On the night before the 10th of December neither Muriel nor I retired
to rest. We sat together by the rush-light, at one time saying
prayers, at another speaking together in a low voice. Ever and anon
she went to listen at her father's door, for to make sure he slept,
and then returned to me. The hours seemed to pass slowly; and yet we
should have wished to stay their course, so much we dreaded the first
rays of light presaging the tragedy of the coming day. Before the
first token of it did show, at about five in the morning, the
door-bell rung in a gentle manner.
"Who can be ringing?" I said to Muriel.
"I will go and see," she answered.
But I restrained her, and went, to call one of the servants, who were
beginning to bestir themselves. The man went down, and returned,
bringing me a paper, on which these words were written:
"MY DEAR CONSTANCE--My lord and myself have secretly come to join our
prayers with yours, and, if it should be possible, to receive the
blessing of the holy priest who is about to die, as he passeth by your
house, toward which, I doubt not, his eyes will of a surety turn. I
pray you, therefore, admit us."
I hurried down the stairs, and found Lord and Lady Arundel standing in
the hall; she in a cloak and hood, and he with a slouching hat hiding
his face. Leading them both into the parlor, which looketh on the
street, I had a fire hastily kindled; and for a space her ladyship and
myself could only sit holding each other's hands, our hearts being too
full to speak. After a while I asked her when she had come to London.
She said she had done so very secretly, not to increase the queen's
displeasure against her husband; her majesty's misliking of herself
continuing as great as ever.
"When she visited my lord last year, before his arrest," quoth she,
"on a pane of glass in the dining-room her grace perceived a distich,
writ by me in bygone days with a diamond, and which expressed hopes of
better fortunes."
"I mind it well," I replied. "Did it not run thus?
'Not seldom doth the sun sink down In brightest light
Which rose at early dawn disfigured quite outright;
So shall my fortunes, wrapt so long in darkest night,
Revive, and show ere long an aspect clear and bright.'"
"Yea," she answered. "And now listen to what her majesty, calling for
a like instrument, wrote beneath:
'Not seldom do vain hopes deceive a silly heart
Let all each witless dreams now vanish and depart;
For fortune shall ne'er shine, I promise thee, on one
Whose folly hath for aye all hopes thereof undone.'
"We do live," she added, "with a sword hanging over our heads; and it
is meet we should come here this day to learn a lesson how to die when
a like fate shall overtake us. But thou hast been like to die by
another means, my good Constance," her ladyship said, looking with
kindness but no astonishment on my swollen and disfigured face, which
I had not remembered to conceal; grave thoughts, then uppermost,
having caused me to forget it.
"My life," I answered, "God hath mercifully spared; but I have lost
the semblance of my former self."
"Tut, tut!" she replied, "only for a time."
And then we both drew near unto the fire, for we were shivering with
cold. Lord Arundel leant against the chimney, and watched the
timepiece.
"Mistress Wells," he said, "is like, I hear, to be reprieved at the
last moment."
"Alas!" I cried, "nature therein finds relief; yet I know not how much
to rejoice or yet to grieve thereat. For surely she will desire to die
with her husband. And of what good will life be to her if, like some
others, she doth linger for years in prison?"
"Of much good, if God wills her there to spend those years," Muriel
gently said; which words, I ween, were called to mind long afterward
by one who then heard them.
