"For my soul's sake, Maid Marjorie,
And yet for my soul's sake, -
I know no wrong I've done to thee,
Nor why thy heart should break."
Rather late on the same evening, Sir Thomas walked into the parsonage,
and rapped with his silver-hilted staff at the parlour door. Clare had
gone up-stairs, and Mrs Tremayne was at that moment alone. She offered
to send for her young guests, but he declined; he wished first to speak
with her apart. He told her that Don Juan had gone to London; and that
before leaving him, that estimable young gentleman had frankly
communicated the interesting fact that he was bound by an engagement to
a lady of his own country.
"Now what think you? Were it better, or worser, that Blanche should
know the same?"
"Better far--by all manner of means," said the Rector's wife decidedly.
"I thought even so," replied Sir Thomas. "I had come sooner, but my
wife was contrary thereto."
Mrs Tremayne could not feel astonished to hear of any amount of
unwisdom on the part of Lady Enville, but she merely repeated that she
thought it much better that Blanche should know.
"It should help to open her eyes. Though in sooth I do think they be
scantly so close shut as at the first."
"Then you will tell the child, good Mistress?"
"If you so desire, assuredly: but wherefore not give her to wit
yourself?"
Sir Thomas evidently shrank from the idea.
"For Blanche's sake, I do think it should be better, Sir Thomas. You
speak as he that hath heard this right from Don Juan himself; for me, I
have but heard it from you."
"Well, if needs must--for Blanche's sake, then," said her father,
sighing. "Pray you, send the child hither."
In another minute Blanche came in, with a warm welcome for her father in
eyes and voice.
"So thou comest home to-morrow, my skylark!" he said. "Art thou glad,
or sorry, Blanche?"
"Oh, glad, Father!"
"And all we be glad likewise.--Blanche, Don John is gone to London."
"Yes, I guessed so much," she answered, in a rather constrained tone.
"And ere he went, my darling, he said somewhat unto me which I reckon it
best thou shouldst hear likewise."
Blanche looked up, surprised and expectant,--perhaps with a shade of
fear. Sir Thomas passed his arm round her, and drew her close to him.
He anticipated a burst of tears, and was ready to console her.
"He told me, dear heart, that he is, and for divers years hath so been,
troth-plight unto a maiden of his own land, with whom he shall wed when
he is gone home."
There was no light in the room but from the fire, and Blanche's head was
bent low, so that her father could not see her face. But no tears
answered him. No answer came at all. Sir Thomas was astonished.
"Doth it grieve thee, my Blanche?" he asked tenderly, when he had waited
a moment.
He waited still another. Then the reply came.
"I suppose it was better I should know it," she said in a cold, hard
voice.
"So thou seest, dear child, he meant not his fair words."
"No," she said, in the same tone. "He meant it not."
Sir Thomas let her go. He thought she bore it uncommonly well. She did
not care much about it, thank Heaven! He was one of those numerous
surface observers who think that a woman cannot be startled if she does
not scream, nor be unhappy if she does not weep.
Blanche went quietly enough out of the room, saying that she would send
Clare. Her father did not see that in the middle of the stairs she
paused, with a tight grasp on the banister, till the deadly faintness
should pass off which seemed to make the staircase go spinning round
her. Clare noticed nothing peculiar when Blanche came into their
bedroom, and told her that Sir Thomas was below. But as soon as her
sister was gone, Blanche knelt down by the bed, and buried her face in
the counterpane.
This, then, was the end. The shrine was not only deserted--it was
destroyed: the idol was not only dethroned--it was broken, and shown to
be nothing but stone. Don Juan was not true. Nay, worse--he never had
been true. His vow of eternal fidelity was empty breath; his reiterated
protestations of single and unalterable love were worth just nothing.
He had only been amusing himself. He had known all the while, that in
exchange for the solid gold of her young heart, he was offering her the
veriest pinchbeck.
Blanche had been half awake before, and she was wide awake now. Yet the
awakening, for all that, was very bitter. Naturally enough, her first
thought was that all men were of this stamp, and that there was no truth
in any of them. Aunt Rachel was right:--they were a miserable, false,
deceiving race, created for the delusion and suffering of woman: she
would never believe another of them as long as she lived. There might
be here and there an exception to the rule, such as her father or Mr
Tremayne; she could not believe such evil of them: but that was the
rule. And Blanche, being not quite seventeen, declared to herself that
after this vast and varied experience of the world, she would never--not
if she lived to be a hundred--_never_ trust man again.
