Clare Avery, by Emily Sarah Holt.
Contents
I. Little Clare's First Home
II. On the Border of Marton Mere
III. Breakers Ahead
IV. The Invincible Armada
V. The Wreck of the "Dolorida"
VI. Cositas de Espana
VII. A Spoke in the Wheel
VIII. Thekla Comes to the Rescue
IX. Too Abstruse for Blanche
X. Counsel's Opinion
XI. Catching Moths
XII. A Glimpse of the Hot Gospeller
XIII. Gentleman Jack
XIV. Which was the Coward?
XV. After All
XVI. "Dieu La Voulu"
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This book, one of Emily Holt's many historical novels, is set in the
reign of Elizabeth, around the time of the Armada, which has a chapter
to itself. The story revolves round a moderately well-off family, who
really did exist, many details of the family being given in the last
chapter, or Appendix. In order to make the story realistic there are a
number of fictitious persons, but there is always a note to that effect
when the person first appears. In general these fictitious persons are
no more than minor characters.
There is an interesting passage in which Jack, one of the youths of the
family, obtains a place at Court, but finds he needs to spend enormous
amounts on apparel to keep up with the other young men he meets. By no
means does the family have the resources to pay his trade-debts, and it
turns out that his gambling debts, known as "debts of honour" are even
greater. They had to tell him to go away and sort it out for himself.
But it must be said that a great deal of the book is taken up with
religious discussions, mostly centring on the perceived imperfections
of the Papist religion, as opposed to the Protestant. If you are not
interested in this it does tend to make the going a bit heavy at times.
But if you are interested, well then, it makes good reading.
As ever with this author there are many words and phrases used which
are now outdated. When they first appear a note of the current meaning
is given, for instance "popinjay [parrot]". On the whole this is not
confusing except where a word has changed or even reversed its meaning.
We do not recommend learning by heart from a sort of vocab list, the
words in use in Elizabethan times, unless you are studying that
period in depth.
________________________________________________________________________
CLARE AVERY, BY EMILY SARAH HOLT.
CHAPTER ONE.
LITTLE CLARE'S FIRST HOME.
"The mossy marbles rest
On the lips he hath pressed
In their bloom,
And the names he loved to hear
Have been carved for many a year
On the tomb."
_Oliver Wendell Holmes_.
"Cold!" said the carrier, blowing on his fingers to keep them warm.
"Cold, bully Penmore!" ejaculated Hal Dockett,--farrier, horse-leech,
and cow-doctor in ordinary to the town of Bodmin and its
neighbourhood... "Lack-a-daisy! thou that hast been carrier these
thirty years, and thy father afore thee, and his father afore him, ever
sith `old Dick Boar' days, shouldst be as hard as a milestone by this
time. 'Tis the end of March, fellow!"
Be it known that "old Dick Boar" was Mr Dockett's extremely irreverent
style of allusion to His Majesty King Richard the Third.
"'Tis the end of as bitter a March as hath been in Cornwall these
hundred years," said the carrier. "Whither away now, lad?"
"Truly, unto Bradmond, whither I am bidden to see unto the black cow."
"Is it sooth, lad, that the master is failing yonder?"
"Folk saith so," replied Hal, his jocund face clouding over. "It shall
be an evil day for Bodmin, _that_!"
"Ay so!" echoed the carrier. "Well! we must all be laid in earth one
day. God be wi' thee, lad!"
And with a crack of his whip, the waggon lumbered slowly forward upon
the Truro road, while Dockett went on his way towards a house standing a
little distance on the left, in a few acres of garden, with a paddock
behind.
About the cold there was no question. The ground, which had been white
with snow for many days, was now a mixture of black and white, under the
influence of a thaw; while a bitterly cold wind, which made everybody
shiver, rose now and then to a wild whirl, slammed the doors, and
groaned through the wood-work. A fragment of cloud, rather less dim and
gloomy than the rest of the heavy grey sky, was as much as could be seen
of the sun.
Nor was the political atmosphere much more cheerful than the physical.
All over England,--and it might be said, all over Europe,--men's hearts
were failing them for fear,--by no means for the first time in that
century. In Holland the Spaniards, vanquished not by men, but by winds
and waves from God, had abandoned the siege of Leyden; and the
sovereignty of the Netherlands had been offered to Elizabeth of England,
but after some consideration was refused. In France, the Massacre of
Saint Bartholomew, nearly three years before, had been followed by the
siege of La Rochelle, the death of the miserable Charles the Ninth, and
the alliance in favour of Popery, which styled itself the Holy League.
At home, gardeners were busy introducing the wallflower, the hollyhock,
basil, and sweet marjoram; the first licence for public plays was
granted to Burbage and his company, among whom was a young man from
Warwickshire, a butcher's son, with a turn for making verses, whose name
was William Shakspere; the Queen had issued a decree forbidding costly
apparel (not including her own); and the last trace of feudal serfdom
had just disappeared, by the abolition of "villenage" upon the Crown
manors. As concerned other countries, except when active hostilities
were going on, Englishmen were not generally much interested, unless it
were in that far-off New World which Columbus had discovered not a
hundred years before,--or in that unknown land, far away also, beyond
the white North Cape, whither adventurers every now and then set out
with the hope of discovering a north-west passage to China,--the
north-west passage which, though sought now with a different object, no
one has discovered yet.