As the hour appointed for the execution approached, we became silent
again, and kneeling down betook ourselves to prayer. At eight o'clock
a crowd began to assemble in the street; and the sound of their feet
as they passed under the window, hurrying toward the scaffold, which
was hung with black cloth, became audible. About an hour afterward
notice was given to us by one of the servants that the sledge which
carried the prisoners was in sight. We rose from our knees and went to
the window. Mr. Wells's stout form and Mr. Genings's slight figure
were then discernible, as they sat bound, with their hands tied behind
their backs. I observed that Mr. Wells smiled and nodded to some one
who was standing amidst the crowd. This person, who was a friend of
his, hath since told me that as he passed he saluted him with these
words: "Farewell, dear companion! farewell, all hunting and hawking
and old pastimes! I am now going a better way." Mistress Wells not
being with them, we perceived that to be true which Lord Arundel had
heard. At that moment I turned round, and missed Muriel, who had been
standing close behind me. I supposed she could not endure this sight;
but, lo and behold, looking again into the street, I saw her threading
her way amongst the crowd as swiftly, lame though she was, as if an
angel had guided her. When she reached the foot of the scaffold, and
took her stand there, her aspect was so composed, serene, and
resolved, that she seemed like an inhabitant of another world suddenly
descended amidst the coarse and brutal mob. She was resolved, I
afterward found, to take note of every act, gesture, and word there
spoken; and by her means I can here set down what mine own ears heard
not, but much of which mine own eyes beheld. As the sledge passed our
door, Mr. Genings, as Lady Arundel had foreseen, turned his head
toward us; and seeing me at the window, gave us, I doubt not, his
blessing; for, albeit he could not raise his chained hand, we saw his
fingers and his lips move. On reaching the gibbet Muriel heard him cry
out with holy Andrew, "O good gibbet, long desired and now prepared
for me, much hath my heart desired thee; and now, joyful and secure, I
come to thee. Receive me, I beseech thee, as the disciple of him that
suffered on the cross!" Being put upon the ladder, many questions were
asked him by some standersby, to which he made clear and distinct
answers. Then Mr. Topcliffe cried out with a loud voice,
"Genings, Genings, confess thy fault, thy papist treason; and the
queen, no doubt, will grant thee pardon!"
To which he mildly answered, "I know not, Mr. Topcliffe, in what I
have offended my dear anointed princess; if I have offended her or any
other person in anything, I would willingly ask her and all the world
forgiveness. If she be offended with me without a cause, for
professing my faith and religion, or because I am a priest, or because
I will not turn minister against my conscience, I shall be, I trust,
excused and innocent before God. 'We must obey God,' saith St. Peter,
'rather than men;' and I must not in this case acknowledge a fault
where there is none. If to return to England a priest, or to say mass,
is popish treason, I here do confess I am a traitor. But I think not
so; and therefore I acknowledge myself guilty of these things not with
repentance and sorrow of heart, but with an open protestation of
inward joy that I have done so good deeds, which, if they were to do
again, I would, by the permission and assistance of God, accomplish
the same, though with the hazard of a thousand lives."
Mr. Topcliffe was very angry at this speech, and hardly gave him time
to say an "Our Father" before he ordered the hangman to turn the
ladder. From that moment I could not so much as once again look toward
the scaffold. Lady Arundel and I drew back into the room, and clasping
each other's hands, kept repeating, "Lord, help him! Lord, assist him!
Have mercy on him, O Lord!" and the like prayers.
We heard Lord Arundel exclaim, "Good God! the wretch doth order the
rope to be cut!" Then avoiding the sight, he also drew back and
silently prayed. What followeth I learnt from Muriel, who never lost
her senses, though she endured, methinks, at that scaffold's foot as
much as any sufferer upon it. Scarcely or not at all stunned, Mr.
Genings stood on his feet with his eyes raised to heaven, till the
hangman threw him down on the block where he was to be quartered.
After he was dismembered, she heard him utter with a loud voice, "Oh,
it smarts!" and Mr. Wells exclaim, "Alas! sweet soul, thy pain is
great indeed, but almost past. Pray for me now that mine may come."
Then when his heart was being plucked out, a faint dying whisper
reached her ear, "Sancte Gregori, ora pro me!" and then the voice of
the hangman crying, "See, his heart is in mine hand, and yet Gregory
in his mouth! O egregious papist!"
I marvel how she lived through it; but she assured us she was never
even near unto fainting, but stood immovable, hearing every sound,
listening to each word and groan, printing them on the tablet of her
heart, wherein they have ever remained as sacred memories.
Mr. Wells, so far from being terrified by the sight of his friend's
death, expressed a desire to have his own hastened; and, like unto Sir
Thomas More, was merry to the last; for he cried, "Despatch, despatch,
Mr. Topcliffe! Be you not ashamed to suffer an old man to stand here
so long in his shirt in the cold? I pray God make you of a Saul a
Paul, of a persecutor a Catholic." A murmur, hoarse and loud, from the
crowd apprised us when all was over.
