“_The spiritual life is not an elaborate system, but a divine life--not
a book of Leviticus, but a Gospel of St. John._” --Bishop Walsuam How.
When Gabriel had watched the last glimpse of the pale puco gown
as Hilary turned the north-west corner of the cathedral, he went
despondently enough into the building itself to see whether any mischief
had been done by Waghorn and his adherents.
At first he could see no slightest trace of damage, but in the
north-east transept he encountered Major Locke, pacifying one of the
vergers who seemed much concerned at the prospect of “such a mort o’
clearin’ up,” as he expressed it.
“It shall be reported to Sir William Waller,” said the major; “but in
truth ’tis very hard to prevent the men from being stirred up and led
into mischief by these fanatic preachers.”
“What on earth induced them to attack Bishop Swinfield’s monument?”
exclaimed Gabriel, genuinely vexed to see that the old Bishop’s effigy
had been literally hacked to pieces.
“Well, it seems that Waghorn, this crazy carpenter fellow, lured them
on with tales of a crucifix, and it proved to be a bas-relief just above
this tomb. The men have scarce left a trace of it, but you can see the
outline on the wall. Then, quite against the Parliamentary order for
respecting the monuments of the dead, they must needs go and hew in
pieces this effigy. Hearing that mischief was afoot, I was fortunately
in time to order them out of the building before they grew more unruly.”
“I see they have hewn off the head without harming it,” said Gabriel,
stooping to pick it up from the corner into which it had been tossed.
“With your permission, sir, I will bear it to the Palace. Bishop Coke
will value it, and here it would but be cast away as rubbish.”
“Ay, sir, do,” said the verger. “The Bishop, God bless’un, he do set
great store by all old statutes, and so do his son, Dr. William Coke;
and Mistress Hilary Unett she takes after ’m; seems to run in the
family like. For my part, I be glad Waghorn set the soldiers on useless
stocks and stones and spared the glass windows, for the cathedral do be
mortal cold on windy days at service time.”
This, then, explained in part Hilary’s angry mood. Perhaps had they met
under less trying circumstances, she might have been less cruel. Very
sore at heart, Gabriel went out again, encountering Joscelyn Heyworth
not far from the Palace.
“What plunder are you carrying away, you sacrilegious man?” exclaimed
the young Captain, with his genial laugh. “When an honest man turns
thief he always betrays himself. What are you hiding under your scarf
ends?”
“A bishop’s head,” said Gabriel, grimly.
“Oh! so this explains some of the lady’s wrath.”
“Yes, no wonder she was angry. I am taking this to her
grandfather--Bishop Coke.”
“You would do much better to throw it down on the green, and give up the
whole connection. What have you to do now with bishops, either in stone
or in the flesh? And as to their granddaughters--may heaven preserve
me from ever again escorting home an episcopal lady. Like Benedick, ‘I
cannot endure my Lady Tongue.’”
“You don’t know her,” said Gabriel. “To-day she was very naturally
incensed.”
“Now be a sensible man, Gabriel, and cast that head into the kennel,
for I assure you its stony curls are not more stony than the heart of
Mistress Hilary.”
“Be silent!” said Gabriel, hotly. “I tell you that you do not know her.
_Tout comprendre c’est tout pardonner_, as the proverb hath it.”
“Then let us hope the lady will apply that sentiment to the cure of
her pride. For truly she knows much more of you than she did before I
crossed her path.”
“What do you mean?” said Gabriel, aware that Joscelyn was often daringly
outspoken and unconventional, and fearing that he might only have
angered Hilary the more.
“I told her of the night at Kineton, when, in your delirium the name of
Hilary was eternally on your lips.”
“So you have known all this time?”
“To be sure; and now she knows one or two eminently wholesome truths.”
“I fear you but annoyed her yet more. What did she say?”
“Well, she turned whiter than this old prelate’s head, and I could have
sworn she was going to soften. But nothing of the sort; she remained
as stony as this effigy, and so we parted with freezing politeness and
ceremony. Give her up, Gabriel; why let her make your life a misery?”