It may be as well to recall the state of knowledge in English society at
this period. The time had gone by when the burning of coal was
prohibited, as prejudicial to health; but the limits of London, beyond
which building might not extend, were soon after this fixed at three
miles from the city gates; the introduction of private carriages was
long opposed, lest it should lead to luxury; [Note 1] and sumptuary
laws, regulating, according to rank, the materials for dress and the
details of trimmings, were issued every few years. Needles were
treasures beyond reach of the poor; yeast, starch, glass bottles, woven
stockings, fans, muffs, tulips, marigolds,--had all been invented or
introduced within thirty years: the peach and the potato were alike
luxuries known to few: forks, sedan or Bath chairs, coffee, tea, gas,
telescopes, newspapers, shawls, muslin,--not to include railways and
telegraphs,--were ideas that had not yet occurred to any one. Nobody
had ever heard of the circulation of the blood. A doctor was a _rara
avis_: medical advice was mainly given in the towns by apothecaries, and
in the country by herbalists and "wise women." There were no
Dissenters--except the few who remained Romanists; and perhaps there
were not likely to be many, when the fine for non-attendance at the
parish church was twenty pounds per month. Parochial relief was
unknown, and any old woman obnoxious to her neighbours was likely to be
drowned as a witch. Lastly, by the Bull of excommunication of Pope Pius
the Fifth, issued in April, 1569, Queen Elizabeth had been solemnly "cut
off from the unity of Christ's Body," and "deprived of her pretended
right to the Crown of England," while all who obeyed or upheld her were
placed under a terrible curse. [Note 2.]
Nineteen years had passed since that triumphant 17th of November which
had seen all England in a frenzy of joy on the accession of Elizabeth
Tudor. They were at most very young men and women who could not
remember the terrible days of Mary, and the glad welcome given to her
sister. Still warm at the heart of England lay the memory of the Marian
martyrs; still deep and strong in her was hatred of every shadow of
Popery. The petition had not yet been erased from the Litany--why
should it ever have been?--"From the Bishop of Rome and all his
enormities, good Lord, deliver us!"
On the particular afternoon whereon the story opens, one of the
dreariest points of the landscape was the house towards which Hal
Dockett's steps were bent. It was of moderate size, and might have been
very comfortable if somebody had taken pains to make it so. But it
looked as if the pains had not been taken. Half the windows were
covered by shutters; the wainscot was sadly in want of a fresh coat of
paint; the woodbine, which should have been trained up beside the porch,
hung wearily down, as if it were tired of trying to climb when nobody
helped it; the very ivy was ragged and dusty. The doors shut with that
hollow sound peculiar to empty uncurtained rooms, and groaned, as they
opened, over the scarcity of oil. And if the spectator had passed
inside, he would have seen that out of the whole house, only four rooms
were inhabited beside the kitchen and its dependencies. In all the
rest, the dusty furniture was falling to pieces from long neglect, and
the spiders carried on their factories at their own pleasure.
One of these four rooms, a long, narrow chamber, on the upper floor,
gave signs of having been inhabited very recently. On the square table
lay a quantity of coarse needlework, which somebody seemed to have
bundled together and left hastily; and on one of the hard,
straight-backed chairs was a sorely-disabled wooden doll, of the
earliest Dutch order, with mere rudiments, of arms and legs, and
deprived by accidents of a great portion of these. The needlework said
plainly that there must be a woman in the dreary house, and the doll,
staring at the ceiling with black expressionless eyes, spoke as
distinctly for the existence of a child.
Suddenly the door of this room opened with a plaintive creak, and a
little woman, on the elderly side of middle life, put in her head.
A bright, energetic, active little woman she seemed,--not the sort of
person who might be expected to put up meekly with dim windows and dusty
floors.
"Marry La'kin!" [a corruption of "Mary, little Lady!"] she said aloud.
"Of a truth, what a charge be these childre!"
The cause of this remark was hardly apparent, since no child was to be
seen; but the little woman came further into the room, her gestures soon
showing that she was looking for a child who ought to have been visible.
"Well! I've searched every chamber in this house save the Master's
closet. Where can yon little popinjay [parrot] have hid her? Marry
La'kin!"
This expletive was certainly not appreciated by her who used it.
Nothing could much more have astonished or shocked Barbara Polwhele [a
fictitious person]--than whom no more uncompromising Protestant breathed
between John o' Groat's and the Land's End--than to discover that since
she came into the room, she had twice invoked the assistance of Saint
Mary the Virgin.
Barbara's search soon brought her to the conclusion that the child she
sought was not in that quarter. She shut the door, and came out into a
narrow gallery, from one side of which a wooden staircase ran down into
the hall. It was a wide hall of vaulted stone, hung with faded
tapestry, old and wanting repair, like everything else in its vicinity.
Across the hall Barbara trotted with short, quick steps, and opening a
door at the further end, went into the one pleasant room in all the
house. This was a very small turret-chamber, hexagonal in shape, three
of its six sides being filled with a large bay-window, in the middle
compartment of which were several coats of arms in stained glass. A
table, which groaned under a mass of books and papers, nearly filled the
room; and writing at it sat a venerable-looking, white-haired man, who,
seeing Barbara, laid down his pen, wiped his spectacles, and placidly
inquired what she wanted. He will be an old friend to some readers: for
he was John Avery of Bradmond.
"Master, an't like you, have you seen Mrs Clare of late?"
"How late, Barbara?"
"Marry, not the fourth part of an hour gone, I left the child in the
nursery a-playing with her puppet, when I went down to let in Hal
Dockett, and carry him to see what ailed the black cow; and now I be
back, no sign of the child is any whither. I have been in every
chamber, and looked in the nursery thrice."
