"Better the blind faith of our youth
Than doubt, which all truth braves;
Better to die, God's children dear,
Than live, the Devil's slaves."
Dinah Mulock.
"Good-morrow, Lady Lettice! I am come to ask a favour."
"Ask it, I pray you, Mrs Rookwood."
"Will you suffer Mrs Lettice to come to our apple-cast on Tuesday next?
We shall have divers young folks of our neighbours--Mrs Abbott's Mary,
Dorcas, and Hester, Mrs Townsend's Rebecca, my Lady Woodward's Dulcibel
and Grissel, and such like; and our Doll, I am in hopes, shall be back
from Suffolk, and maybe her cousin Bessy with her. I have asked Mr
Louvaine to come, and twain more of my Lord Oxford's gentlemen; and Mr
Manners, Mr Stone, and our Tom, shall be there. What say you?"
Lady Louvaine looked with a smile at her granddaughter, who sat in the
window with a book. She was not altogether satisfied with the
Rookwoods, yet less from anything they said or did than from what they
omitted to say and do. They came regularly to church, they attended the
Sacrament, they asked the Vicar to their dinner-parties, they were very
affable and friendly to their neighbours. There was absolutely nothing
on which it was possible to lay a reproving finger, and say, This is
what I do not like. And yet, while she could no more give a reason for
distrusting them than the schoolboy for objecting to the famous Dr
Fell, she did instinctively distrust them. Still, Lettice was a good
girl, on the whole a discreet girl; she had very few pleasures,
especially such as took her outside her home, and gave her the
companionship of girls of her own age. Lettice had been taught, as all
Puritan maidens were, that "life is, to do the will of God," and that
pleasure was not to be sought at all, and scarcely to be accepted except
in its simplest forms, and as coming naturally along with the duties of
life. An admirable lesson--a lesson which girls sadly need to learn
now, if only for the lowest reason--that pleasures thus taken are
infinitely more pleasing than when sought, and the taste for them is
keener and more enduring. To the moral taste, no less than the
physical, plain fare with a good appetite is incomparably more enjoyable
than the finest dainties with none: and the moral appetite can cloy and
pall at least as soon as the physical. Lettice's healthy moral nature
had been content with the plain fare, and had never cried out for
dainties. But, like all young folks, she liked a pleasant change, and
her grandmother, who had thought her looking pale and somewhat languid
with the summer heat in town, was glad that she should have the
enjoyment. She knew she might trust her.
Not even to herself did Lady Louvaine confess her deepest reason for
allowing Lettice to go to the apple-cast--an assembly resembling in its
nature the American "bee," and having an apple-gathering and storing for
its object. It was derived from the fact that Aubrey had been invited.
It occurred to her that something might transpire in Lettice's free and
innocent narrative of her enjoyment, which would be of service in the
difficult business of dealing with Aubrey at this juncture.
Lettice, as beseemed a maiden of her years, was silent, though her eyes
said, "Please!" in very distinct language.
"I thank you, Mrs Rookwood; Lettice may go."
Lettice's eyes lighted up.
"Then, Mrs Lettice, will you step in about nine o'clock? My maids'll
be fain to see you. And if any of you gentlewomen should have a liking
to look in--"
"Nay, the girls should count us spoil-sports," said Edith, laughingly.
"Now come, Mrs Edith! 'tis not so long since you were a young maid."
"Twelve good years, Mrs Rookwood: as long, pretty nigh, as Hester
Abbott has been in the world."
"Eh, but years don't go for much, not with some folks."
"Not with them that keep the dew of their youth," said Lady Louvaine
with a smile. "But to do that, friend, a woman should dwell very near
to Him who only hath immortality."
It was something so unusual for one of this sober household to go out to
a party, that a flutter arose, when Mrs Rookwood had departed,
concerning Lettice's costume.
"She had best go in a washing gown," was the decision of her practical
Aunt Temperance. "If she's to be any good with the apples, she must not
wear her Sunday best."
Lettice's Sunday best was not of an extravagant character, being a dark
green perpetuana gown, trimmed with silver lace, a mantle of
plum-coloured cloth, and a plum-coloured hood lined with dark green.
"But a washing gown, Temperance! It should look so mean," objected Mrs
Louvaine.