"Where is Muriel?" I cried, going to the window. Thence I beheld a
sight which my pen refuseth to describe--the sledge which was
carrying away the mangled remains of those dear friends which so short
a time before we had looked upon alive! Like in a dream I saw this
spectacle; for the moment afterward I fainted. Many persons were
running after the cart, and Muriel keeping pace with what to others
would have been a sight full of horror, but to her were only relics of
the saintly dead. She followed, heedless of the mob, unmindful of
their jeers, intent on one aim--to procure some portion of those
sacred remains, which she at last achieved in an incredible manner;
one finger of Edmund Genings's hand, which she laid hold of, remaining
in hers. This secured, she hastened home, bearing away this her
treasure.
When I recovered from a long swoon, she was standing on one side of me
and Lady Arundel on the other. Their faces were very pale, but
peaceful; and when remembrance returned, I also felt a great and quiet
joy diffused in mine heart, such as none, I ween, could believe in who
have not known the like. For a while all earthly cares left me; I
seemed to soar above this world. Even Basil I could think of with a
singular detachment. It seemed as if angels were haunting the house,
whispering heavenly secrets. I could not so much as think on those
blessed departed souls without an increase of this joy sensibly
inflaming my heart.
After Lady Arundel had left us, which she did with many loving words
and tender caresses, Muriel and I conversed long touching the future.
She told me that when her duty to her father should end with his life,
she intended to fulfil the vow she long ago had made to consecrate
herself wholly to God in holy religion, and go beyond the seas, to
become a nun of the order of St. Augustine.
"May I not leave this world?" I cried; "may I not also, forgetting all
things else, live for God alone?"
A sweet sober smile illumined Muriel's face as she answered, "Yea, by
all means serve God, but not as a nun, good Constance. Thine I take to
be the mere shadow of a vocation, if even so much as that. A cloud
hath for a while obscured the sunshine of thy hopes and called up this
shadow; but let this thin vapor dissolve, and no trace shall remain of
it. Nay, nay, sweet one, 'tis not chafed, nor yet, except in rare
instances, riven hearts which God doth call to this special
consecration--rather whole ones, nothing or scantily touched by the
griefs and joys which this world can afford. But I warrant thee--nay,
I may not warrant," she added, checking herself, "for who can of a
surety forecast what God's designs should be? But I think thou wilt
be, before many years have past, a careful matron, with many children
about thy apron-strings to try thy patience."
"O Muriel," I answered, "how should this be? I have made my bed, and I
must lie on it. Like a foolish creature, unwittingly, or rather
rashly, I have deceived Basil into thinking I do not love him; and if
my face should yet recover its old fairness, he shall still think mine
heart estranged."
Muriel shook her head, and said more entangled skeins than this one
had been unravelled. The next day she resumed her wonted labors in the
prisons and amongst the poor. Having procured means of access to
Mistress Wells, she carried to her the only comfort she could now
taste--the knowledge of her husband's holy, courageous end, and the
reports of the last words he did utter. Then having received a charge
thereunto from Mr. Genings, she discovered John Genings's place of
residence, and went to tell him that the cause of his brother's coming
to London was specially his love for him; that his only regret in
dying had been that he was executed before he could see him again, or
commend him to any friend of his own, so hastened was his death.
But this much-loved brother received her with a notable coldness; and
far from bewailing the untimely and bloody end of his nearest kinsman,
he betrayed some kind of contentment at the thought that he was now
rid of all the persuasions which he suspected he should otherwise have
received from him touching religion.
About a fortnight afterward Mr. Congleton expired. Alas! so
troublesome were the times, that to see one, howsoever loved, sink
peacefully into the grave, had not the same sadness which usually
belongs to the like haps.
Muriel had procured a priest for to give him extreme unction--one Mr.
Adams, a friend of Mr. Wells, who had sometimes said mass in his
house. He also secretly came for to perform the funeral rites before
his burial in the cemetery of St. Martin's church.
When we returned home that day after the funeral, this reverend
gentleman asked us if we had heard any report touching the brother of
Mr. Genings; and on our denial, he said, "Talk is ministered amongst
Catholics of his sudden conversion."
"Sudden, indeed, it should be," quoth Muriel; "for a more indifferent
listener to an afflicting message could not be met with than he proved
himself when I carried to him Mr. Genings's dying words."
"Not more sudden," quoth Mr. Adams, "than St. Paul's was, and
therefore not incredible."