"Where should she be?" quietly demanded Mr Avery.
"Marry, where but in the nursery, without you had fetched her away."
"And where should she not be?"
"Why, any other whither but here and there,--more specially in the
garden."
"Nay, then, reach me my staff, Barbara, and we will go look in the
garden. If that be whither our little maid should specially not be,
'tis there we be bound to find her."
"Marry, but that is sooth!" said Barbara heartily, bringing the
walking-stick. "Never in all my life saw I child that gat into more
mischievousness, nor gave more trouble to them that had her in charge."
"Thy memory is something short, Barbara," returned her master with a dry
smile, "'Tis but little over a score of years sithence thou wert used to
say the very same of her father."
"Eh, Master!--nay, not Master Walter!" said Barbara, deprecatingly.
"Well, trouble and sorrow be ever biggest in the present tense,"
answered he. "And I wot well thou hast a great charge on thine hands."
"I reckon you should think so, an' you had the doing of it," said
Barbara complacently. "Up ere the lark, and abed after the nightingale!
What with scouring, and washing, and dressing meat, and making the
beds, and baking, and brewing, and sewing, and mending, and Mrs Clare
and you atop of it all--"
"Nay, prithee, let me drop off the top, so thou lame me not, for the
rest is enough for one woman's shoulders."
"In good sooth, Master, but you lack as much looking after, in your way,
as Mrs Clare doth; for verily your head is so lapped in your books and
your learning, that I do think, an' I tended you not, you should break
your fast toward eventide, and bethink you but to-morrow at noon that
you had not supped overnight."
"Very like, Barbara,--very like!" answered the old man with a meek
smile. "Thou hast been a right true maid unto me and mine,--as saith
Solomon of the wise woman, thou hast done us good and not evil, all the
days of thy life. The Lord apay thee for it!--Now go thou forward, and
search for our little maid, and I will abide hither until thou bring
her. If I mistake not much, thou shalt find her within a stone's throw
of the fishpond."
"The fishpond?--eh, Master!"
And Barbara quickened her steps to a run, while John Avery sat down
slowly upon a stone seat on the terrace, leaning both hands on his
staff, as if he could go no farther. Was he very tired? No. He was
only very, very near Home.
Close to the fishpond, peering intently into it between the gaps of the
stone balustrade, Barbara at length found what she sought, in the shape
of a little girl of six years old. The child was spoiling her frock to
the best of her ability, by lying on the snow-sprinkled grass; but she
was so intent upon something which she saw, or wanted to see, that her
captor's approach was unheard, and Barbara pounced on her in triumph
without any attempt at flight.
"Now, Mrs Clare, [a fictitious character] come you hither with me!"
said Barbara, seizing the culprit. "Is this to be a good child, think
you, when you were bidden abide in the nursery?"
"O Bab!" said the child, half sobbingly. "I wanted to see the fishes."
"You have seen enough of the fishes for one morrow," returned Barbara
relentlessly; "and if the fishes could see you, they should cry shame
upon you for ruinating of your raiment by the damp grass."
"But the fishes be damp, Bab!" remonstrated Clare. Barbara professed
not to hear the last remark, and lifting the small student of natural
history, bore her, pouting and reluctant, to her grandfather on the
terrace.
"So here comes my little maid," said he, pleasantly. "Why didst not
abide in the nursery, as thou wert bid, little Clare?"
"I wanted to see the fishes," returned Clare, still pouting.
"We cannot alway have what we want," answered he.
"You can!" objected Clare.
"Nay, my child, I cannot," gravely replied her grandfather. "An' I
could, I would have alway a good, obedient little grand-daughter."
Clare played with Mr Avery's stick, and was silent.
"Leave her with me, good Barbara, and go look after thy mighty charges,"
said her master, smiling. "I will bring her within ere long."
Barbara trotted off, and Clare, relieved from the fear of her duenna,
went back to her previous subject.
"Gaffer, what do the fishes?"
"What do they? Why, swim about in the water, and shake their tails, and
catch flies for their dinner."
"What think they on, Gaffer?"
"Nay, thou art beyond me there. I never was a fish. How can I tell
thee?"
"Would they bite me?" demanded Clare solemnly.
"Nay, I reckon not."
"What, not a wild fish?" said Clare, opening her dark blue eyes.
Mr Avery laughed, and shook his head.
"But I would fain know--And, O Gaffer!" exclaimed the child, suddenly
interrupting herself, "do tell me, why did Tom kill the pig?"
"Kill the pig? Why, for that my Clare should have somewhat to eat at
her dinner and her supper."
"Killed him to eat him?" wonderingly asked Clare, who had never
associated live pigs with roast pork.
"For sure," replied her grandfather.
"Then he had not done somewhat naughty?"
"Nay, not he."
"I would, Gaffer," said Clare, very gravely, "that Tom had not smothered
the pig ere he began to lay eggs. [The genuine speech of a child of
Clare's age.] I would so have liked a _little_ pig!"
The suggestion of pig's eggs was too much for Mr Avery's gravity. "And
what hadst done with a little pig, my maid."
"I would have washed it, and donned it, and put it abed," said Clare.
"Methinks he should soon have marred his raiment. And maybe he should
have loved cold water not more dearly than a certain little maid that I
could put a name to."
Clare adroitly turned from this perilous topic, with an unreasoning
dread of being washed there and then; though in truth it was not
cleanliness to which she objected, but wet chills and rough friction.
