WHEN you have seen Warwick Castle and Guy's Cliff and the Saxon
Mill--which is so old that it must be soothing to the most tempestuous
temperament--and you hasten back to your hotel and get your dog--if that
dog be Charles--on purpose to expose him to its calm influences, you go
to St. Mary's Church, which is, the guide-book tells you, "one of the
most remarkable specimens of ecclesiastical architecture extant," and
you see the Norman Crypt, and the clumsy sarcophagus of Fulke Greville,
Lord Brooke, who wrote his own epitaph, and you read how he was "servant
to Queen Elizabeth, Canceller to King James, and friend to Sir Philip
Sidney."
Also you see the Beauchamp Chapel, and love it and linger in it,
admiring the tombs of the earls of Warwick and other grown-ups, and
feeling, even after all these years, a thrill of sadness at the sight of
the little effigy of the child whose brocaded gown the marble so
wonderfully produces and whose little years knock at your heart for
pity.
"Here resteth," says the monument, "the body of the noble Impe Robert of
Dudley, . . . a child of greate parentage, but of farre greater hope and
towardness, taken from this transitory unto the everlasting life in his
tender age, . . . on Sunday the 19 of July, in the yeare of our Lorde
God 1584."
You see, also, the Warwick pew, and wish you could have worshiped there.
Then you go to Leicester's Hospital, half timbered and beautiful, with
the row of whispering limes on its terraced front, where the "brethren"
still wear the "gown of blew stuff with the badge of the bear and ragged
staff on the left sleeve." And the badges are still those provided by
Lord Leicester in 1571.
You are sorry that the old banqueting-hall should now be used for the
coal-cellar and the laundry of the brethren, and still more sorry that
the minstrels' gallery should have been cut off to enlarge the
drawing-room of the Master's house. If you are of a rude and democratic
nature you may possibly comment on this in audible voices beneath the
Master's windows, which, I am sorry to say, was what Mr. Basingstoke and
his companion did.
You will see the Sidney porcupine on the wall of the quadrangle, some
gilded quills missing, and no wonder, after all these years. You will
see--and perhaps neglect to reverence, as they did--the great chair once
occupied by that insufferable monarch and prig, James the First. You
will visit the Brethren's Chapel, which seems to be scented by all the
old clothes ever worn by any of the old brethren, and you will come out
again into the street, and, as you cross the threshold, it will be like
stepping across three hundred years, and you will say so. Then you will
probably say, "What about Stratford for this afternoon?" At least, that
is what Edward said. And as he said it he was aware of a figure in black
which said,
"Can you tell me the way to Droitwich?"
It was a woman, spare and pale, in black that was green, but brushed to
threadbareness.
"Do you want to walk?" Edward asked.
"I've got to, sir," she said.
"Do you mind," he asked, "telling me why you want to go?"
"I've got relations there, sir," said the woman in black, raising to his
the plaintive blue eyes of a child set in a face that fifty years and
more had wrinkled like a February apple. "My husband's relations, that
is. They might do something to help me. I might be able to be of use to
them, just to work out my keep. It isn't much I require. But I
couldn't--"
She stopped, and Edward Basingstoke knew that she couldn't even bring
herself to name the great terror of the poor--the living tomb which the
English call the workhouse.
"I'm afraid you've had a hard time," said Mr. Basingstoke.
"I had many happy days," she said, simply. "I always think you pay for
everything you have, sooner or later. And I'm paying now. I don't grudge
it, but I'd like to end respectable. And thank you for asking so kindly,
sir, and now I'll be getting on." And he saw in her eyes the fear that
he would offer her money to pay her way to Droitwich.
Instead he said: "We're motoring your way this afternoon. If you'll let
us give you a lift--"
The woman looked from one to the other. "Well," she said, "I do call
that kind. But I wasn't asking for any help. And I'd best be getting
on."
Then the other woman came quite close to the woman in black. "Won't
you," she said, "come and have dinner with us--and then we'll drive you
over? Do come. We're so happy and we do hate to think that you aren't.
Perhaps we can think of some way to help you . . . find you some work
or something," she added, hastily, answering the protest in the blue
eyes.