Whilst we were yet speaking, a servant came in, and said a young
gentleman was at the door, and very urgent for to see Muriel.
"Tell him," she said, raising her eyes, swollen with tears, "that I
have one hour ago buried my father, and am in no condition to see
strangers."
The man returned with a paper, on which these words were written:
"A penitent and a wanderer craveth to speak with you. If you shed
tears, his do incessantly flow. If you weep for a father, he grieveth
for one better to him than ten fathers. If your plight is sad, his
should be desperate, but for God's great mercy and a brother's prayers
yet pleading for him in heaven as once upon earth.
"JOHN GENINGS."
"Heavens!" Muriel cried, "it is this changed man, this Saul become a
Paul, which stands at the door and knocks. Bring him in swiftly; the
best comfort I can know this day is to see one who awhile was lost and
is now found."
When John Genings beheld her and me, he awhile hid his face in his
hands, and seemed unable to speak. To break this silence Mr. Adams
said, "Courage, Mr. Genings; your holy brother rejoiceth in heaven
over your changed mind, and further blessings still, I doubt not, he
shall yet obtain for you."
Then this same John raised his head, and with as great and touching
sorrow as can be expressed, after thanking this unknown speaker for
his comfortable words, he begged of Muriel to relate to him each
action and speech in the dying scene she had witnessed; and when she
had ended this recital, with the like urgency he moved me to tell him
all I could remember of his brother's young years, all my father had
written of his life and virtues at college, all which we had heard of
his labors since he had come into the country, and lastly, in a manner
most simple and affecting, we all entreating him thereunto, he made
this narrative, addressing himself chiefly to Muriel:
"You, madam, are acquainted with what was the hardness of mine heart
and cruel indifference to my brother's fate; with what disdain I
listened to you, with what pride I received his last advice. But about
ten days after his execution, toward night, having spent all that day
in sports and jollity, being weary with play, I resorted home to
repose myself. I went into a secret chamber, and was no sooner there
sat down, but forthwith my heart began to be heavy, and I weighed how
idly I had spent that day. Amidst these thoughts there was presently
represented to me an imagination and apprehension of the death of my
brother, and, amongst other things, how he had not long before
forsaken all worldly pleasure, and for the sake of his religion alone
endured dreadful torments. Then within myself I made long discourses
concerning his manner of living and mine own; and finding the one to
embrace pain and mortification, and the other to seek pleasure--the
one to live strictly, and the other licentiously--I was struck with
exceeding terror and remorse. I wept bitterly, desiring God to
illuminate mine understanding, that I might see and perceive the
truth. Oh, what great joy and consolation did I feel at that
instant! What reverence on the sudden did I begin to bear to the
Blessed Virgin and to the Saints of God, which before I had never
scarcely so much as heard of! What strange emotions, as it were
inspirations, with exceeding readiness of will to change my religion,
took possession of my soul! and what heavenly conception had I then of
my brother's felicity! I imagined I saw him--I thought I heard him. In
this ecstasy of mind I made a vow upon the spot, as I lay prostrate on
the ground, to forsake kindred and country, to find out the true
knowledge of Edmund's faith. Oh, sir," he ended by saying, turning to
Mr. Adams, which he guessed to be a priest, "think you not my brother
obtained for me in heaven what on earth he had not obtained? for here
I am become a Catholic in faith without persuasion or conference with
any one man in the world?"
"Ay, my good friend," Mr. Adams replied; "the blood of martyrs will
ever prove the seed of the Church. Let us then, in our private
prayers, implore the suffrages of those who in this country do lose
their lives for the faith, and take unto ourselves the words of
Jeremiah: 'O Lord, remember what has happened unto us. Behold and see
our great reproach; our inheritance is gone to strangers, our houses
to aliens. We are become as children without a father, our mothers are
made as it were widows.'"
These last words of Holy Writ brought to mine own mind private
sorrows, and caused me to shed tears. Soon after John Genings departed
from England without giving notice to us or any of his friends, and
went beyond seas to execute his promise. I have heard that he has
entered the holy order of St. Francis, and is seeking to procure a
convent of that religion at Douay, in hopes of restoring the English
Franciscan province, of which it is supposed he will be first
provincial. Report doth state him to be an exceeding strict and holy
religious, and like to prove an instrument in furnishing the English
mission with many zealous and apostolical laborers.