"Gaffer, may I go with Bab to four-hours unto Mistress Pendexter?"
"An' thou wilt, my little floweret."
Mr Avery rose slowly, and taking Clare by the hand, went back to the
house. He returned to his turret-study, but Clare scampered upstairs,
possessed herself of her doll, and ran in and out of the inhabited rooms
until she discovered Barbara in the kitchen, beating up eggs for a
pudding.
"Bab, I may go with thee!"
"Go with me?" repeated Barbara, looking up with some surprise. "Marry,
Mrs Clare, I hope you may."
"To Mistress Pendexter!" shouted Clare ecstatically.
"Oh ay!" assented Barbara. "Saith the master so?"
Clare nodded. "And, Bab, shall I take Doll?"
This contraction for Dorothy must have been the favourite name with the
little ladies of the time for the plaything on which it is now
inalienably fixed.
"I will sew up yon hole in her gown, then, first," said Barbara, taking
the doll by its head in what Clare thought a very disrespectful manner.
"Mrs Clare, this little gown is cruel ragged; if I could but see time,
I had need make you another."
"Oh, do, Bab!" cried Clare in high delight.
"Well, some day," replied Barbara discreetly.
A few hours later, Barbara and Clare were standing at the door of a
small, neat cottage in a country lane, where dwelt Barbara's sister,
Marian Pendexter, [a fictitious person] widow of the village
schoolmaster. The door was opened by Marian herself, a woman some five
years the senior of her sister, to whom she bore a good deal of
likeness, but Marian was the quieter mannered and the more silent of the
two.
"Marry, little Mistress Clare!" was her smiling welcome. "Come in,
prithee, little Mistress, and thou shalt have a buttered cake to thy
four-hours. Give thee good even, Bab."
A snowy white cloth covered the little round table in the cottage, and
on it were laid a loaf of bread a piece of butter, and a jug of milk.
In honour of her guests, Marian went to her cupboard, and brought out a
mould of damson cheese, a bowl of syllabub, and a round tea-cake, which
she set before the fire to toast.
"And how fareth good Master Avery?" asked Marian, as she closed the
cupboard door, and came back.
Barbara shook her head ominously.
"But ill, forsooth?" pursued her sister.
"Marry, an' you ask at him, he is alway well; but--I carry mine eyes,
Marian."
Barbara's theory of educating children was to keep them entirely
ignorant of the affairs of their elders. To secure this end, she
adopted a vague, misty style of language, of which she fondly imagined
that Clare did not understand a word. The result was unfortunate, as it
usually is. Clare understood detached bits of her nurse's conversation,
over which she brooded silently in her own little mind, until she
evolved a whole story--a long way off the truth. It would have done
much less harm to tell her the whole truth at once; for the fact of a
mystery being made provoked her curiosity, and her imaginations were far
more extreme than the facts.
"Ah, he feeleth the lack of my mistress his wife, I reckon," said Marian
pityingly. "She must be soothly a sad miss every whither."
"Thou mayest well say so," assented Barbara. "Dear heart! 'tis nigh
upon five good years now, and I have not grown used to the lack of her
even yet. Thou seest, moreover, he hath had sorrow upon sorrow. 'Twas
but the year afore that Master Walter [a fictitious person] and Mistress
Frances did depart [die]; and then, two years gone, Mistress Kate, [a
fictitious person]. Ah, well-a-day! we be all mortal."
"Thank we God therefore, good Bab," said Marian quietly. "For we shall
see them again the sooner. But if so be, Bab, that aught befel the
Master, what should come of yonder rosebud?"
And Marian cast a significant look at Clare, who sat apparently
engrossed with a mug full of syllabub.
"Humph! an' I had the reins, I had driven my nag down another road,"
returned Barbara. "Who but Master Robin [a fictitious person] and
Mistress Thekla [a fictitious person] were meetest, trow? But lo! you!
what doth Mistress Walter but indite a letter unto the Master, to note
that whereas she hath never set eyes on the jewel--and whose fault was
that, prithee?--so, an' it liked Him above to do the thing thou wottest,
she must needs have the floweret sent thither. And a cruel deal of fair
words, how she loved and pined to see her, and more foolery belike.
Marry La'kin! ere I had given her her will, I had seen her alongside of
King Pharaoh at bottom o' the Red Sea. But the Master, what did he, but
write back and say that it should be even as she would. Happy woman be
her dole, say I!"
And Barbara set down the milk-jug with a rough determinate air that must
have hurt its feelings, had it possessed any.
"Mistress Walter! that is, the Lady--" [Note 3.]
"Ay--she," said Barbara hastily, before the name could follow.
"Well, Bab, after all, methinks 'tis but like she should ask it. And if
Master Robin be parson of that very same parish wherein she dwelleth, of
a surety ye could never send the little one to him, away from her own
mother?"
"Poor little soul! she is well mothered!" said Barbara ironically.
"Never to set eyes on the child for six long years; and then, when
Mistress Avery, dear heart! writ unto her how sweet and _debonnaire_
[pretty, pleasing] the lily-bud grew, to mewl forth that it was so great
a way, and her health so pitiful, that she must needs endure to bereave
her of the happiness to come and see the same. Marry La'kin! call yon a
mother!"
"But it is a great way, Bab."
"Wherefore went she so far off, then?" returned Barbara quickly enough.
"And lo! you! she can journey thence all the way to York or Chester when
she would get her the new fashions,--over land, too!--yet cannot she
take boat to Bideford, which were less travail by half. An' yonder
jewel had been mine, Marian, I would not have left it lie in the case
for six years, trow!"
