"Oh, blind mine eye that would not trace,
And deaf mine ear that would not heed
The mocking smile upon her face,
The mocking voice of greed."
LEWIS CARROLL.
When Lady-day came round, Steadfast found to his delight and surprise a
little figure dancing out to meet him from Mrs. Lightfoot's.
"There, Master Stead. Are not you glad to see me, or be you too
dumbfounded to get out a word, like good old Jenny?" stroking the
donkey's cars. "Posies of primroses! How sweet they be! You must spare
me one."
"As many as you will, sweetheart. They be all for you, whether given or
sold. And you've got a holiday for Lady-day."
"Have a care! I got my ears boxed for such a Popish word. 'Tis but
quarter day, you know, being that, hang, draw, and quarter is more
to the present folks' mind than ladies or saints. I have changed my
service, you must know, as poor Dick used to sing:--
"Have a new master, be a new man."
"You have not heard from your own folk," cried Stead, this being what he
most dreaded.
"Nay. But I can away no more with Dame Sloggett, and Cross-patch Rachel,
white seam and salmon, and plain collars. So I bade her farewell at the
end of the year, and I've got a new mistress."
Stead stood with open mouth. To change service at the end of a year was
barely creditable in those days, and to do so without consultation with
home was unkind and alarming.
"There now, don't be crooked about it. I had not time to come out and
tell you and Patience, the old crones kept me so close, stitching at
shirts for a captain that is to sail next week, and I knew you would be
coming in."
"Where is it?" was all Stead uttered.
"What think you of Master Henshaw's, the great merchant, and an honest
well-wisher to King and Church to boot?"
"Master Henshaw, the West Indian merchant? His is a good, well-ordered
household, and he holds with the old ways."
"Yes. He was out that Whitsun morning we wot of," said Emlyn. "I wist
well you would be pleased."
"But I thought his good lady was dead," said Steadfast.
"So she is. She that came out to the gully, but there's a new Mistress
Henshaw, a sweet young lady, of a loyal house, the Ayliffes of Calfield.
And I am to be her own woman."
"Own woman," said Mrs. Lightfoot, for they were by this time among the
loaves in her stall. "Merchants' wives did not use to have women of
their own in my time."
For this was the title of a lady's maid, and rules as to household
appointments were strictly observed before the rebellion.
"Mistress Henshaw is gentlewoman born," returned Emlyn, with a toss of
her head. "She ought to have all that is becoming her station in return
for being wedded to an old hunks like that! And 'tis very well she
should have one like _me_ who has seen what becomes good blood! So
commend me to Patience and Rusha, and tell Ben maybe I shall have an
orange to send him one of these days. And cheer up, Stead. I shall get
five crowns and two gowns a year, and many a fee besides when there is
company, so we may build the house the sooner, and I shall not be mewed
up, and shall see the more of thee. 'Tis all for you. So never look so
gloomy on it, old Sobersides."
And she turned her sweet face to him, and coaxed and charmed him
into being satisfied that all was well, dwelling on the loyalty and
excellence of the master of the house.
He found it true that it was much easier to see Emlyn than before. Mrs.
Henshaw, a pretty young creature, not much older than Emlyn, was pleased
to do her own marketing, and came out attended by Emlyn, and a little
black slave boy carrying a basket. She generally bought all that
Steadfast had to sell, and then gave smiling thanks when he offered to
help carry home her purchases. She would join company with some of her
acquaintance, and leave the lovers to walk together, only accompanied by
little Diego, or Diggo as they called him, whose English was of the most
rudimentary description.
Emlyn certainly was very happy in her new quarters. Neither her lady nor
herself was arrayed with the rigid plainness exacted by Puritanism, and
many disapproving glances were cast upon the fair young pair, mistress
and maid, by the sterner matrons. Waiting women could not indulge in
much finery, but whatever breast knots and tiny curls beyond her little
tight cap could do, Emlyn did without fear of rebuke. Stead tried to
believe that the disapproving looks and words, by which Mrs. Lightfoot
intimated that she heard reports unfavourable to the household were only
due to the general distrust and dislike to the bright and lively Emlyn.
Mrs. Lightfoot was no Puritan herself, but her gossips were, and he
received her observations with a dull, stony look that vexed her, by
intimating that it was no business of hers.