Muriel and I were solitary in that great city where so many
misfortunes had beset us; she with her anchor cast where her hopes
could not be deceived; I by mine own folly like unto a ship at sea
without a chart. Womanly reserve, mixed, I ween, with somewhat of
pride, restraining me from writing to Basil, though, as my face
improved each day, I deplored my hasty folly, and desired nothing so
much as to see him again, when, if his love should prove unchanged
(shame on that word _if!_ which my heart disavowed), we should be as
heretofore, and the suffering I had caused him and endured myself
would end. But how this might happen I foresaw not; and life was sad
and weary while so much suspense lasted.
Muriel would not forsake me while in this plight; but although none
could have judged it from her cheerful and amiable behavior, I well
knew that she sighed for the haven of a religions home, and grieved to
keep her from it. After some weeks spent in this fashion, with very
little comfort, I was sitting one morning dismally forecasting the
future, writing letter after letter to Basil, which still I tore up
rather than send them--for I warrant you it was no easy matter for to
express in writing what I longed to say. To tell him the cause of my
breaking our contract was so much as to compel him to the performance
of it; and albeit I was no longer so ill-favored as at the first, yet
the good looks I had before my sickness had by no means wholly
returned. Sometimes I wrote: "Your thinking, dear Basil, that I do
affection any but yourself is so false and injurious an imagination,
that I cannot suffer you to entertain it. Be sure I never can and
never shall love any but you; yet, for all that, I cannot marry you."
Then effacing this last sentence, which verily belied my true desire,
I would write another: "Methinks if you should see me now, yourself
would not wish otherwise than to dissolve a contract wherein
your contentment should be less than it hath been." And then thinking
this should be too obscure, changed it to--"In sooth, dear Basil, my
appearance is so altered that you would yourself, I ween, not desire
for to wed one so different from the Constance you have seen and
loved." But pride whispered to restrain this open mention of my
suspicious fears of his liking me less for my changed face; yet
withal, conscience reproved this misdoubt of one whose affection had
ever shown itself to be of the nobler sort, which looketh rather to
the qualities of the heart and mind than to the exterior charms of a
fair visage.
Alas! what a torment doth perplexity occasion. I had let go my pen,
and my tears were falling on the paper, when Muriel opened the door of
the parlor.
"What is it?" I cried, hiding my face with mine hand that she should
not see me weeping.
"A letter from Lady Arundel," she answered.
I eagerly took it from her; and on the reading of it found it
contained an urgent request from her ladyship, couched in most
affectionate terms, and masking the kindness of its intent under a
show of entreating, as a favor to herself that I would come and reside
with her at Arundel Castle, where she greatly needed the solace of a
friend's company, during her lord's necessary absences.
"Mine own dear, good Constance," she wrote, "come to me quickly. In
a letter I cannot well express all the good you will thus do to me.
For mine own part, I would fain say come to me until death shall
part us. But so selfish I would not be; yet prithee come until such
time as the clouds which have obscured the fair sky of thy future
prospects have passed away, and thy Basil's fortunes are mended; for
I will not cease to call him thine, for all that thou hast thyself
thrust a spoke in a wheel which otherwise should have run smoothly,
for the which thou art now doing penance: but be of good cheer; time
will bring thee shrift. Some kind of comfort I can promise thee in
this house, greater than I dare for to commit to paper. Lose no time
then. From thy last letter methinks the gentle turtle-dove at whose
side thou dost now nestle hath found herself a nest whereunto she
longeth to fly. Let her spread her wings thither, and do thou hasten
to the shelter of these old walls and the loving faithful heart of
thy poor friend,
"ANNE ARUNDEL AND SURREY."
Before a fortnight was overpast Muriel and I had parted; she for her
religious home beyond seas, I for the castle of my Lord Arundel,
whither I travelled in two days, resting on my way at the pleasant
village of Horsham. During the latter part of the journey the road lay
through a very wild expanse of down; but as soon as I caught sight of
the sea my heart bounded with joy; for to gaze on its blue expanse
seemed to carry me beyond the limits of this isle to the land where
Basil dwelt. When I reached the castle, the sight of the noble gateway
and keep filled me with admiration; and riding into the court thereof,
I looked with wonder on the military defences bristling on every side.
