CONCLUSION.
ARTHUR'S stay in Exeter was short, but before he left he had sought a
private interview with Winifred, and asked her to be his wife so soon
as the troubles should be settled.
"I have always kept this object in view, ever since we parted under
the great pear-tree in your father's garden," said he. "I have been at
foreign courts since then, and seen some of the most beautiful women
in the world. I have been, too, in scenes of temptation and trial,
among wild and dissolute men, and women still worse, but your face has
always come between me and harm, and your piece of gold has indeed been
a talisman which has kept me from many a sin. Winifred, will you be my
wife? I can promise you no great wealth—no court gaieties. I am but a
soldier, and my fortunes will rise or fall with those of the Prince of
Orange, my master. At best I shall be but a poor lord, living on my
estate in Devonshire, where you may follow my good sister's example and
play Lady Bountiful to tenants and cottagers. But if you are such as I
think you, such a life will suit you better than fluttering at court or
in the parks."
"Yes, indeed!" said Winifred, simply. "But what will my lady say? I am
but a yeoman's daughter, you know. I can boast no gentle blood, save on
the side of my mother, and I have no great fortune, which I have heard
sometimes makes up for lack of long descent. I can do nothing against
the will of my lady."
"I believe my sister will make no objection," said Arthur. "I think she
must see how the case stands. But, as you say, we owe a duty to her.
She has been almost a mother to me, and more than a mother to you. We
will do nothing without her. But the matter must be settled speedily,
for the prince may move any day, and you wot, sweetheart, that when the
master rides, the man must run."
"Well, well!" said Mrs. Alwright at the conclusion of a private
conference with her mistress, some days afterwards. "So this is the way
it is to turn out! I never would allow Mrs. Winifred to read novels
or plays, but I don't see but I might just as well have done so, for
I am sure nothing more romantic is to be found even in the tales of
King Arthur. And so, all the time I was thinking perhaps he may take a
fancy to his cousin Mrs. Paulina, he was making up to Mrs. Winifred!
And all the time I was teaching Winifred to sit straight at her frame
and keep her head well up and her chin under, and to speak and carry
herself like a lady, I was teaching the future Lady Carew—which shows
the importance of doing a thing well while one is about it," moralized
Alwright, "as I shall make a point of telling Mrs. Paulina, who is
apt to slight her work and not fasten her threads well. And so little
Winifred Evans, the daughter of Magdalen Coffin, is to stand in my old
lady's shoes and sit in her chair! Well, well!"
"You think my mother would have been shocked," said Lady Peckham; "yet,
as I was saying to myself, Winifred's birth and breeding are both above
that of the woman to whom my mother would have married poor Edward. Do
you remember when she came down to the Hall on a visit?"
"Aye, that I do!" said Alwright. "How she bustled in her silks and
satins, and talked loud, and took the words out of my lady's mouth at
her own table, and wondered 'how anybody as was anybody could abear
to live down in Devonshire among the savages.' I promise you it was a
bitter pill for my lady, despite the gilding; though she would have
swallowed it for all that, only the London lady took fright at poor
Master Edward's strange ways—for he was strange even then. But little
Winnie Evans! However, my lady is not here to object, and will know
nothing about it, that is one comfort. And even if she does, 'tis to be
hoped she has learned to see things differently by this time. And when
is the wedding to be, my lady?"
"That we cannot say exactly. Much depends upon the movements of the
prince. Should he be defeated after all, I suppose my brother will have
to go abroad once more."
"But I trust he will not, my lady! So many gentlemen are joining him
on every side. Here are Sir William Putman and Sir Francis Wane, and
so many others flocking to him. Exeter is quite like a court, with the
gentlemen and their servants. But what about the wedding clothes, my
lady? Should not Mrs. Winifred's linen be got in hand?"
"O yes, whenever you please," said Lady Peckham, smiling. "As soon as
things are a little more settled, I must write to my cousin Judith and
tell her the news. It is but her due, after her kindness to Winifred,
and I presume she will desire to do something towards her outfit. We
must have them all here for the wedding, Alwright, whenever it takes
place."
By the middle of February the English Revolution was a fixed fact, and
William and Mary were settled upon the throne, but it was not till the
primroses were blossoming in the green lanes of Devonshire that the
wedding was celebrated in Exeter, and the new Lord and Lady Carew took
possession of the gray old mansion house which had stood shut up and
deserted so many years, all but the few rooms inhabited by the poor
madman and his keepers.
