"Poor child!" she saith. "If only I could have wist sooner! How much I
might have saved her! O poor child!"
The water welled up in her eyes again, and she went away, something in
haste. I had thought _Mother_ should be angered, and I was something
astonied to see how soft she were toward _Milly_. A while after, Aunt
_Joyce_ come in: but _Milly_ slept on.
"I am fain to see that," saith she, nodding her head toward the bed. "A
good sign. Yet I would I knew exactly how she hath taken it."
"I am afeared she may be angered, Aunt _Joyce_, to be thus served of one
she trusted."
"I hope so much. 'Twill be the best thing she can be. The question is
what she loved--whether himself or his flattering of herself. She'll
soon get over the last, for it shall be nought worser with her than hurt
vanity."
"Not the first, _Aunt_?"
"I do not know, _Edith_," she saith, and crushed in her lips. "That
hangs on what sort of woman she be. There shall be a wound, in either
case: but with some it gets cicatrised over and sound again with time,
and with other some it tarries an open issue for ever. It hangs all on
the manner of woman."
"What should it be with you, Aunt _Joyce_?" said I, though I were
something feared of mine own venturesomeness.
"What it _is_, _Edith_," she made answer, crushing in her lips again,
"is the open issue, bandaged o'er so that none knows it is there save He
to whose eyes all things be open. Child, there be some things in life
wherein the only safe confidant thou canst have is _Jesu Christ_. I say
so much, by reason that thine elders think it best--and I likewise--that
ye maids should be told somewhat more than ye have heard aforetime. Ay,
I give full assent thereto. I only held out for one thing--that I, not
your mother, should be she that were to tell it."
We were silent a moment, and then _Milisent_ stirred in her sleep. Aunt
_Joyce_ went to her.
"Awake, my dear heart?" saith she.
_Milly_ sat up, and pushed aside her hair from her face, the which was
flushed and sullen.
"Aunt _Joyce_, may the Lord forgive you for this day's work!" saith she.
I was fair astonied that she should dare thus to speak. But Aunt
_Joyce_ was in no wise angered.
"Amen!" she saith, as softly as might be spoken. "Had I no worser sins
to answer for, methinks I should stand the judgment."
"No worser!" _Milisent_ blazed forth. "What, you think it a light
matter to part two hearts that love well and truly?"
"Nay, truly, I think it right solemn matter," saith Aunt _Joyce_, still
softly. "And if aught graver can be, _Milly_, it is to part two whereof
the one loveth well, and the other--may God forgive us all!"
"What mean you now?" saith _Milisent_ of the same fashion. "Is it my
love you doubt, or his?"
"_Milisent Louvaine_," saith Aunt _Joyce_, "if thou be alive twenty
years hence, thou shalt thank God from thy very heart-root that thou
wert stayed on that road to-day."
"Oh ay, that is what folk always say!" murmurs she, and laid her down
again. "`Thou wilt thank me twenty years hence,' quoth they, every
stinging stroke of the birch. And they look for us beaten hounds to
crede it, forsooth!"
"Ay--when the twenty years be over."
"I am little like to thank you at twenty years' end," saith _Milly_
sullenly, "for I count I shall die of heart-break afore twenty weeks."
"No, _Milly_, I think not."
"And much you care!"
Then I saw Aunt _Joyce's_ face alter--terribly.
"_Milisent_," she said, "if I had not cared, I should scantly have gone
of set purpose through that which wrung every fibre of my heart, ay, to
the heart's core."
"It wrung me more than you," _Milisent_ makes answer, of the same
bitter, angered tone as aforetime.
Aunt _Joyce_ turned away from the bed, and I saw pain and choler strive
for a moment in her eyes. Then the choler fell back, and the pain
abode.
"Poor child! She cannot conceive it." She said nought sterner; and she
came and sat in the window alongside of me.
"I tell you, Aunt _Joyce_,"--and _Milisent_ sat up again, and let
herself down, and came and stood before us--"I tell you, you have ruined
my life!"
"My maid," Aunt _Joyce_ makes answer, with sore trouble in her voice,
"thine elders will fain have thee and thy sisters told a tale the which
we have alway kept from you until now. It was better hidden, unless you
needed the lesson. But now they think it shall profit thee, and may-be
save _Helen_ and _Edith_ from making any like blunder. And--well, I
have granted it. Only I stood out for one point--that I myself should
be the one to tell it you. Wait till thou hast heard that story, the
which I will tell thee to-morrow. And at after thou hast heard it,--
then tell me, _Milly_, whether I cared for thee this morrow, or whether
the hand that hath ruined thy life were the hand of _Joyce Morrell_."
"Oh, but you were cruel, cruel!" sobbed _Milly_. "I loved him so!"