“You don’t understand her,” said, Gabriel, in a choked voice. “You have
not yet really seen her true self. As to giving her up--why, how should
I do that? I have loved her since we were children, and we Harfords do
not change.”
“So it seems,” said Joscelyn, ruefully. “Well, I’m hanged if anybody
should trouble my peace who had treated me with the consummate cruelty
she showed you to-day.”
Gabriel, without reply, turned in at the gateway of the Palace, feeling
that even his best friend somehow failed to help him, and quite prepared
to be refused an interview with the Bishop.
Strangely enough, however, it was the saintly old man who differed from
him on so many points in politics and theology who best understood him
at that time. He received him as if nothing had happened since their
last meeting, bidding him welcome with the same warmth and the same
perfect courtesy he had always shown him.
“They may abolish bishops,” thought Gabriel, “yet somehow the best
description of Bishop Coke will always be the title, ‘Right reverend
father in God?’”
The head of Bishop Swinfield, half-concealed by the ends of the broad
orange scarf which girded Gabriel’s buff coat, quickly attracted the old
prelate’s attention.
“I had heard of the mischief done just now,” he said. “I see you bring
me an unharmed fragment; I am glad you rescued that.”
“I thought, my lord, you would value it, and perhaps have it in safe
hiding till quieter times.”
“I will give it to my son, ’twill be safer in his care; and to tell
the truth, Mr. Harford, I cannot expect to live till quieter times.
These troubles are breaking my heart.”
“My lord, indeed ’twas scarce the fault of the soldiers that harm
was wrought in the cathedral; they were led on by a poor fanatic fellow
whose father was grievously misused by Dr. Laud.”
“And therein lies my worst sorrow,” said the Bishop, with a long sigh.
“Our system seemed to us right and good, yet it hath alienated the
people, and wholly failed. Believe me, Mr. Harford, I am not thinking of
the misguided zeal of your soldiers, but of my own mistaken zeal in the
past. Yet we meant well--God knows we meant well.”
Gabriel was silent. Before a humility and sorrow such as this words
seemed a profanation.
He glanced round the room, the very one in which he had offered his
services to the Parliament during the Earl of Stamford’s occupation
six months before. Again his eyes turned to the picture of Hilary as a
child, and the Bishop, noting this, asked if he had seen her, and by his
kindly sympathy gradually drew from him the whole story.
“’Tis no ill cure to set two sad folks to talk with each other,” he
said, a faint smile playing about his lips. “I am breaking my heart
over the direful strife betwixt Christian men, and you are breaking your
heart over a difference of opinion with the maiden you love. We must
both remember the apostle’s words, ‘Love never faileth.’ It seems to us
to have wholly failed now, and for the night of this life it may seem
so, but the day will dawn. For you, if God will, it may perchance, after
all, dawn here on this earth, though scarce for me.”
He crossed the room to a beautifully carved cabinet, and opening one of
the inner compartments, took out a miniature of Hilary.
“This,” he said, showing it to Gabriel, “was painted for me the autumn
you first went to London, and I always intended that at my death it
should be yours. I think you were right when that day in the cloisters
you said to me that the Harfords do not change, and in these troubled
times I shall like to know that you already have it in your keeping, for
I have a feeling that we shall not again meet in this world.” Gabriel,
with tears in his eyes, could only falteringly speak his thanks.
“Nay,” said the Bishop, cheerfully. “’Tis a pleasure to me to think it
will be some slight comfort to you, my son. And,” he added, with a quiet
laugh, “you were the first to make a presentation to me of good Bishop
Swinfield’s head, knowing my special feeling for the past dignitaries of
our Church. ’Tis but meet that I should acknowledge your courtesy by
the gift of my granddaughter’s head--a wilful maid, yet methinks one
that will some day ripen into a right noble woman. Believe me, my son,
she is worth waiting for.”
“I will wait a lifetime, if need be,” said Gabriel, looking at the sweet
face in the miniature--the Hilary that had been before the war. And
then, remembering past times, he made an enquiry as to the treatise on
the Epistle to the Colossians. The old Bishop shook his head, sadly.