Winifred was in no hurry to leave her dear lady, and it was agreed on
all sides to wait till such time as would be decorous for the young
Corbets to put off their mourning. Great was the joy and exultation of
good, kind-hearted Lady Corbet on the occasion. She had always known,
she said, that Winifred was born for a great lady, and she was as
pleased that she was as if it had been her own Paulina. It might be
Pall's turn next, perhaps, but the girl stuck up her nose, forsooth,
and declared she would never marry. She would live with Cousin Margaret
all her life, unless she was needed at home. She had no fancy at all
for the men, had Pall, and the twins were far more excited about the
wedding than their elder sister.
Meantime half the seamstresses in Bristol were at work, under her
direction, in fulfilling her vow that whenever Winifred married, she
should have a setting-out equal to that of any lady in the land. And
marvellous indeed were the lace and fine linen, the cut-work and raised
work, the brocades, and cambrics, and scented gloves, and gold-fringed
gaiters, and clocked stockings, which Lady Corbet displayed to
Alwright's admiring eyes on her arrival at Exeter a few days before the
wedding.
Sir John insisted upon adding to Winifred's little fortune the sum
he had originally destined for her dowry, and presented besides a
beautiful set of jewels. One other present Winifred had which cost her
a fit of crying. It was from Doctor Mercer, and consisted of a case
containing a beautiful and costly Bible and Prayer-book.
"Poor man, he is sad enough!" said Lady Corbet. "But he will not hear
any one say a word against you, for all that. When my cousin Norton
began to say, one day, that doubtless you know what you were about,
that you had feathered your nest well, and got on the blind side of
my lady, for all your saintliness—you know my cousin Norton never can
abide any one who makes any profession of godliness—I think she feels
it a reproach to herself, poor thing, for she does live like a heathen,
and a sad grief it is to her mother-in-law, my Paulina's godmother.
Well, when she said so, Doctor Mercer took her up, and I promise you,
he soon silenced her! I could wish sometimes that the doctor would take
a fancy to Pall, but I doubt his ever marrying now."
The rest of our tale is soon told. Lord and Lady Carew lived on
their estate in Devonshire, with little interruption, save when
Arthur accompanied the king to Ireland in that memorable campaign
which resulted in the Battle of the Boyne. Winifred was the same in
prosperity that she had been in adversity—calm, brave, religious,
trusting in God and walking daily and hourly with Him, doing good to
all about her. She found a grandson of her old friend Dame Sprat living
in great poverty on the outskirts of the estate, and had the happiness
of placing him on the farm of his grandfather, where he did credit to
his descent and her patronage. She revived the village school, which
had fallen to decay, and it continues to do good to this day, the girls
of Lady Carew's school being in great request as house-servants and
nursery-maids.
Lady Peckham retained her house in Exeter, but spent many months of
every year with Winifred in the home of her childhood, where Alwright
made saffron cakes and almond pastys, imparted wonderful secrets of
cooking and preserving to Lady Carew and her housekeeper, and had the
pleasure of introducing little Mrs. Margaret and Mrs. Magdalen to the
mysteries of cross-stitch and open-hem.
Paulina kept her word about remaining single, and living with cousin
Margaret. Her first fancy, settled upon a most unworthy object, had
been cruelly blighted, and she never had a second. After Lady Peckham's
death, she inherited the house at Exeter, where she had always with
her three or four motherless or orphan girls whom she brought up. Her
little school became famous for the excellence and soundness of the
education acquired under her charge, and she could have filled her
house many times over, but she steadily refused to take more than a
certain number, and always gave the preference to those who had no
mothers. She was effectually assisted by Alwright, who retained her
faculties unimpared to a great age, and could teach cross-stitch and
fine-darning by the aid of her glasses when she was ninety years old.
The twins often visited their sister and "cousin Winifred," as they
delighted to call Lady Carew. They grew up useful, well-educated women,
and married well during the life-time of their mother, thus making up
in some degree for Paulina's obstinate single-blessedness.
Nothing more was ever heard of Doctor Butler, and it was supposed that
he went abroad. Doctor Mercer lived and died in Bristol, where he
had many warm friends among both rich and poor, and won the respect
of all, notwithstanding his heretical opinions upon the subject of
fresh air and cold water. Sir John and Lady Corbet lived to see their
great-grandchildren, and died respected and loved by their numerous
descendants, and all who knew them. A wife was found for black Jack in
a fine young negro girl brought from the West Indies; and that worthy
blackamoor lived to be as white-headed as his old master.