Still it was borne in upon him that, good man as Mr. Henshaw certainly
was, the household was altered. It had been poverty and distress which
had led the Ayliffe family to give their young sister to a man so much
her elder, and inferior in position; and perhaps still more a desire to
confirm the Royalist footing in the city of Bristol. The lady's brothers
were penniless Cavaliers, and one of them made her house his home, and
a centre of Royalist plots and intelligences, which excited Emlyn very
much by the certainty that something was going on, though what it was,
of course, she did not know; and at any rate there was coming and going,
and all sorts of people were to be seen at the merchant's hospitable
table, all manner of news to be had here, there, and everywhere, with
which she delighted to entertain Steadfast, and show her own importance.
It was not often good news as regarded the Cavalier cause, for Cromwell
was fixing himself in his seat; and every endeavour to hatch a scheme
against him was frustrated, and led to the flight or death of those
concerned in it. However, so long as Emlyn had something to tell, it
made little difference whether the tidings were good or bad, whether
they concerned Admiral Blake's fleet, or her mistress's little Italian
greyhound. By-and-by however instead of Mrs. Henshaw, there came to
market Madam Ayliffe, her mother, a staid, elderly lady, all in black,
who might as well, Emlyn said, have been a Puritan.
She looked gravely at Stead, and said, "Young man, I am told that you
are well approved and trustworthy, and that my daughter suffers you to
walk home with this maiden, you being troth plight to her."
Stead assented.
"I will therefore not forbid it, trusting that if you be, as I hear,
a prudent youth, you may bring her to a more discreet and obedient
behaviour than hath been hers of late."
[Illustration: Stead before the Roundheads]
So saying, Mrs. Ayliffe joined company with the old Cavalier Colonel
and went on her way as Emlyn made that ugly face that Stead knew of old,
clenched her hand and muttered, "Old witch! She is a Puritan at heart,
after all! She is turning the house upside down, and my poor mistress
has not spirit to say 'tis her own, with the old woman and the old hunks
both against her! Why, she threatened to beat me because, forsooth, the
major's man was but giving me the time of day on the stairs!"
"Was that what she meant?" asked Stead.
"Assuredly it was. Trying to set you against me, the spiteful old
make-bate, and no one knows how long she will be here, falling on the
poor lads if they do but sing a song in the hall after supper, as if she
were a very Muggletonian herself. I trow she is no better."
"Did you not tell me how she held out her house against the Roundheads,
and went to prison for sheltering Cavaliers?"
"I only wish they had kept her there. All old women be Puritans at
heart. I say Stead, I'll have done with service. Let us be wed at once."
Stead could hardly breathe at this proposition. "But I have only nine
pounds and two crowns and--" he began.
"No matter, there be other ways," she went on. "Get the house built, and
I'll come, and we will have curds and whey all the summer, and mistress
and all her friends will come out and drink it, and eat strawberries!"
"But the Squire will never build the place up unless I bring more in
hand."
"You 'but' enough to butt down a wall, you dull-pated old Stead," said
Emlyn, "you know where to get at more, and so do I."
Stead's grey eyes fixed on her in astonishment and bewilderment.
"Numskull!" she exclaimed, but still in that good humoured voice of
banter that he never had withstood, "you know what I mean, though maybe
you would not have me say it in the street, you that have secrets."
"How do you know of it?"
"Have not I eyes, though some folk have not? Could not I look out at a
chink on a fine summer morning, when you thought the children asleep?
Could not I climb up to your precious cave as well as yourself; and hear
the iron clink under the stone. Ha, ha! and you and Patience thought no
one knew but yourselves."
"I trust no one else does."
"No, no, I'm no gad-about, whatever you may be pleased to think me. They
say everything comes of use in seven years, and it must be over that
now."
"Ten since 'twas hidden, nigh seven since that Whitsuntide. There's
never a parson who could come out, is there? Besides, with Peter
Woodward nigh, 'tis not safe to meet."
"That's what your head is running on. No, no. They will never have it
out again that fashion. The old Prayer-book is banished for ever and a
day! I heard master and the Captain say that now old Noll has got his
will, he will soon call himself king, and there's no hope of churches
or parsons coming back; and old madam sat and cried. The Jack Presbyters
and the rest of the sectaries have got it all their own way."
"Dr. Eales said I had no right to give it to Master Woodley, or any that
was not the right sort."
"So why should you go on keeping it there rotting for nothing, when
it might just hinder us from wearing our very lives out while you are
plodding and saving?"
Stead stood stock still, as her meaning dawned on him, "Child, you know
not what you say," at last he uttered.
"Ah well, you are slow to take things in; but you'll do it at last."
"I am slow to take in this," said Stead. "Would you have me rob God?"