"Maybe not, Bab," answered Marian in her quiet way. "Yet 'tis ill
judging of our neighbour. And if the lady's health be in very deed so
pitiful--"
"Neighbour! she is no neighbour of mine, dwelling up by Marton Moss!"
interrupted Barbara, as satirically as before. "And in regard to her
pitiful health--why, Marian, I have dwelt in the same house with her for
a year and a half, and I never knew yet her evil health let [hinder] her
from a junketing. Good lack! it stood alway in the road when somewhat
was in hand the which misliked her. Go to church in the rain,--nay, by
'r Lady!--and 'twas too cold in the winter to help string the apples,
and too hot in the summer to help conserve the fruits: to be sure! But
let there be an even's revelling at Sir Christopher Marres his house,
and she bidden,--why, it might rain enough to drench you, but her cloak
was thick then, and her boots were strong enough, and her cough was not
to any hurt--bless her!"
The tone of Barbara's exclamation somewhat belied the words.
"Have a care, Bab, lest--" and Marian's glance at Clare explained her
meaning.
"Not she!" returned Barbara, looking in her turn at the child, whose
attention was apparently concentrated on one of Marian's kittens, which
she was stroking on her lap, while the mother cat walked uneasily round
and round her chair. "I have alway a care to speak above yon head."
"Is there not a little sister?" asked Marian in a low tone.
"Ay," said Barbara, dropping her voice. "Blanche, the babe's name is [a
fictitious character.] Like Mrs Walter--never content with plain Nell
and Nan. Her childre must have names like so many queens. And I dare
say the maid shall be bred up like one."
The conversation gradually passed to other topics, and the subject was
not again touched upon by either sister.
How much of it had Clare heard, and how much of that did she understand?
A good deal more of either than Barbara imagined. She knew that Walter
had been her father's name, and she was well aware that "Mistress
Walter" from Barbara's lips, indicated her mother. She knew that her
mother had married again, and that she lived a long way off. She knew
also that this mother of hers was no favourite with Barbara. And from
this conversation she gathered, that in the event of something
happening--but what that was she did not realise--she was to go and live
with her mother. Clare was an imaginative child, and the topic of all
her dreams was this mysterious mother whom she had never seen. Many a
time, when Barbara only saw that she was quietly dressing or hushing her
doll, Clare's mind was at work, puzzling over the incomprehensible
reason of Barbara's evident dislike to her absent mother. What shocking
thing could she have done, thought Clare, to make Bab angry with her?
Had she poisoned her sister, or drowned the cat, or stolen the big crown
off the Queen's head? For the romance of a little child is always
incongruous and sensational.
In truth, there was nothing sensational, and little that was not
commonplace, about the character and history of little Clare's mother,
whose maiden name was Orige Williams. She had been the spoilt child of
a wealthy old Cornish gentleman,--the pretty pet on whom he lavished all
his love and bounty, never crossing her will from the cradle. And she
repaid him, as children thus trained often do, by crossing his will in
the only matter concerning which he much cared. He had set his heart on
her marrying a rich knight whose estate lay contiguous to his own: while
she, entirely self-centred, chose to make a runaway match with young
Lieutenant Avery, whose whole year's income was about equal to one week
of her father's rent-roll. Bitterly disappointed, Mr Williams declared
that "As she had made her bed, so she should lie on it;" for not one
penny would he ever bestow on her while he lived, and he would bequeath
the bulk of his property to his nephew. In consequence of this threat,
which reached, her ears, Orige, romantic and high-flown, fancied herself
at once a heroine and a martyr, when there was not in her the capacity
for either. In the sort of language in which she delighted, she spoke
of herself as a friendless orphan, a sacrifice to love, truth, and
honour. It never seemed to occur to her that in deceiving her father--
for she had led him to believe until the last moment that she intended
to conform to his wishes--she had acted both untruthfully and
dishonourably; while as to love, she was callous to every shape of it
except love of self.
For about eighteen months Walter and Orige Avery lived at Bradmond,
during which time Clare was born. She was only a few weeks old when the
summons came for her father to rejoin his ship. He had been gone two
months, when news reached Bradmond of a naval skirmish with the
Spaniards off the Scilly Isles, in which great havoc had been made among
the Queen's forces, and in the list of the dead was Lieutenant Walter
Avery.
Now Orige's romance took a new turn. She pictured herself as a widowed
nightingale, love-lorn and desolate, leaning her bleeding breast upon a
thorn, and moaning forth her melancholy lay. As others have done since,
she fancied herself poetical when she was only silly. And Barbara took
grim notice that her handkerchief was perpetually going up to tearless
eyes, and that she was not a whit less particular than usual to know
what there was for supper.
For six whole months this state of things lasted. Orige arrayed herself
in the deepest sables; she spoke of herself as a wretched widow who
could never taste hope again; and of her baby as a poor hapless orphan,
as yet unwitting of its misery. She declined to see any visitors, and
persisted in being miserable and disconsolate, and in taking lonely
walks to brood over her wretchedness. And at the end of that time she
electrified her husband's family--all but one--by the announcement that
she was about to marry again. Not for love this time, of course; no,
indeed!--but she thought it was her duty. Sir Thomas Enville--a widower
with three children--had been very kind; and he would make such a good
father for Clare. He had a beautiful estate in the North. It would be
a thousand pities to let the opportunity slip. Once for all, she
thought it her duty; and she begged that no one would worry her with
opposition, as everything was already settled.