But what a sweet picture smiled from one of the narrow windows over
above the entrance-door!--mine own loved friend, yet fairer in her
matronly and motherly beauty than even in her girlhood's loveliness,
holding in her arms the pretty bud which had blossomed on a noble tree
in the time of adversity. Her countenance beamed on me like the
morning sun's; and my heart expanded with joy when, half-way up the
stairs which led to her chamber, I found myself inclosed in her arms.
She led me to a settle near a cheerful fire, and herself removed my
riding-cloak, my hat and veil, stroked my cheek with two of her
delicate white fingers, and said with a smile,
"In sooth, my dear Constance, thou art an arrant cheat."
"How so, most dear lady?" I said, likewise smiling.
"Why, thou art as comely as ever I thee; which, after all the torments
inflicted on poor Master Rookwood by thy prophetical vision of an
everlasting deformity, carefully concealed from him under the garb of
a sudden fit of inconstancy, is a very nefarious injustice. Go to, go
to; if he should see thee now, he never would believe but that that
management of thine was a cunning device for to break faith with him."
"Nay, nay," I cried; "if I should be ever so happy, which I deserve
not, for to see him again, there could never be for one moment a
mistrust on his part of a love which is too strong and too fond for
concealment. If the feebleness of sickness had not bred unreasonable
fears, methinks I should not have been guilty of so great a folly as
to think he would prize less what he was always wont most to treasure
far above their merits--the heart and mind of his poor Constance
--because the casket which held them had waxed unseemly. But when the
day shall come in which Basil and I may meet, God only knoweth. Human
foresight cannot attain to this prevision."
Lady Arundel's eyes had a smiling expression then which surprised me.
For mine own heart was full when I thus spoke, and I was wont to meet
in her with a more quick return of the like feelings I expressed than
at that time appeared. Slight inward resentments, painfully, albeit
not angrily, entertained, I was by nature prone to; and in this case
the effect of this impression suddenly checked the joy which at my
first arrival I had experienced. O, how much secret discipline should
be needed for to rule that little unruly kingdom within us, which many
look not into till serious rebellions do arise, which need fire and
sword to quell them for lack of timely repression! Her ladyship set
before me some food, and constrained me to eat, which I did merely for
to content her. She appeared to me somewhat restless: beginning a
sentence, and then breaking off suddenly in the midst thereof; going
in and out of the chamber; laughing at one time, and then seeming as
if about to weep. "When I had finished eating, and a servant had
removed the dishes, she sat down by my side and took my hand in hers.
Then the tears truly began to roll down her cheeks.
"O, for God's sake, what aileth you, dearest lady?" I said, uneasily
gazing on her agitated countenance.
"Nothing ails me," she answered; "only I fear to frighten thee, albeit
in a joyful manner."
"Frightened with joy!" I sadly answered. "O, that should be a rare
fright, and an unwonted one to me of late."
"Therefore," she said, smiling through her tears, "peradventure the
more to be feared."
"What joy do you speak of? I pray you, sweet lady, keep me not in
suspense."
"If, for instance," she said in a low voice, pressing my hands very
hard,--"if I was to tell thee Constance, that thy Basil was here,
shouldst thou not be affrighted?"
Methinks I must have turned very white; leastways, I began to tremble.
"Is he here?" I said, almost beside myself with the fearful hope her
words awoke.
"Yea," she said. "Since three days he is here."
For a moment I neither spoke nor moved.
"How comes it about? how doth it happen?" I began to say; but a
passion of tears choked my utterance. I fell into her arms, sobbing on
her breast; for verily I had no power to restrain myself. I heard her
say, "Master Rookwood, come in." Then, after those sad long weary
years, I again heard his cheerful voice; then I saw his kind eyes
speaking what words could never have uttered, or one-half so well
expressed. Then I felt the happiness which is most like, I ween,
of any on earth to that of heaven: after long parting, to meet again
one intensely loved--each heart overflowing with an unspoken joy and
with an unbounded thankfulness to God. Amazement did so fill me at
this unlooked-for good, that I seemed content for a while to think of
it as of a dream, and only feared to be awoke. But oh, with how many
sweet tears of gratitude--with what bursts of wonder and admiration--I
soon learnt how Lady Arundel had formed this kind plot, to which
Muriel had been privy, for to bring together parted lovers, and
procure to others the happiness she so often lacked herself--the
company of the most loved person in the world. She had herself written
to Basil, and related the cause of my apparent change; a cause, she
said, at no time sufficient for to warrant a desperate action, and
even then passing away. But that had it forever endured, she was of
opinion his was a love would survive any such accident as touched only
the exterior, when all else was unimpaired. She added, that when Mr.