"I don't like to, miss," she said, "thanking you all the same. It's
truly good of you--but--"
Edward moved away a pace or two and lit a cigarette. He never knew what
his lady said to the woman in black, but when he turned again a
handkerchief was being restored to a rubbed black leather reticule and
the woman in black was saying,
"Well, ma'am, since you say that, of course I can't say no, and thank
you kindly."
The three had dinner together in the little private room over the porch
at the Warwick Arms, and as they passed through the hall there could
have been, for the little woman in black, no better armor against the
sniffs of chambermaids and the cold eyes of the lady in the glass case
than the feel of another woman's hand on her arm. She was very silent
and shy, but not awkward or clumsy, during the meal, and when it was
finished Edward got up and said,
"Well, Katherine, I'll leave you two to talk things over."
It was the first time he had called her by her name. She flushed and
sparkled, and was startled and amazed next moment to know that she had
answered,
"Yes, dear, do--"
Edward, however, was not unduly elated. He knew how women will play the
part set for them, to the least detail. She hoped he had not noticed the
slip which, quite unconsciously, the opening of her heart toward this
sad sister-woman had led her to make. He wished that she had not first
called him that in a mere desire to act up to what this woman would
expect.
He left them, and then the pitiful little story all came out, with fit
accompaniment of sighs, and presently tears, together with those sweet
and tender acts and words which blend with the sighs and tears of the
sorrowful into a melody as sad as beautiful. They had been married
thirty-seven years next Michaelmas; they had had a little shop--a little
needlework and fancy shop. She had done well enough with the customers,
but he had always done the buying, and when he was taken. . . .
"Ah, my dear, don't cry," said the one who was young and happy, "don't
cry. You'll make him so sad."
"Do you think he knows?" the widow asked.
"Of course he knows. He knows everything's going to be all right, only
he hates to see you miserable. _He_ knows it's only a little time,
really, before you and he will be together again, and happy for ever and
ever."
"I wish I could believe that."
"You must, because it's true. I expect he's been praying for you, and
that's why you met us--because, you know, I'm certain my"--she
hesitated, but the word came instead of "brother," which was what she
thought she meant to say--"my husband will think of something for you to
do to earn your living; he's so clever. And I suppose the business--"
Yes. The business had gone to pieces. Fashions change so, and the widow
had not known how to follow the fashions in needlework. There was only
enough left to pay the creditors, but every one _had_ been paid, and
with the pound or two left over she had lived, trying to get needle
work, or even, at last, charring or washing. But it had all been no
good; nothing had been any good.
"And now," said Katherine, "everything's going to be good. You'll see.
Edward will think of something. Don't cry any more. You must not cry. I
can't bear it, dear. Don't."
"I'm only crying for joy," said the woman whose life was over. "Even if
he doesn't think of anything, I can't ever despair again, and you being
like you have to me."
But when Edward came back he had thought of something. His old nurse, it
seemed, was in temporary charge of a house that wanted a housekeeper,
and he was sure Mrs. Burbidge understood housekeeping.
Mrs. Burbidge owned to an understanding of plain cooking and plain
housekeeping. Also needlework, both the plain and the fine. "But not
where butlers are kept," she said, apprehensively.
"This is a farm-house," said Edward. "Not a butler within miles."
"My father was a farmer, in Somerset," said Mrs. Burbidge, "but, oh,
sir, you don't know anything about me. Suppose I was a fraud like you
read of in the newspapers. But the vicar at home would speak for me."
"Your face speaks for you," said Katherine, and within half an hour all
was settled--the old nurse telegraphed to, money found for such modest
outfit as even a farmer's housekeeper must have, the train fixed that
should take the widow to London, the little hotel named where she should
spend a night, and the train decided on that should take her in the
morning to the farm-house that needed a housekeeper.
"It's no use me saying anything," said Mrs. Burbidge, at parting,
"but--"
"There's nothing to say," said Katherine, and kissed her, "only you will
write to the Reverend Smilie at Eccles vicarage. I can't be easy unless
you do," were her last words.
When she was gone they stood a moment looking at each other, and each
would have liked to hold out hands to the other, to come quite close in
the ecstasy of a kind deed jointly done. Instead of which he said,
awkwardly:
"I suppose that was a thoroughly silly thing to do."