Kate Avery, Walter's elder and only surviving sister, was exceedingly
indignant. Her gentle, unsuspicious mother was astonished and puzzled.
But Mr Avery, after a momentary look of surprise, only smiled.
"Nay, but this passeth!" [surpasses belief] cried Kate.
"Even as I looked for it," quietly said her father. "I did but think it
should maybe have been somewhat later of coming."
"Her duty!" broke out indignant Kate. "Her duty to whom?"
"To herself, I take it," said he. "To Clare, as she counteth. Methinks
she is one of those deceivers that do begin with deceiving of
themselves."
"To Clare!" repeated Kate. "But, Father, she riddeth her of Clare. The
babe is to 'bide here until such time as it may please my good Lady to
send for her."
"So much the better for Clare," quietly returned Mr Avery.
And thus it happened that Clare was six years old, and her mother was
still an utter stranger to her.
The family at Bradmond, however, were not without tidings of Lady
Enville. It so happened that Mr Avery's adopted son, Robert Tremayne,
was Rector of the very parish in which Sir Thomas Enville lived; and a
close correspondence--for Elizabethan days--was kept up between Bradmond
and the Rectory. In this manner they came to know, as time went on,
that Clare had a little sister, whose name was Blanche; that Lady
Enville was apparently quite happy; that Sir Thomas was very kind to
her, after his fashion, though that was not the devoted fashion of
Walter Avery. Sir Thomas liked to adorn his pretty plaything with fine
dresses and rich jewellery; he surrounded her with every comfort; he
allowed her to go to every party within ten miles, and to spend as much
money as she pleased. And this was precisely Orige's beau ideal of
happiness. Her small cup seemed full--but evidently Clare was no
necessary ingredient in the compound.
If any one had taken the trouble to weigh, sort, and label the
prejudices of Barbara Polwhele, it would have been found that the
heaviest of all had for its object "Papistry,"--the second, dirt,--and
the third, "Mistress Walter." Lieutenant Avery had been Barbara's
darling from his cradle, and she considered that his widow had outraged
his memory, by marrying again so short a time after his death. For
this, above all her other provocations, Barbara never heartily forgave
her. And a great struggle it was to her to keep her own feelings as
much as possible in the background, from the conscientious motive that
she ought not to instil into Clare's baby mind the faintest feeling of
aversion towards her mother. The idea of the child being permanently
sent to Enville Court was intensely distasteful to her. Yet wherever
Clare went, Barbara must go also.
She had promised Mrs Avery, Clare's grandmother, on her dying bed,
never to leave the child by her own free will so long as her childhood
lasted, and rather than break her word, she would have gone to Siberia--
or to Enville Court. In Barbara's eyes, there would have been very
little choice between the two places. Enville Court lay on the
sea-coast, and Barbara abhorred the sea, on which her only brother and
Walter Avery had died: it was in Lancashire, which she looked upon as a
den of witches, and an arid desert bare of all the comforts of life; it
was a long way from any large town, and Barbara had been used to live
within an easy walk of one; she felt, in short, as though she were being
sent into banishment.
And there was no help for it. Within the last few weeks, a letter had
come from Lady Enville,--not very considerately worded--requesting that
if what she had heard was true, that Mr Avery's health was feeble, and
he was not likely to live long--in the event of his death, Clare should
be sent to her.
In fact, there was nowhere else to send her. Walter's two sisters, Kate
and Frances, were both dead,--Kate unmarried, Frances van Barnevelt
leaving a daughter, but far away in Holland. The only other person who
could reasonably have claimed the child was Mr Tremayne; and with what
show of justice could he do so, when his house lay only a stone's throw
from the park gates of Enville Court? Fate seemed to determine that
Clare should go to her mother. But while John Avery lived, there was to
be a respite.
It was a respite shorter than any one anticipated--except, perhaps, the
old man himself. There came an evening three weeks after these events,
when Barbara noticed that her master, contrary to his usual custom,
instead of returning to his turret-chamber after supper, sat still by
the hall fire, shading his eyes from the lamp, and almost entirely
silent. When Clare's bed-time came, and she lifted her little face for
a good-night kiss, John Avery, after giving it, laid his hands upon her
head and blessed her.
"The God that fed me all my life long, the Angel that redeemed me from
all evil, bless the maid! The peace of God, which passeth all
understanding, keep thy heart and mind, through Jesus Christ our Lord;
and the blessing of God Almighty,--the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Ghost--be upon thee, and remain with thee always!"
So he "let her depart with this blessing." Let her depart--to walk the
thorny path of which he had reached the end, to climb the painful steeps
of which he stood at the summit, to labour along the weary road which he
would tread no more. Let her depart! The God who had fed him had manna
in store for her,--the Angel who had redeemed him was strong, enough,
and tender enough, to carry this lamb in His bosom.
Barbara noted that his step was slower even than had been usual with him
of late. It struck her, too, that his hair was whiter than she had ever
noticed it before.
"Be you aweary this even, Master?"
"Something, good maid," he answered with a smile. "Even as a traveller
may well be that hath but another furlong of his journey."
Another furlong! Was it more than another step? Barbara went upstairs
with him, to relieve him of the light burden of the candle.
"Good night, Master! Metrusteth your sleep shall give you good
refreshing."
"Good night, my maid," said he. "I wish thee the like. There shall be
good rest up yonder."
Her eyes filled with tears as she turned away. Was it selfish that her
wish was half a prayer,--that he might be kept a little longer from
_that_ rest?