She slipped quietly down-stairs, and caught Sir Thomas just as he was
leaving the house.
"Father!" she whispered, sliding into his hand the little packet of Don
Juan's hair, "maybe I ought to have given you this aforetime. Allgates
now take it; it is nought to me any more--sith he is hot."
Sir Thomas transferred the little parcel to his pocket.
"'Give thee good night, my jewel! We shall all be fain to have thee
home again to-morrow."
Blanche returned the greeting, but glided away again, and was seen very
little that night. But Mrs Tremayne guessed the state of the girl's
mind more truly than Sir Thomas had done.
The next day they went home.
"Bless thee, my precious Blanche!" was Lady Enville's greeting. "And
thee too, Clare. Good lack, how faded is yon camlet! 'Tis well ye were
but at the parsonage, for it should have shamed thee any other whither."
"Well, child!" said Aunt Rachel. "I trust thou hast come home to work
like a decent lass, and not sit moaning with thine hands afore thee like
a cushat dove. What man ever trod middle earth that was worth a moan?"
"I will essay to give you content, Aunt Rachel," said Blanche quietly.
"Clare, my good lass, I have lacked thee sorely. I scarce wis what to
do without thee."
Clare looked pleased. "Well, Aunt Rachel, I am come to work, and that
with a will," she answered cheerily.
"I am thankful to hear it. Now, if Heaven's will it be, all things
shall go on as usual once again."
But nothing was to go on as usual any more.
Not for Margaret, for Harry Travis had returned from the Netherlands,
and her marriage was to be that day six weeks. Not for Lucrece, who was
elated with what she considered her triumph over Blanche, and was on the
look-out for fresh laurels. Not for Blanche, as the reader knows: nor
for Clare, as he soon will know: nor even for Rachel herself--
"Though only the sorrow of others
Threw its shadow over her."
There was but one person to whom matters went on at all as usual, and
that was Lady Enville. As usual, to her, meant a handsome dress, a
cushioned chair, a good dinner, and an occasional junketing: and since
recent events had not interfered with any of these, Lady Enville went on
much as usual. Yet even she never ceased to regret Blanche's lost
coronet, which no revelation of Don Juan's duplicity would ever persuade
her had not been lying at her daughter's feet, ready to be taken up and
worn. She was one of those persons who will not believe anything which
they do not wish to be true; and on them vouchers and verifications are
always thrown away.
The first point different from usual was that Arthur Tremayne began to
drop in continually at Enville Court. Lady Enville was gratified, for
she thought her neat little arrangement was taking effect; and it would
be a comfort, she said to herself, to have Clare off her hands. She
said this one day to Rachel: but though, she knew that worthy spinster's
opinion of matrimony, yet she was hardly prepared for the diatribe which
she received in answer. Rachel had lately, and with much annoyance,
began to perceive--what she had never seen so clearly before--that Lady
Enville cared very little for her elder daughter. And of all the four
girls, Clare was Rachel's darling. She was prepared to do battle in her
cause to a greater extent than she herself knew. So, having received
this hint, Rachel set herself to watch Arthur, and see that he behaved
properly.
It was not easy to guess Arthur's motive in coming. He usually sat
between Clare and Blanche when he was present at supper; and just now
that was pretty often. But either of the two might be the attraction.
In other respects, his courtesies were evenly divided among the four,
and were not pointed to any.
Meanwhile, Clare was honestly trying to do the work set her well, and to
be contented with it. She often carried her troubles to Mrs Tremayne,
and sought advice or cheering at her hands: nor was she ever sent away
unsatisfied. Rachel was delighted with Clare's steady and cheerful
help, and complacently thought that the parsonage had done her good.
So the summer drew on, and Margaret was married to Harry Travis, and
went to live in another part of the county.
On a late afternoon in autumn, Clare stood in the arbour, tying up
bouquets. An old friend of Sir Thomas was expected on a visit, and was
likely to arrive that evening. This was Sir Piers Feversham,
[fictitious person] a Norfolk knight, of Lancashire extraction on his
mother's side, who had not seen Sir Thomas Enville since both had been
young squires together in the household of the Earl of Derby. His
nephew and heir presumptive, John Feversham, [fictitious person] was
coming with him. There was little presumption, to all appearance, about
the heirship, for Sir Piers bore the character of a confirmed old
bachelor, and was now upwards of sixty.