“The war hath been the ruin of all books,” he said, ruefully. “They
tell me people will read naught nowadays but the war pamphlets which are
poured forth in shoals from the press. Or else they read the news books,
which, so far as I can learn, vie with each other in lying, and are
crammed with envy, hatred, malice and all uncharitableness. From the
curse of such weapons of the evil one, good Lord deliver us!”
The words came with all the more force because spoken by one so
habitually gentle, and Gabriel, watching the folded hands and the white
head bent in this heartfelt ejaculation, felt more than ever drawn to
the Bishop.
Never once had Bishop Coke repulsed him by the illogical arguments about
the divine right of the King to govern wrongfully, which were hurled at
the heads of the Parliamentarians by most Royalists. He kept altogether
on a higher plane where meeting was quite possible, and Gabriel was glad
enough to kneel for the old man’s blessing when they parted.
The citizens of Hereford had compounded with Sir William Waller for
£3,000, and when the fines had been collected in money or plate nothing
remained to detain the soldiers in the place.
On the evening of the seventeenth of May, therefore, Waller, hearing
that he was needed elsewhere, and unable to spare men to garrison
Hereford permanently for the Parliament, gave orders that the troops
should be ready to march back to Gloucester early the next morning.
By the time Gabriel was free from his duties it was already late, but
seeing that lights still burned in Mrs. Unett’s house, he ventured to
inquire at the door if she were worse.
“In truth, she is very ill, sir,” said Durdle, anxiously.
At the head of the stairs, in a nook where she could hear what passed,
but could neither see nor be seen, Hilary waited with a beating heart.
She was in grievous trouble, and the sound of her lover’s voice tempted
her sorely to run down and speak to him.
“Give her my kind regards, and I trust she will soon be recovered,”
said Gabriel. “’Tis late to knock you up, but I leave Hereford at dawn
to-morrow.”
Hilary’s heart sank.
“Shall I tell Mistress Hilary?” inquired Durdle. “Belike she would come
down.”
The girl waited in an agony of suspense for his reply.
“No, she hath thrice refused to speak with me,” he said, with a note of
pain in his voice that brought a lump into her throat. “I will trouble
her no further; good-bye, Mrs. Durdle.”
Like one struggling for life Hilary wrestled with her pride. “Go down
and speak to him,” urged one voice within her. “I can’t before Durdle,”
retorted another. “Go, go before it is too late!” “Nay, what could I say
if I did go?”
And then she learnt that he who hesitates is lost, for the door was
closed, and Durdle walked heavily back to the kitchen, and silence
reigned again in the house.
Hilary sat down on the top stair, and burying her face in her hands,
cried much after the fashion of a naughty child, who is half repentant
and altogether weary and miserable. Again and again she had refused
to see Gabriel, and had taken pleasure in the process; but now he had
declined to see her, and she felt that she was indeed hoist with her own
petard.
After this, with the kindest intentions in the world, Joscelyn Heyworth
set about the dangerous process of match-making on his friend’s behalf.
Supremely happy in the love of pretty Mistress Clemency Coriton, he no
sooner found himself talking alone with her at Mr. Bennett’s house in
the Close at Gloucester, than the remembrance of Gabriel Harford’s story
came to trouble his peace.
“Faith, and I have seen much of little Mistress Helena Locke,” said
Clemency. “She hath a dull time at Alderman Pury’s, and is ever glad to
come here and chat about her gallant rescuers.”
“She had no liking, then, for Colonel Norton, and did not resent being
carried off in that summary fashion?”
“Oh, she feared and detested Squire Norton, and to tell the truth--but
be sure you breathe no word of this--I have a fancy that she lost her
heart to your friend.”
“Ho! that is good hearing,” said Joscelyn, with a smile. “There is
nothing that would please me more than to see them mated, for in truth
he stands in need of just such a sweet-tempered gentle little woman,
being over-reserved and apt to grow melancholy over the desperate plight
the country is in.”
“Let us get my sister to invite the Major and his daughter and you and
your friend to supper to-morrow,” said Clemency. “Even should the notion
fail to come to anything, it can do them no harm to meet.”