She waited longer than usual before she tapped at his door the next
morning. It was seven o'clock--a very late hour for rising in the
sixteenth century--when, receiving no answer, Barbara went softly into
the room and unfastened the shutters as quietly as she could. No need
for the care and the silence! There was good rest up yonder.
The shutters were drawn back, and the April sunlight streamed brightly
in upon a still, dead face.
Deep indeed was the mourning: but it was for themselves, not for him.
He was safe in the Golden Land, with his children and his Isoult--all
gone before him to that good rest. What cause could there be for grief
that the battle was won, and that the tired soldier had laid aside his
armour?
But there was need enough for grief as concerned the two survivors,--for
Barbara and little Clare, left alone in the cold, wide world, with
nothing before them but a mournful and wearisome journey, and Enville
Court the dreaded end of it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note 1. So lately as 1601, an Act of Parliament forbade men to ride in
coaches, as an effeminate practice.
Note 2. This was "His Holiness' sentence," of which the Armada was "in
execution." See note, p.
Note 3. The names, and date of marriage, of Walter Avery and Orige
Williams, are taken from the Bodmin Register. In every other respect
they are fictitious characters.
CHAPTER TWO.
ON THE BORDER OF MARTON MERE.
"Thou too must tread, as we trod, a way
Thorny, and bitter, and cold, and grey."
_Miss Muloch_.
It was drawing towards the dusk of a bright day early in May. The
landscape was not attractive, at least to a tired traveller. It was a
dreary waste of sandhills, diversified by patches of rough grass, and a
few stunted bushes, all leaning away from the sea, as though they wanted
to get as far from it as their small opportunities allowed; on one side
foamed the said grey-green expanse of sea; on the other lay a little
lakelet, shining in the setting sun: in front, at some distance, a
rivulet ran from the lake to the sea. On the nearer side of the brook
lay a little village; while on the further bank was a large, well-kept
park, in which stood a grey quadrangular mansion. Beyond the park,
nearly as far as the eye could reach, stretched a wide, dreary swamp,
bounded only by the sea on the one hand and the lake on the other. The
only pretty or pleasant features in the landscape were the village and
park; and little could be seen of those for intervening sandhills.
The lake was Marton Mere; the swamp was Marton Moss; and the district
was the Fylde of Lancashire. The County Palatine was renowned, at that
time, in the eyes of the Londoners, for its air, which was "subtile and
piercing," without any "gross vapours nor foggie mists;" for the
abundance and excellence of its cattle, which were sent even then to the
metropolis; for the plentiful variety of its provisions; for its
magnificent woods, "preserved by gentlemen for beauty," to such an
extent that no wood was used for fuel, and its place was supplied by
"sea-coal" and turf; for its numerous churches, "in no part of the land
more in proportion to the inhabitants." But the good qualities of the
County Palatine were not likely to be appreciated by our weary
travellers.
The travellers were three in number:--a short, thick-set man, in a coat
of frieze as rough as his surroundings; a woman, and a child; lastly
came a pack-horse, bearing a quantity of luggage.
"Eh me!" ejaculated Barbara Polwhele, with a weary sigh. "Master, doth
any man live hereaway?"
"Eh?" queried the man, not looking back.
Barbara repeated her question.
"Ay," said he in a rough voice.
"By 'r Lady!" exclaimed Barbara, pityingly. "What manner of folk be
they, I marvel?"
"Me an' th' rest," said the man.
"Eh? what, you never--Be we anear Enville Court now?"
"O'er yon," replied the man, pointing straight forward with his whip,
and then giving it a sharp crack, as a reminder to the galloways.
"What, in the midst of yonder marsh?" cried poor Barbara.
Dick gave a hoarse chuckle, but made no other reply. Barbara's
sensations were coming very near despair.
"What call men your name, Master?" she demanded, after some minutes'
gloomy meditation.
"Name?" echoed the stolid individual before her.
"Ay," said she.
"Dick o' Will's o' Mally's o' Robin's o' Joan's o' owd Dick's,"
responded he, in a breath.
"Marry La'kin!" exclaimed Barbara, relieving her feelings by recourse to
her favourite epithet. She took the whole pedigree to be a polysyllabic
name. "Dear heart, to think of a country where the folk have names as
long as a cart-rope!"
"Bab, I am aweary!" said little Clare, rousing up from a nap which she
had taken leaning against Barbara.
"And well thou mayest, poor chick!" returned Barbara compassionately;
adding in an undertone,--"Could she ne'er have come so far as Kirkham!"
They toiled wearily on after this, until presently Dick o' Will's--I
drop the rest of the genealogy--drew bridle, and looking back, pointed
with his whip to the village which now lay close before them.
"See thee!" said he. "Yon's th' fold."
"Yon's what?" demanded Barbara.
The word was unintelligible to her, as Dick pronounced it "fowd;" but
had she understood it, she would have been little wiser. Fold meant to
her a place to pen sheep in, while it signified to Dick an enclosure
surrounded by houses.
"What is 't?" responded Dick. "Why, it's th' fowd."
"But what is `fowd'?" asked bewildered Barbara.
"Open thy een, wilt thou?" answered Dick cynically.
Barbara resigned the attempt to comprehend him, and, unwittingly
obeying, looked at the landscape.
Just the village itself was pretty enough. It was surrounded with
trees, through which white houses peeped out, clustered together on the
bank of the little brook. The spire of the village church towered up
through the foliage, close to the narrow footbridge; and beside it stood
the parsonage,--a long, low, stone house, embowered in ivy.
