sea, but rather as he is saved by the light that enableth him to see and grasp it. He may find the rope in the dark; yet shall he do it more quicklier and with much better comfort in the light. ‘Hope thou in God,’ ‘Have faith in God,’ ‘Fear not,’—all those precepts be brethren; and one or other of them cometh very oft in Scripture. For a man cannot hope without some faith, and he shall find it hard to hope along with fear. Faith, hope, love—these do abide for ever.”
The party for Selwick had set off, with some stir, in the early morning, and the quiet of evening found the friends left at the Hill House feeling as those left behind usually do,—enjoying the calm, yet with a sense of want.
Perhaps Mr Marshall was the least conscious of loss of any of the party, for he was supremely happy in the library over the works of Bishop Jewell. In the gallery upstairs, Lettice and Agnes sat in front of the two portraits which had so greatly interested the former on her previous visit, and talked about “Aunt Anstace” and “Cousin Bess,” and the blessed sense of relief and thankfulness which pervaded Agnes’s heart. And lastly, in the Credence Chamber, Aunt Joyce lay on her couch, and Lady Louvaine sat beside her in the great cushioned chair, while Edith, on a low stool at the foot of the couch, sat knitting peacefully, and glancing lovingly from time to time at those whom she called her two mothers.
“Joyce, dear,” Lady Louvaine was saying, “’tis just sixty years since I came over that sunshine afternoon from the Manor House, to make acquaintance with thee and Anstace. Sixty years! why, ’tis the lifetime of an old man.”
“And it looks but like sixty days, no doth it?” was the rejoinder. “Thou and I, Lettice, by reason of strength have come to fourscore years; yet is our life but a vapour that vanisheth away. I marvel, at times, how our Anstace hath passed her sixty years in Heaven. What do they there?”
“Dost thou mind, Joyce, Aubrey’s once saying that we are told mainly what they do not there? Out of that, I take it, we may pick what they do. There shall be no night—then there must be eternal light; no curse—then must there be everlasting blessedness; no tears—then is there everlasting peace; no toil—then is there perpetual rest and comfort.”
“Go on, Lettice—no sickness, therefore perfect health; no parting, therefore everlasting company and eternal love.”
“Ay. What a blessed forecast! Who would not give all that he hath, but to be sure he should attain it? And yet men will fling all away, but to buy one poor hour’s sinful pleasure, one pennyworth of foolish delight.”
“And howsoe’er often they find the latter pall and cloy upon their tongues, yet shall they turn to it again with never-resting eagerness, as the sow to her wallowing in the mire. There is a gentleman dwells a matter of four miles hence, with whose wife and daughters I am acquaint, and once or twice hath he come with them to visit me. He hath got hold of a fancy—how, judge you—that man is not a fallen creature; indiscreet at times, maybe, and so forth, yet not wholly depraved. How man comes by this indiscretion, seeing God made him upright, he is discreet enough not to reveal. ‘Dear heart!’ said I, ‘but how comes it, if so be, that man shall sell his eternal birthright for a mess of sorry pottage, as over and over again you and I have seen him do? Call you this but indiscretion? Methinks you should scarce name it thus if Mrs Aletheia yonder were to cast away a rich clasp of emeralds for a piece of a broken bottle of green glass. If you whipped her not well for such indiscretion, I were something astonied.’ Well, see you, he cannot perceive it.”
“Man’s perceptions be fallen, along with all else.”
“Surely: and then shall this blind bat reckon, poor fool, that he could devise out of his disordered imagination a better God than the real. Wot you what this Mr Watkinson said to me once when we fell to talking of the sacrifice of Isaac? Oh, he could not allow that a loving and perfect God could demand so horrible a sacrifice; and another time, through Christ had we won the right notion of God. ‘Why,’ said I, ‘how know you that? Are you God, that you are able to judge what God should be? Through Christ, in very deed, have we won to know God; but that is by reason of the knowledge and authority of Him that revealed Him, not by the clear discernment and just judgment of us that received that revelation.’ I do tell thee, Lettice—what with this man o’ the one side with his philosophical follies, and Parson Turnham on the other, with his heathenish fooleries, I am at times well-nigh like old Elias, ready to say, ‘Now then, O Lord, take me out of this wicked world, for I cannot stand it any longer.’”
“He will take thee, dear Joyce, so soon as thou shalt come to the further end of the last of those good works which He hath prepared for thee to walk in.”
“Well!—then must Edith do my good works for me. When our Father calls this child in out of the sun and wind, and bids her lie down and fall asleep, must that child see to it that my garden-plots be kept trim, and no evil insects suffered to prey upon the leaves. Ay, my dear heart: thou wilt be the lady of the Hill House, when old Aunt Joyce is laid beneath the mould. May God bless thee in it, and it to thee! but whensoever the change come, I shall be the gainer by it, not thou.”
“Not I, indeed!” said Edith in a husky voice.
“‘As a watch in the night!’” said Joyce Morrell solemnly. “‘As a vapour that vanisheth away!’ What time have we for idle fooleries? Only time to learn the letters that we shall spell hereafter—to form the strokes and loops wherewith we shall write by and bye. Here we know but the alphabet of either faith or love.”
“And how often are we turned back in the very alphabet of patience!”
“Ay, we think much to tarry five minutes for God, though He may have waited fifty years for us. I reckon it takes God to bear with this poor thing, man, that even at his best times is ever starting aside like a broken bow,—going astray like a lost sheep. Thank God that He hath laid on the only Man that could bear them the iniquities of us all, and that He hath borne them into a land not inhabited, where the Lord Himself can find them no more.”
“And let us thank God likewise,” said Lady Lettice, “that our blessed duty is to abide in Him, and that when He shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before Him at His coming.”