So it came about that little Mistress Nell donned her prettiest white
gown the next evening, arranged her fair curls with anxious care, and,
with her blue eyes looking unusually bright, went with her father to the
gabled house in the Close.
Her rescuers had already arrived, but Helena had hardly a glance to
spare for Joscelyn Heyworth who, for all his six feet and his lion-like
mane of golden hair, was, for her, quite eclipsed by a shorter, slighter
man, with something in his sunburnt face and liquid hazel eyes which
appealed to her.
Gabriel greeted her with the easy cordiality of one whose deeper
feelings are not in the least touched.
“You suffered no ill-effects, I hope, from all your fatigues on the ride
to Gloucester,” he said.
“Oh! no,” said Helena, eagerly. “When once we were out of pistol range
it was enjoyable enough; but I hope I may never have to run again as we
did that night. Had you not both dragged me on I must have given up.”
Gabriel laughed.
“We were cruel only to be kind, but I grant you that the feeling of
being pursued is unpleasant. I had a longing to stay and fight it out
with that dastardly Colonel. But it would have been over great a
risk for you, and your safety was the main object. However, I have an
instinct that I shall meet the fellow again, and then maybe shall have a
chance of fighting him.”
At supper, in the panelled room below, Gabriel found himself between
Mistress Nell and his hostess, and _vis-à-vis_ with Major Locke, who
kept them all merry with his inexhaustible fund of stories.
“Who would think, to hear our laughter, that we were in the midst of a
deadly civil war?” said Faith Bennett. “We owe you a debt of gratitude,
sir. I have not made so merry for many a day.”
“Tell Mistress Bennett the story of the fisher-boy,” said Helena. “That
mightily tickled my fancy.”
“Oh, that is but a simple tale,” said the Major. “We were crossing some
wild country in Herefordshire, and, the day being foggy, had lost our
bearings, so I sent one of the men to ask the way of a lad that was
fishing in the Wye. He came back to say that he couldn’t understand the
boy’s language, and knowing something of dialect, I went to him myself
and said, ‘Which is the nearest way to Horn Lacy?’
“An unintelligible jabber was the response, so that I thought the lad
an innocent until I chanced to notice that he was munching a mouthful of
something.
“‘What have you got in your mouth?’ I asked, finding that he made no
haste to swallow his meal.
“‘Wumsh for bait,’ he muttered, trying to indicate by signs the nearest
road to Horn Lacy.”
There was a general laugh.
“Wasn’t it horrible?” said Mistress Nell. “Think of a mouthful of live
worms!”
“Is not Horn Lacy one of my Lord Scudamore’s estates?” asked Mr.
Bennett.
“Ay; he was taken prisoner in Hereford, but allowed to go to London on
parole. Horn Lacy was taxed £10 15s. By the bye, Captain Heyworth,
is there any truth in this report I hear, that Sir William Waller is
sending you to London shortly concerning Lord Scudamore’s affairs?”
“Yes, sir,” said Joscelyn; “I am to bear a letter for Sir William
Waller, who is in some fear that, spite of his assurances, Parliament
is not treating Lord Scudamore as well as he deserves. I had private
business that needed looking into, and am granted three weeks’ leave
from Monday se’nnight.”
“I wish you would make an inquiry for me while you are in London,” said
the Major, as the ladies left the room.
“The truth is, though I would not say it before Mistress Bennett, that
Gloucester is not an over-safe place in which to leave my little maid,
for like enough, they say, the King will lay siege to it. Now, I want to
find out whether Helena’s godmother is still living. She is a very aged
lady named Madam Harford, but ’tis years since we heard of her.”
“Why, sir,” said Gabriel, laughing, “they say in the regiment that
you know well-nigh every family in England--perchance this lady is my
grand-dame who lives at Notting hill Manor, some two miles from Tyburn
by the Oxford road.”
“Upon my soul, that’s a strange coincidence,” said the Major. “But I had
no notion she was of a Herefordshire family. She was a very kind friend
to my late wife in London before our marriage, and stood sponsor for
Helena. I thought of writing to ask her to advise some safe lodging in
the city where my daughter may be sent in charge of Mistress Malvina.”