"Her best gown'll look meaner, if all the lace be hung with cobwebs, and
all the frilling lined with apple-parings," said Temperance.
"She'll take better care of it than so, I hope," said Edith. "And a
lawn gown should be cold for this season."
"Well, let the child wear her brown kersey. That'll not spoil so much
as some."
In her heart Lettice hoped she would not have to wear the brown kersey.
Brown was such an ugly colour! and the kersey, already worn two seasons,
was getting shabby--far too shabby to wear at a party. She would have
liked to put on her best. But no girl of twenty, unmarried, at that
date decided such matters for herself.
"Oh, never that ugly thing!" said Mrs Louvaine. "I mean her to wear my
pearls, and that brown stuff--"
Wear Aunt Faith's pearls! Lettice's heart beat.
"Faith, my dear, I would not have the child use ornaments," said Lady
Louvaine quietly. "You wot, those of our way of thinking do commonly
discard them. Let us not give occasion for scandal. I would have
Lettice go neat and cleanly, and not under her station, but no more."
The palpitations of Lettice's heart sobered down. Of course she could
not expect to wear pearls and such worldly vanities. Grandmother was
always right.
"I can tell you, Mrs Gertrude and Mrs Anne shall not be in brown
kersey," said Mrs Louvaine, in her usual petulant tone. "And if Aubrey
don him not in satin and velvet, my name is not Faith."
"It shouldn't have been, my dear, for it isn't your nature," was her
sister's comment.
"We need not follow a multitude to do evil," quietly responded Lady
Louvaine, as she sat and knitted peacefully.
"Well, Madam, what comes that to--the brown kersey, trow? Edith saith
truth, lawn is cold this weather."
"I think, my dear, the green perpetuana were not too good, with clean
apron, ruff, and cuffs, and a silver lace: but I would have nought
more."
So Lettice made her appearance at the apple-cast in her Sunday gown, but
decked with no pearls, and her own brown hair turned soberly back under
her hood. She put no hat on over it, as she had only to slip into the
next house. In the hall Tom Rookwood met her, and bowing, requested the
honour of conducting her into the garden, where his sisters and cousin
were already busy with the day's duties.
On the short ladder which rested against one of the apple-trees stood
Dorothy, the tallest of the Rookwoods, clad in a long apron of white
lawn edged with lace, over a dress of rich dark blue silk, gathering
apples, and passing them to Anne at the foot of the ladder, by whom they
were delivered to Gertrude, who packed them in sundry crates ready for
the purpose. By Gertrude's side stood a dark, rosy, merry-looking child
of six, whom she introduced to Lettice as her cousin Bessy. Lettice,
who had expected Bessy to be much older, was disappointed, for she was
curious to know what kind of a creature a female Papist might be.
"Now, Tom, do your duty!" cried Dorothy, as Tom was about to retire. "I
am weary of gathering, and you having the longest legs and arms amongst
us, should take my place. Here come Mr Montague and Rebecca Townsend;
I'm coming down. Up with you!"
Tom pulled a face and obeyed: but showing a disposition to pelt Dorothy
and Bessy, instead of carefully delivering the apples unbruised to Anne,
he was screamed at and set upon at once, Gertrude leading the
opposition.
"Tom, you wicked wretch! Come down this minute, or else behave
properly. I shall--"
The--accidental?--descent of an enormous apple on the bridge of
Gertrude's nose put her announcement of her intentions to speedy flight:
and in laughing over the _fracas_, the ice rapidly melted between the
young strangers.
The apple-gathering proceeded merrily, relieved by a few scenes of this
sort, until the trees were stripped, the apples laid carefully in the
crates for transportation to the garrets, and on their arrival, as
carefully taken out and spread on sheets of grey paper on the floor.
When all was done, the girls were marshalled into Gertrude's room to
tidy themselves: after which they went down to the dining-room. Mrs
Rookwood had provided an excellent dinner for her youthful guests,
including geese, venison, and pheasants, various pies and puddings,
Muscadel and Canary wines. After dinner they played games in the hall
and dining-room, hood-man blind, and hunt the slipper, and when tired of
these, separated into little groups or formed _tete-a-tetes_ for
conversation. Lettice, who could not quite get rid of an outside
feeling, as if she did not belong to the world in which she found
herself, was taken possession of by her oldest acquaintance, Gertrude,
and drawn into a window-seat for what that young lady termed "a proper
chat."