"No, only the owls and the bats," said Emlyn. "If they are the better
for the silver and gold under them! What good can it do to let it lie
there and rot?"
"Gold rots not!" growled Stead.
"Tarnishes, spoils then!" said Emlyn pettishly. "Come, what good is't to
any mortal soul there?"
"It is none of mine."
"Not after seven years? Come, look you now, Stead, 'tis not only being
tired of service and sharp words, and nips and blows, but I don't like
being mocked for having a clown and a lubber for my sweetheart. Oh
yes! they do, and there's a skipper and two mates, and a clerk, and a
well-to-do locksmith, besides gentlemen's valets and others, I don't
account of, who would all cut off their little fingers if I'd only once
look at them as I am doing at you, you old block, who don't heed it, and
I don't know that I can hold out against them all," she added, looking
down with a sudden shyness; "specially the mates. There's Jonah
Richards, who has a ship building that he is to have of his own, and he
wants to call it the 'Sprightly Emlyn,' and the other sailed with Prince
Rupert, and made ever so many prizes, and how am I to stand out when you
don't value me the worth of an old silver cup?"
"Come, come, Em, that's only to frighten a man." But she knew in his
tone that he was frightened.
"Not a bit! I should be ever so much better off in a tidy little house
where I could see all that came and went than up in your lane with
nought to go by but the market folk. 'Tis not everyone that would have
kept true to a big country lout like you, like that lady among the
salvage men that the King spoke of; and I get nothing by it but wait,
wait, wait, when there's stores of silver ready to your hand."
"Heaven knows, and you know, Emlyn, 'tis not for want of love."
"Heaven may know, but I don't."
"I gave my solemn word."
"And you have kept it these ten years, and all is changed." Then
altering her tone, "There now, I know it takes an hour to beat a notion
into that slow brain of yours, and here we be at home, and I shall have
madam after me. I'll leave you to see the sense of it, and if I do not
hear of something before long, why then I shall know how much you care
for poor little Emlyn."
With which last words she flitted within the gates, leaving Steadfast
still too much stunned to realise all she meant, as he turned homewards;
but all grew on him in time, the idea that Emlyn, his Emlyn, his orphan
of the battlefield, bereaved for the sake of King and Church, should be
striving to make him betray his trust! "The silver is Mine and the
gold is Mine," rang in his ears, and yet was it not cruel that when she
really loved him best, and sought to return to him as a refuge from the
many temptations to her lively spirit, he should be forced to leave her
in the midst of them--against her own warning and even entreaty, and
not only himself lose her, but lose her to one of those godless riotous
sailors who were the dread and bane of the neighbourhood? Was not a
human soul worth as much as a consecrated Chalice?
These were the debates in Steadfast's much tormented soul. He could
think, though he could not clothe his thoughts in words, and day after
day, night after night he did think, while Patience wondered at the
heavy moodiness that seemed to have come over him. He would not open his
lips to ask her counsel, being quite certain of what it would be, and
not choosing to hear her censure of Emlyn for what he managed to excuse
by the poor child's ignorance and want of training, and by her ardent
desire to be under his wing and escape from temptation.
He recollected a thousand pleas that he might have used with her, to
show it was not want of love but a sacred pledge that withheld him, and
market day after market day he went in, priming himself all the way
with arguments that were to confirm her constancy, arm her against
temptation, and assure her of his unalterable love, though he might not
break his vow, nor lay his hand upon sacred things.
But whether Emlyn would not, or could not, meet him, he did not know,
for a week or two went by before he saw her, and then she was carrying
a great fan for her young mistress, who was walking with a Cavalier,
as gay as Cavaliers ever ventured to be, and another young lady, whose
waiting woman had paired with Emlyn. They were mincing along, gazing
about them, and uttering little contemptuous titters, and Stead could
only too well guess what kind of remarks Emlyn's companion might make
upon him.
Near his stand, however, the other lady beckoned her maid to adjust
something in her dress; and Stead could approach Emlyn. She looked up
with her bright, laughing eyes with a certain wistfulness in them.
"Have you made up your mind to cheat the owls?" she asked.
"Emlyn, if you would not speak so lightly, I could show cause--"
"Oh, that's enough," she answered hastily, turning as the other maid
joined her; and Stead caught the shrill, pert voice demanding if that
was her swain with clouted shoes. Emlyn's reply he could not hear, but
he saw the twist of the shoulders.
There are bitter moments in everyone's life, and that was one of the
very bitterest of Steadfast Kenton's.