“If you will trust me with your letter, I will bear it to Madam Harford
and bring you back her reply, sir,” said Joscelyn Heyworth; and he
smiled to himself, thinking that fate was about to help his match
making.
However, it was not his doing, but the Major’s own arrangement which,
during the course of the next few days, threw Gabriel and little
Mistress Nell into frequent intercourse. The girl lived through a
midsummer dream of happiness, but Gabriel, though liking very much to
talk to one who was both pretty and winsome, never said a word to her
that might not have been proclaimed from the housetops, and never felt
his pulses beat the faster when the innocent blue eyes were lifted to
his.
Marriage arrangements were most matter-of-fact in those days and the
Major, before leaving Gloucester, thought it as well to broach the
subject with his daughter.
“Child,” he said one evening, when they were alone together in a gloomy
little parlour at Alderman Pury’s house, “it may be long ere I see you
again, for, as you know, we march into the West to-morrow. I have had no
proposal for your hand save that from Squire Norton, which I was bound
to decline. But if at any time it should chance that I might arrange
a marriage for you with Lieutenant Harford, would he meet with your
approval?”
“Yes, sir,” said little Mistress Nell, blushing.
“He is a man I would very gladly entrust you to” said the Major. “Yet
think not over much of it, Nell, for the notion may come to nothing. I
merely wished to know that such a plan would not be uncongenial to you.”
“Oh, no, sir,” faltered Helena, “not uncongenial.”
And then she fell awondering whether it must ever be a choice between
the fierce passion which terrified her in Squire Norton’s eyes, and
the easy friendliness which somehow scarcely satisfied her in Gabriel’s
expression. Was there, perchance, some happy mean betwixt these two, a
love which had not yet come her way? If only her gallant rescuer would
give her the supreme happiness of requiting in some way his service to
her! She half wished herself a man that she might serve under him, and
perhaps do for him on the battlefield what Captain Heyworth had done at
Edgehill. And so she dreamt her innocent dreams, never knowing of the
miniature that hung about Gabriel’s neck, or imagining that at Hereford
a pair of dark grey eyes were shedding tears more bitter than any that
could ever be shed by her.
For in Hilary’s home there was great sorrow; the physician’s skill could
no longer keep at bay the mortal illness which was steadily sapping Mrs.
Unett’s strength.
“If it were possible to induce Dr. Wright to come to Hereford I should
like to consult with him,” said Dr. Harford one morning when he felt
that Hilary must be prepared for the worst. “He and his wife are still
residing at Brampton Bryan for the sake of being some protection to Lady
Brilliana Harley, and I scarce know whether he would leave, for they
stand in great danger of being besieged in the Castle.”
Hilary could not help reflecting that it was strange they should be
forced to turn to Parliamentarians in their need, but Dr. Harford and
Dr. Wright were by far the most eminent physicians in the neighbourhood,
and she found that politics made no sort of difference when one was face
to face with a grief and danger like this.
“Lady Brilliana is kindhearted and generous,” she said. “I am sure
she would spare Dr. Wright, and he need not be away more than
four-and-twenty hours.”
So the plan was proposed, and the two physicians held a consultation,
and for a while Hilary hoped against hope. But at length the day came
when she could no longer refuse to recognise the terrible truth--her
mother was dying.
There was no great suffering; indeed, Mrs. Unett would have passed away
in absolute peace had it not been for the thought of her child left
behind in sorrow and loneliness, fortunately Dr. William Coke, her
favourite brother, was able to ride over to Hereford on the day this was
most troubling her.
“You see, Hilary cannot live on here, as she wishes to do, with no
better protection than Mrs. Durdle,” sighed the mother. “And though
my father would gladly have her at the Palace, she doth not agree with
other members of the household, and such an arrangement would never work
well. I would that I could have lived to see her married.”
“Too late for Mr. Geers of Garnons,” said Dr. Coke, with a gleam of
merriment in his eyes. “They tell me he is just betrothed to Mistress
Eliza Acton. And Hilary, I understand, did refuse his suit with great
decision. But do not be troubled as to her future. Why should she not
come and cheer her old bachelor uncle? I should most gladly welcome her,
and I’ll warrant Mrs. Durdle would keep my untidy vicarage in apple-pie
order.”