Clare's bouquets were nearly all tied up, and ready to be carried to the
hall, which was to be decorated in honour of the guests. She was tying
the last but one, when she heard slow footsteps and low voices passing
on the outside of the arbour. Not too low, however, for two sentences
to be audible inside,--words which blanched Clare's cheek, and made her
trembling fingers loose their hold, till the gathered flowers slid away
one by one, and lay a fragrant mass on the ground at her feet.
The remarks which she overheard were limited to a fervent appeal and a
low reply. The appeal--which was a declaration of love--was uttered in
the familiar accents of Arthur Tremayne; and the answer--a vague
disclaimer of merit which sounded like a shy affirmative--came in the
low, soft voice of Lucrece Enville.
Clare was totally ignorant of the fate which her mother had designed for
her; nor had she ever realised until that evening that she cared more
for Arthur than she did for Jack. They were both like brothers to her:
but now she suddenly felt that if it had been Jack whose voice she had
heard uttering similar words, it would have mattered little or nothing
to her.
The hardest thought of all was that of resigning him to Lucrece.
Fourteen years had elapsed since that day of their childhood on which
Clare had witnessed the first instance of Lucrece's duplicity; but she
had never been able to forget it, and it had infused a sort of vague
discomfort and constraint into all their intercourse.
"Oh, if it had been Lysken!" said Clare to her own heart. "I could have
borne it better."
And it had to be borne, and in utter silence. _This_ trouble could not
be carried to Mrs Tremayne; and the idea of betraying Lucrece, as that
young lady had herself betrayed Blanche, would have seemed black
treachery to Clare. No, things must take their course: and let them
take it, so long as that would make Arthur happy, and would be for his
good. In her inmost heart Clare was sorely doubtful about both items.
Well, she could ask God to grant them.
It was half an hour later than she had expected when Clare carried her
nosegays into the hall. She went on mechanically putting them in order,
and finding, when she had finished, that there was one more than was
needed, she carried it to her mother's boudoir.
"How late thou art, Clare!" said Lady Enville, looking up from Sir
Philip Sidney's Arcadia, which she was lazily reading. "Sir Piers may
come now at any minute. Hast made an end in the hall?"
"Ay, Madam."
"Hast one posy left o'er? Set it here, by my chair, child. Dost know
where is Blanche?"
"No, Madam."
"And Lucrece?"
"No, Madam."
Clare's conscience smote her as soon as she had given this answer.
Certainly she did not know where Lucrece was; but she could very well
guess.
"I would thou wert not fully thus bashful, Clare; hast nought but `Ay'
and `No'?--I would fain have thee seek Lucrece: I desire speech of her."
Clare did not reply at all this time. She had disposed of her flowers,
and she left the room.
Seek Lucrece! Clare had never had a harder task. If the same burden
had been laid on them, Lucrece would have left the commission
unfulfilled, and Blanche would have sent somebody else. But such
alternatives did not even suggest themselves to Clare's conscientious
mind. She went through the hall towards the garden door in search of
Lucrece.
"Child, what aileth thee?" asked a voice suddenly, as Clare was opening
the garden door.
"I?" said Clare absently. "Lucrece--my mother would have me seek her."
"Sit thee down, and I will send her to thy mother," said Rachel.
Away she went; and Clare sat down by the fire, feeling just then as if
she could do little else. Lucrece glided through the hall with her
smooth, silent step, but did not appear to see Clare; and Rachel
followed in a minute.
"I have sent Lucrece to thy mother," she said. "Now, child, what aileth
thee?"
"Oh--nothing, Aunt Rachel."
"When I was a small maid, Clare, my mother told me that 'twas not well
to lie."
"I did not--Aunt Rachel, I cry you mercy--I meant not--"
"Thou meantest not to tell me what ailed thee. I know that. But I mean
to hear it, Clare."
"'Tis nought, in very deed, Aunt--of any moment."
"Nought of any moment to thee?"
"Nay, to--Oh, pray you, ask me not, Aunt Rachel! It makes no matter."
"Ha! When a maid saith that,--a maid of thy years, Clare,--I know
metely well what she signifieth. Thou art a good child. Get thee
up-stairs and pin on thy carnation knots."
Clare went up the wide hall staircase with a slow, tired step, and
without making any answer beyond a faint attempt at a smile.