"Is yonder Enville Court?" asked Barbara, referring to the house in the
park.
"Ay," said Dick.
"And where dwelleth Master Tremayne?"
"Eh?"
"Master Tremayne--the parson--where dwelleth he?"
"Th' parson? Why, i' th' parsonage, for sure," said Dick, conclusively.
"Where else would thou have him?"
"Ay, in sooth, but which is the parsonage?"
"Close by th' church--where would thou have it?"
"What, yonder green house, all o'er ivy?"
"For sure."
They slowly filed into the village, rode past the church and
parsonage,--at which latter Barbara looked lovingly, as to a haven of
comfort--forded the brook, and turned in at the gates of Enville Court.
When they came up to the house, and saw it free of hindering foliage,
she found that it was a stately quadrangle of grey stone, with a stone
terrace round three sides of it, a garden laid out in grim, Dutch square
order, away from the sea; and two or three cottages, with farm-buildings
and stables, grouped behind. The horses drew up at a side door.
"Now!" lethargically said Dick, lumbering off his horse. "Con ye get
off by yoursen?"
"I'll try," grunted the rather indignant Barbara, who considered that
her precious charge, Clare, was being very neglectfully received. She
sprang down more readily than Dick, and standing on the horse-block,
lifted down little Clare.
"Hallo!" said Dick, by way of ringing the bell.
A slight stir was heard through the open door, and a young woman
appeared, fresh-looking and smiling-faced.
"Mistress Polwhele, I reckon?" she asked. "An' is this t' little lass?
Eh, God bless thee, little lass! Come in--thou'rt bound to be aweary."
Clare looked up into the girl's pleasant face, and sliding her hand
confidingly into hers, said demurely,--"I'll come."
"Dick 'll see to th' gear, Mistress," said the girl.
"Thou'd better call Sim, Dick.--I reckon you'd best come wi' me."
"What is your name?" asked Barbara, following her guide.
"Jennet," said the smiling girl.
"Well, Jennet, you are the best thing I have yet seen up hither,"
announced Barbara cynically.
"Eh, you've none seen nought yet!" said Jennet, laughing. "There's
better things here nor me, I'se warrant you."
"Humph!" returned Barbara meditatively. She doubted it very much.
Jennet paused at a door, and rapped. There was no answer; perhaps her
appeal was not heard by those within. She pushed the door a little
open, saying to Barbara, "There! you'd best go in, happen."
So Barbara, putting little Clare before her, went in.
It was a large, square, low room, sweet with the perfume of dried roses.
There were four occupants,--two ladies, and two girls. One of the
ladies sat with her back to the door, trying to catch the last ray of
daylight for her work; the other had dropped asleep. Evidently neither
had heard Jennet's knock.
It was rather an awkward state of things. Little Clare went a few feet
into the room, stopped, and looked up at Barbara for direction. At the
same moment the elder girl turned her head and saw them.
"Madam!" said Barbara stiffly.
"Aunt Rachel!" [Note 1] said the girl.
The lady who sat by the window looked round, and rose. She was young--
certainly under thirty; but rather stiff and prim, very upright, and not
free from angularity. She gave the impression that she must have been
born just as she was, in her black satin skirt, dark blue serge kirtle,
unbending buckram cap, whitest and most unruffled of starched frills,--
and have been kept ever since under a glass case.
"You are Barbara Polwhele?" she said.
Barbara dropped a courtesy, and replied affirmatively.
"Sister!" said Mistress Rachel, appealing to the sleeper.
No greater difference between two young women could well be imagined,
than that which existed in this instance. Lady Enville--for she was the
taker of the siesta--was as free from any appearance of angularity or
primness as possible. Everything about her was soft, delicate, and
graceful. She was fair in complexion, and very pretty. She had been
engaged in fancy-work, and it lay upon her lap, held lightly by one
hand, just as it had dropped when she fell asleep.
"Sister!" said Rachel again.
Lady Enville stirred, sighed, and half opened her eyes.
"Here is thy little maid, Sister."
Lady Enville opened her blue eyes fully, dropped her work on the floor,
and springing up, caught Clare to her bosom with the most exalted
expressions of delight.
"Fragrance of my heart! My rose of spring! My gem of beauty! Art thou
come to me at last, my soul's darling?"
Barbara looked on with a grim smile. Clare sat in perfect silence on
her mother's knee, suffering her caresses, but making no response.
"She is not like thee, Sister," observed Rachel.
"No, she is like her father," replied Lady Enville, stroking the child's
hair, and kissing her again. "Medoubteth if she will ever be as
lovesome as I. I was much better favoured at her years.--Art thou
aweary, sweeting?"
At last Clare spoke; but only in an affirmative monosyllable. Clare's
thoughts were mixed ones. It was rather nice to sit on that soft velvet
lap, and be petted: but "Bab didn't like her." And why did not Bab like
her?
"Thou hast not called me Mother, my floweret."
Clare was too shy for that. The suggestion distressed her. To move the
house seemed as near possibility as to frame her lips to say that short
word. Fortunately for her, Lady Enville's mind never dwelt on a subject
for many seconds at once. She turned to Barbara.
"And how goes it with thee, Barbara?"
"Well, and I thank you, Mistress--my Lady, I would say."
"Ah!" said Lady Enville, laughing softly. "I shall alway be Mistress
Walter with thee, I am well assured. So my father Avery is dead, I
count, or ye had not come?"