“That she would,” said Mrs. Unett, with a smile. “You are very good,
brother, to suggest such a plan. To leave Hilary in your charge would be
the greatest comfort to me.”
She longed sorely to tell of the hope she had once cherished of seeing
her child wedded to Gabriel Harford, but she had promised secrecy, and
felt that matters were now hopeless; moreover, Hilary would probably
prefer that her uncle should never know that chapter of her life-story.
The silence was the last sacrifice the mother was to make, and it was
a very real sacrifice to one who always craved the comfort of a man’s
opinion.
Even as she lay there musing over the possibilities of the future, Dr.
Coke saw a change in her face which alarmed him. He went to the door and
spoke in a low voice to his niece.
“You had better send for Dr. Harford, my dear,” he said. “I fancy I see
a change in your mother.”
Hilary would not risk sending, she ran herself without ceremony by the
garden way as she would have done in old times, and while the servant
went in search of the doctor, waited in the study, looking round with an
aching heart at the familiar place.
Very quickly she noted the only new thing in the room. It was the
miniature by M. Jean Petitot which Gabriel had mentioned in his
Christmas letter, and crossing to the mantelshelf on which it stood, she
looked long and earnestly at the portrait of the man who loved her. The
strong, clean-souled face appealed to all that was best in her, and the
great artist had succeeded in reproducing that quiet spirituality in the
eyes which had somehow dominated her in their last unhappy meeting.
An intolerable longing for his presence came over her. Most bitterly she
needed him now in this time of her sorrow, and terrible was the shame
and misery of realising that her own pride had wrecked his happiness as
well as her own.
It was with difficulty that she could control her voice when Dr. Harford
entered, and his all-observant eyes at once perceived that the sight of
the miniature had been too much for her.
“My mother,” she faltered.
“I will come at once,” he said, taking her hand much as if she had been
a child again.
The action comforted her, and she told him of her uncle’s visit, and of
how at first the invalid had revived and had seemed better.
But when they reached the sick-room Hilary needed no words to tell her
that her mother was at the point of death.
There was a minute’s silence while the doctor felt the failing pulse; a
courteous word of thanks for his care; a tender farewell to her child,
and a grateful glance at her favourite brother as he knelt at the
bedside. Then consciousness failed; and after an interval, broken only
by the voice of Dr. Coke as he read the commendatory prayer, she passed
quietly away.
Hilary, dazed and tearless, let them take her out of the room
unresistingly. The whole world seemed a blank to her, and her desolation
was the more overwhelming because the one being who could have comforted
her was, by her own fault, altogether out of reach. Her mother dead, her
lover banished and rejected, and she herself crushingly conscious of her
own sins and shortcomings, it seemed to her indeed that the burden of
life was more than she could endure.
Dr. Coke went at once to the Palace to break the news to the Bishop, but
Dr. Harford returned to the withdrawing room for a minute, feeling ill
at ease as to Hilary. He found her restlessly pacing to and fro, trying
not to hear Durdle’s heavy footsteps as she moved about in the next
room, busy with the last offices to the dead.
“My dear,” he said, in his fatherly way, “you were up all last night and
must rest now. Come,” and he himself arranged the cushions for her on
the couch and insisted that she should lie down.
“I wonder that you can endure the sight of me,” said Hilary, “after all
the trouble I have caused you.”
He thought that in calmer moments she might regret having spoken so
openly, and did not allow himself to refer to Gabriel.
“You forget that your father was my best friend, and that to be of
service to you must always be a pleasure to me,” he said, kindly. “Try,
if possible, to sleep, my dear; your uncle and I will make all needful
arrangements.”
“What is the use of resting?--all is over; no one needs me,” she said,
wildly.
“Nay,” he said; “be very sure that there will be need of all your
strength in a country as full of sorrow as ours is now. So rest, my
child, and wait.”
And then he bade her good-bye, and went his way to comfort and cure
others that were ill in body and sad of soul.