Congleton, who was then at the point of death, should have expired,
and Muriel gone beyond seas to fulfil her religious intent, she would
use all the persuasion in her power to bring me to reside with her,
which was the thing she most desired in the world; and that if he
should think it possible under another name for to cross the seas and
land at some port in Sussex, he should be the welcomest guest
imaginable at Arundel Castle, if even, like St. Alexis, he should hide
his nobility under the garb of rags, and come thither begging on foot;
but yet she hoped, for his sake, it should not so happen, albeit
nothing could be more honorable if the cause was a good one. It needed
no more inducement than what this letter contained for to move Basil
to attempt this secret return. He took the name of Martingale, and
procured a passage in a small trading craft, which landed him at the
port of a small town named Littlehampton, about three or four miles
from Arundel. Thence he walked to the castle, where the countess
feigned him to be a leech sent by my lord to prescribe remedies for a
pain in her head, which she was oftentimes afflicted with, and as such
entertained him in the eyes of strangers as long as he continued
there, which did often move us to great merriment; for some of the
neighbors which she was forced to see, would sometimes ask for to
consult the countess's physician; and to avoid misdoubts, Basil once
or twice made up some innocent compounds, which an old gentleman and a
maiden lady in the town vowed had cured them, the one of a fit of the
gout, and the other of a very sharp disorder in her stomach. But to
return to the blissful first day of our meeting, one of the happiest I
had yet known; for a paramount affection doth so engross the heart,
that other sorrows vanish in its presence like dewdrops in the
sunshine. I can never forget the smallest particle of its many joys.
The long talk between Basil and me, first in Lady Arundel's chamber,
and then in the gallery of the castle, walking up and down, and when I
was tired, I sitting and he standing by the window which looked on the
fair valley and silvery river Arun, running toward the sea, through
pleasant pastures, with woody slopes on both sides, a fair and a
peaceful scene; fair and peaceful as the prospect Basil unfolded to me
that day, if we could but once in safety cross the seas; for his
debtors had remitted to him in France the moneys which they owed him,
and he had purchased a cottage in a very commodious village near the
town of Boulogne-sur-Mer, with an apple-orchard and a garden stored
with gay flowers and beehives, and a meadow with two large
walnut-trees in it. "And then bethink thee," he added, "mine own dear
love, that right in front of this fine mansion doth stand the parish
church, where God is worshipped in a Catholic manner in peace
and freedom; and nothing greater or more weighty need, methinks, to be
said in its praise."
I said I thought so too, and that the picture he drew of it liked me
well.
"But," quoth Basil suddenly, "I must tell thee, sweetheart, I liked
not well thy behavior touching thine altered face, and the misleading
letter thou didst send me at that time. No!" he exclaimed with great
vehemency, "it mislikes me sorely that thou shouldst have doubted my
love and faith, and dealt with me so injuriously. If I was now by some
accident disfigured, I must by that same token expect thine affection
for me should decay."
"O Basil!" I cried, "that would be an impossible thing!"
"Wherefore impossible?" he replied; "you thought such a change
possible in me?"
"Because," I said, smiling, "women are the most constant creatures in
the world, and not fickle like unto men, or so careful of a good
complexion in others, or a fine set of features."
"Tut, tut!" he cried, "I do admire that thou shouldst dare to utter so
great a . . . ." then he stopped, and, laughing, added, "the last half
of Raleigh's name, as the queen's bad riddle doth make it." [Footnote 5]
[Footnote 5: "The bane of the stomach, and the word of disgrace.
Is the name of the gentleman with the bold."]
Well, much talk of this sort was ministered between us; but albeit I
find pleasure in the recalling of it, methinks the reading thereof
should easily weary others; so I must check my pen, which, like unto a
garrulous old gossip, doth run on, overstepping the limits of
discretion.