"Ha!" said Rachel again, to herself. "Providence doth provide all
things. Methinks, though, at times, 'tis by the means of men and women,
the which He maketh into little providences. I could find it in mine
heart to fall to yonder game but now. Only I will bide quiet, methinks,
till to-morrow. Well-a-day! if yon grandmother Eve of ours had ne'er
ate yon apple! Yet Master Tremayne will have it that I did eat it mine
own self. Had I so done, Adam might have whistled for a quarter. The
blind, stumbling moles men are! Set a pearl and a pebble afore them,
and my new shoes to an old shoeing-horn, but they shall pick up the
pebble, and courtesy unto you for your grace. And set your mind on a
lad that you do count to have more sense than the rest, and beshrew me
if he show you not in fair colours ere the week be out that he is as
great a dunce as any. I reckon Jack shall be the next. Well, well!--
let the world wag. 'Twill all be o'er an hundred years hence. They
shall be doing it o'er again by then. Howbeit, 'tis ill work to weep
o'er spilt milk."
Sir Piers Feversham and his nephew arrived late that evening. The
former was a little older than Sir Thomas Enville, and had mixed more in
general society;--a talkative, good-natured man, full of anecdote; and
Blanche at least found him very entertaining.
John Feversham, the nephew, was almost the antipodes of his uncle. He
was not handsome, but there was an open, honest look in his grey eyes
which bore the impress of sincerity. All his movements were slow and
deliberate, his manners very quiet and calm, his speech grave and
sedate. Nothing in the shape of repartee could be expected from him;
and with him Blanche was fairly disgusted.
"As sober as a judge, and as heavy as a leaden seal!" said that young
lady,--who had been his next neighbour at the supper-table,--when she
was giving in her report to Clare while they were undressing. "He hath
but an owl's eye for beauty, of whatever fashion. Thou mindest how fair
was the sunset this even? Lo' thou, he could see nought but a deal of
water in the sea, and divers coloured clouds in the sky. Stupid old
companion!"
"And prithee, Mistress Blanche, who ever did see aught in the sea saving
a cruel great parcel of water?"
"Good lack, Bab!--thou art as ill as he. Clare, what seest thou in the
sea?"
Clare tried to bring her thoughts down to the subject.
"I scantly know, Blanche. 'Tis rarely beautiful, in some ways. Yet it
soundeth to me alway very sorrowful."
"Ay so, Mistress Clare!" returned Barbara. "It may belike to thee, poor
sweet heart, whose father was killed thereon,--and to me, that had a
brother which died far away on the Spanish main."
"I suppose," answered Clare sighing, "matters sound unto us according as
we are disposed."
"Marry, and if so, some folks' voices should sound mighty discordant,"
retorted Barbara.
Blanche was soon asleep; but there was little sleep for Clare that
night. Nor was there much for Rachel. Since Margaret's marriage,
Lucrece had shared her aunt's chamber; for it would have been thought
preposterous in the Elizabethan era to give a young girl a bedroom to
herself. Rachel watched her niece narrowly; but Lucrece neither said
nor did anything from which the least information could be gleaned. She
was neither elated nor depressed, but just as usual,--demure, slippery,
and unaccountable.
Rachel kept her eye also, like an amateur detective, upon Arthur. He
came frequently, and generally managed to get a walk with Lucrece in the
garden. On two occasions the detective, seated at her own window, which
overlooked the garden, saw that Arthur was entreating or urging
something, to which Lucrece would not consent.
The month of Sir Piers Feversham's stay was drawing to a close, and
still Rachel had not spoken to her brother about Lucrece. She felt
considerably puzzled as to what it would be either right or wise to do.
Lucrece was no foolish, romantic, inexperienced child like Blanche, but
a woman of considerable worldly wisdom and strong self-reliance. It was
no treachery to interfere with her, in her aunt's eyes, since Lucrece
herself had been the traitor; and for Clare's sake Rachel longed to
rescue Arthur, whom she considered infatuated and misled.
Before Rachel had been able to make up her mind on this point, one
Saturday afternoon Sir Thomas sought her, and asked her to come to the
library.
"Rachel," he said, "I would fain have thy counsel. Sir Piers
Feversham--much to mine amazing--hath made me offer of service
[courtship] for Lucrece. What thinkest thereon?"
"Brother, leave her go!"
"He is by three years elder than I, Rachel."
"Ne'er mind thou."
"Methinks he should make the maid a good husband?" remarked Sir Thomas
interrogatively.
"Better than she shall make him a wife," said Rachel grimly.
"Rachel!"
"Brother, I have ne'er said this to thee aforetime; but my true
conviction is that Lucrece is a mischief-maker, and until she be hence,
there is like to be little peace for any. I saw not all things at the
first; but I can tell thee now that she hath won Arthur Tremayne into
her toils, and methinks she tried hard to compass Don Juan. If she will
wed with Sir Piers (and he dare venture on her!) let it be so: he is old
enough to have a care of himself; and she is less like to wreck his life
than she should be with a younger man. In good sooth, there is all the
less of it to wreck."