"I thought my cousin was to be here," said Lettice, glancing over the
company.
"Ay, Tom asked him, I believe," said Gertrude. "Maybe his Lord could
not spare him. Do you miss him?"
"I would like to have seen him," said Lettice innocently.
"Tom would not love to hear you say so much, I can tell you," laughed
Gertrude. "He admires you very much, Lettice. Oh, do let us drop the
`Mistress'--it is so stiff and sober--I hate it."
"Me!" was all that it occurred to Lettice to answer.
"You. Don't you like men to admire you?"
"I don't know; they never did."
Gertrude went off into a soft explosion of silvery laughter.
"O Lettice, you are good! You have been brought up with all those
sober, starched old gentlewomen, till you don't know what life is--why,
my dear, you might as well be a nun!"
"Don't I know what life is?" said Lettice. "I've had twenty years of
it."
"You haven't had twenty days of it--not _life_. You've been ruled like
a copy-book ever since you were born. I have pitied you, poor little
victim, you cannot guess how much! I begged Mother to try and win you
for to-day. She said she did not believe Starch and Knitting-Pins would
suffer it, but she would try. Wasn't I astonished when I heard you
really were to come!"
"What do you mean by Starch and Knitting-Pins?" asked the bewildered
Lettice.
"Oh, that awful aunt of yours who looks as if she had just come out of
the wash, and your sweet-smiling grandmother who is always fiddling with
knitting-pins--"
Gertrude stopped suddenly. She understood, better than Lettice did
herself, the involuntary, unpremeditated gesture which put a greater
distance between them on the window-seat, and knew in a moment that she
had scandalised her guest.
"My dear creature!" she said with one of her soft laughs, "if you
worship your starchy aunt, I won't say another word! And as to my Lady
Louvaine, I am sure I never meant the least disrespect to her. Of
course she is very sweet and good, and all that: but dear me! have you
been bred up to think you must not label people with funny names?
Everybody does, my dear--no offence meant at all, I assure you."
"I beg your pardon!" said Lettice stiffly--more so, indeed, than she
knew or meant. "If that be what you call `life,' I am afraid I know
little about it."
"And wish for no more!" said Gertrude, laughing. "Well, if I offended
you, I ought to beg pardon. I did not intend it, I am sure. But, my
dear, what a pity you do not crisp your hair, or curl it! That
old-fashioned roll back is as ancient as my grandmother. And a partlet,
I declare! They really ought to let you be a _little_ more properly
dressed. You never see girls with turned-back hair now."
Lettice did not know whether to blush for her deficiencies, or to be
angry with Gertrude for pointing them out. She felt more inclined to
the latter.
"Now, if I had you to dress," said Gertrude complacently, "I should just
put you in a decent, neat corset, with a white satin gown, puffed with
crimson velvet, a velvet hood lined with white satin, a girdle of gold
and pearls, crimson stockings, white satin slippers, a lace rebato, and
a pearl necklace. Oh, how charming you would look! You would not know
yourself. Then I should put a gold bodkin in your hair, and a head-drop
of pearls set round a diamond, and bracelets instead of these lawn
cuffs, and a fan; and wash your face in distilled waters, and
odoriferous oils for your hands."
"But I should not like my hands oily!" said Lettice in amazement.
Gertrude laughed. "Oh yes, you would, when you were accustomed to it.
And then just the least touch on your forehead and cheeks, and--O
Lettice, my dear, you would have half London at your feet!"
"The `least touch' of what?" inquired Lettice.
"Oh, just to show the blue veins, you know."
"`Show the blue veins!' What can you show them with?"
"Oh, just a touch of blue," said Gertrude, who began to fear she had
gone further than Lettice would follow, and did not want to be too
explicit.
"You never, surely, mean--_paint_?" asked Lettice in tones of horror.
"My dear little Puritan, be not so shocked! I do, really, mean paint;
but not all over your face--nothing of the sort: only a touch here and
there."
"I'll take care it does not touch me," said Lettice decidedly. "I don't
want to get accustomed to such abominable things. And as to having half
London at my feet, there isn't room for it, and I am sure I should not
like it if there were."
"O Lettice, Lettice!" cried Gertrude amidst her laughter. "I never saw
such a maid. Why, you are old before you are young."
"I have heard say," answered Lettice, laughing herself, "that such as so
be are young when they are old."
"Oh, don't talk of being old--'tis horrid to think on. But, my dear,
you should really have a little fine breeding, and not be bred up a
musty, humdrum Puritan. I do hate those she-precise hypocrites, that go
about in close stomachers and ruffles of Geneva print, and cannot so
much as cudgel their maids without a Scripture to back them. Nobody
likes them, you know. Don't grow into one of them. You'll never be
married if you do."
Lettice was silent, but she sat with slightly raised eyebrows, and a
puzzled expression about her lips.
"Well, why don't you speak?" said Gertrude briskly.
"Because I don't know what to say. I can't tell what you expect me to
say: and you give such queer reasons for not doing things."
"Do I so?" said Gertrude, looking amused. "Why, what queer reasons have
I given?"
"That nobody will like me, and I shall never be married!"
"Well! aren't they very good reasons?"
"They don't seem to me to be reasons at all. I may never be married,
whether I do it or not; and that will be as God sees best for me, so why
trouble myself about it? And as to people not liking me because I am a
Puritan, don't you remember the Lord's words, `If the world hate you, ye
know that it hated Me before it hated you'?"
"Oh, you sucked in the Bible with your mother's milk, I suppose," said
Gertrude pettishly, "and have had it knitted into you ever since by your
grandmother's needles. I did not expect you to be a spoil-sport,
Lettice. I thought you would be only too happy to come out of your
convent for a few hours."
"Thank you, I don't want to be a spoil-sport, and I do not think the
Bible is, unless the sports are bad ones, and they might as well be
spoiled, might they not?"
"There's Mr Stone!" cried Gertrude inconsequently, and in a relieved
tone, for Lettice was leading in a direction whither she had no wish to
follow. "Look! isn't he a fine young man? What a shame to have
christened so comely a man by so ugly a name as Jeremy!"
"Do you think so? It is a beautiful name; it means `him whom God hath
appointed,'--Aunt Edith says so."
"Think you I care what it _means_!" was the answer, in a rather vexed
tone, though it was accompanied by a laugh. "'Tis ugly and
old-fashioned, child. Now your cousin, Mr Louvaine, has a charming
name. But fancy having a name with a sermon wrapped up in it!"
"I do not understand!" said Lettice a little blankly. "You seem to
think little of those things whereof I have been taught to think much;
and to think much of those things whereof I have been led to think
little. It puzzles me. Excuse me."
Gertrude laughed more good-naturedly.
"My dear little innocence!" said she. "I am sorry to let the cold,
garish daylight in upon your pretty little stained-glass creed: it is
never pleasant to have scales taken from your eyes. But really, you
look on things in such false colours, that needs must. Why, my child,
if you were to go out into the world, you would find all those fancies
laughed to scorn. 'Tis only Puritans love sermons and Bibles and such
things. No doubt they are all right, and good, and all that; quite
proper for Sunday, and sick-beds, and so on. I am not an infidel, of
course. But then--well?"
Lettice's face of utter amazement arrested the flow of words on
Gertrude's lips.
"Would your mother think you loved her, Gertrude, if you told her you
never wanted to see her except on Sundays and when you were sick? And
if God hears all we say, is it not as good as telling Him that? You
puzzle me more and more. I have been taught that the world is the enemy
of God, and refuses to guide its ways by His Word: but you speak as if
it were something good, that we ought to look up to, and hearken what it
bids us. It cannot be both. And what God says about it _must_ be
true."
"Lettice, whatever one says, you always come back to your Puritan stuff.
I wish you would be natural, like other maids. See, I am about to turn
you over to Dorothy. Let us see if she can make something of you--I
cannot.--Here, Doll! come and sit here, and talk with Lettice. I want
to go and speak to Grissel yonder."
Dorothy sat down obediently in the window-seat.
"I thought Mr Louvaine was to be here to-day," she said.
"So did I likewise. I cannot tell why he comes not."
"Have you seen him lately?"
"No, not in some time. I suppose he is busy."