"Yet, Rachel, if the maid be entangled with Arthur--"
"Make thy mind easy, Tom. 'Tis Arthur is entangled, not she. Trust her
for that! She hath good enough scissors for the cutting of a like
knot."
"Arthur ne'er spake word to me," said Sir Thomas, with a perplexed,
meditative air.
"That is it which I would know, Tom. Ne'er spake word, quotha? So much
the better. Well! I reckon thou shalt be like to tell Orige; but leave
her not persuade thee to the contrary course. Yet I think she is scarce
like. A knighthood and Feversham Hall shall go down very sweetly with
her."
"But there is yet another matter, Rachel. Sir Piers maketh offer to set
Jack in good place about the Court, for the which he saith he hath
power. What sayest to that, trow?"
"I say that Jack is safe to go to wrack some whither, and may be 'twere
as well hence as hither."
"It shall be mighty chargeable, I fear," said Sir Thomas thoughtfully.
"Jack shall be that any whither."
"Wouldst have me, then, say Ay to both offers?"
"Nay, think well touching Jack first. I meant not that. Good sooth! I
sorely misdoubt--"
"Well, I will see what saith Orige unto both, and Jack and Lucrece to
either."
"If I be a prophet," answered Rachel, "one and all shall say, Ay."
If that were the criterion, Rachel proved a prophet One and all did say
ay. Lady Enville was enchanted with both schemes. Jack averred that
life at home was a very humdrum kind of thing, and life might be worth
having in London, and at Court. And Lucrece, in her demure style,
softly declared that she was thankful for Sir Piers' goodness, and would
gladly accept his offer, though she felt that her merits were not equal
to the kind estimate which he had formed of her.
"But, Lucrece," said her father gravely, "one told me that Arthur
Tremayne had made suit unto thee."
If he expected the mask to drop for an instant from the soft, regular
features of Lucrece, he was sadly disappointed. Not a look, nor a
gesture, showed that she felt either surprised or disconcerted.
"'Tis true, Father. The poor lad did say some like words unto me. But
I gave him no encouragement to seek you."
"Thou wouldst have me to conceive, then, that thou art wholly free from
any plight whatsoe'er unto Arthur?"
"Wholly free, Father. I ne'er gave him to wit otherwise."
Sir Thomas believed her; Rachel did not. The next thing, in the
squire's honest eyes, was to let Arthur know that Lucrece was about to
marry Sir Piers,--not directly, since Arthur himself had made no open
declaration; but he proposed to go down to the parsonage, and mention
the fact, as if incidentally, in Arthur's presence. He found Lucrece
rather averse to this scheme.
"It should but trouble the poor lad," she said. "Why not leave him
discover the same as matters shall unfold them?"
"Tom!" said Rachel to her brother apart, "go thou down, and tell Arthur
the news. I am afeared Lucrece hath some cause, not over good, for
wishing silence kept."
"Good lack!" cried the worried Squire. "Wellnigh would I that every one
of my childre had been a lad! These maidens be such changeable and
chargeable gear, I verily wis not what to do withal."
"Bide a while, Tom, till Jack hath been in the Court a year or twain;
maybe then I shall hear thee to wish that all had been maids."
Down to the parsonage trudged the puzzled and unhappy man, and found
that Arthur was at home. He chatted for a short time with the family in
general, and then told the ladies, as a piece of news which he expected
to interest them, that his daughter Lucrece was about to be married.
Had he not intentionally kept his eyes from Arthur while he spoke, he
would have seen that the young man went white to the lips.
"Eh, _ma foi_!" said Mrs Rose.
"With whom shall she wed?" asked Mrs Tremayne.
"Sir Thomas, is that true?" was the last remark--in hoarse accents, from
Arthur.
"It is true, my lad. Have I heard truly, that you would not have it
so?"
Mrs Tremayne looked at her son in a mixture of astonishment and dismay.
It had never occurred to her guileless, unsuspicious mind that the
object of his frequent visits to Enville Court could be any one but
Clare.
"Sir, I cry you mercy," said Arthur with some dignity. "I do readily
acknowledge that I ought not to have left you in the dark. But to speak
truth, it was she, not I, that would not you should be told."
"That would not have me told what, Arthur?"
"That I loved her," said Arthur, his voice slightly tremulous. "And--
she _said_ she loved me."
"She told me that she had given thee no encouragement to speak to me."