"So did I, _Milisent_," saith Aunt _Joyce_ very softly, "long ere you
maids were born. Loved him so fondly, trusted him so wholly, clung to
him so faithfully, that mine eyes had to be torn open before I would see
the truth--that even now, after all these years, it is like thrusting a
dagger into my soul to tell you verily who and what he is. Ay, child, I
loved that man in mine early maidenhood, better than ever thou didst or
wouldst have done. Dost thou think it was easy to stand up to the face
that I had loved, and to play the avenging angel toward his perfidy? If
thou dost, thou mayest know much of foolishness and fantasy, but very
little of true and real love."
_Milisent_ seemed something startled and cowed. Then all suddenly she
saith,--"But, Aunt _Joyce_! He told me he were only of four-and-thirty
years."
Aunt _Joyce_ laughed bitterly.
"Wert so poor an innocent as to crede that, _Milly_?" saith she. "He is
a year elder than thy father. But I grant, he looks by far younger than
he is. And I reckon he 'bated ten years or so of what he looked. He
alway looked young," she saith, the softened tone coming back into her
voice. "Men with fair hair like his, mostly do, until all at once they
break into aged men. And he hath kept him well, with washes and
unguents."
It was strange to hear how the softness and the bitterness strave
together in her voice. I count it were by reason they so strave in her
heart.
"Wait till to-morrow, _Milly_," saith Aunt _Joyce_, arising. "Thou
shalt hear then of my weary walk through the thorns, and judge for
thyself if I had done well to leave thee to the like."
_Milly_ sobbed again, but methought something more softly.
"We were to have been wed o' _Sunday_ even," saith she, "by a _Popish_
priest, right as good as in church,--and then to have come home and won
_Father_ and _Mother_ to forgive us and bless us. Then all had been
smooth and sweet, and we should have lived happy ever after."
Oh, but what pitifulness was there in Aunt _Joyce's_ smile!
"Should you?" saith she, in a tone which seemed to me like the biggest
nay ever printed in a book. "Poor innocent child! A _Popish_ priest
cannot lawfully wed any, and evening is out of the canonical hours.
Wist thou not that such marriage should ne'er have held good in law?"
"It might have been good in God's sight, trow," saith she, something
perversely.
"Nay!" saith Aunt _Joyce_. "When men go to, of set purpose, to break
the laws of their country,--without it be in obedience to His plain
command,--I see not how the Lord shall hold them guiltless. So he
promised to bring thee home to ask pardon, did he? Poor, trusting,
deluded child! Thou shouldst never have come home, _Milly_--unless it
had been a year or twain hence, a forlorn, heart-broken, wretched thing.
Well, we could have forgiven thee and comforted thee then--as we will
now."
I am right weary a-writing, and will stay mine hand till I set down
_Aunt's_ story to-morrow.
SELWICK HALL, DECEMBER YE SECOND.
I marvel when I can make an end of writing, or when matters shall have
done happening. For early this morrow, ere breakfast were well over,
come a quick rap of the door, which _Caitlin_ opened, and in come _Alice
Lewthwaite_. Not a bit like herself looked she, with a scarf but just
cast o'er her head, and all out of breath, as though she had come forth
all suddenly, and had run fast and far. We had made most of us an end
of eating, but were yet sat at the table.
"_Alice_, dear heart, what aileth thee?" saith _Mother_, and rose up.
"Lady _Lettice_, do pray you tell me," panteth she, "if you have seen or
heard aught of our _Blanche_?"
"Nay, _Alice_, in no wise," saith _Mother_.
"Lack the day!" quoth she, "then our fears be true."
"What fears, dear heart?" I think _Father_, and _Mother_, and Aunt
_Joyce_, asked at her all together.
"I would as lief say nought, saving to my Lady, and Mistress _Joyce_,"
she saith: so they bare her away, and what happed at that time I cannot
say, saving that _Father_ himself took _Alice_ home, and did seem
greatly concerned at her trouble. Well, this was scantly o'er ere a
messenger come with a letter to _Mother_, whereon she had no sooner cast
her eyes than she brake forth with a cry of pleasure. Then, _Father_
desiring to know what it were, she told us all that certain right dear
and old friends of hers, the which she had not seen of many years, were
but now at the _Salutation_ Inn at _Ambleside_, and would fain come on
and tarry a season here if it should suit with _Mother's_ conveniency to
have them.
"And right fain should I be," saith she; and so said _Father_ likewise.
Then _Mother_ told us who were these her old friends: to wit, Sir
_Robert Stafford_ and his lady, which was of old time one Mistress
_Dulcibel Fenton_, of far kin unto my Lady _Norris_, that was _Mother's_
mistress of old days at _Minster Lovel_: and moreover, one Mistress
_Martin_, a widow that is sister unto Sir _Robert_, and was _Mother's_
fellow when she served my dear-worthy Lady of _Surrey_. So _Father_
saith he would ride o'er himself to _Ambleside_, and give them better
welcome than to send but a letter back: and _Mother_ did desire her most
loving commendations unto them all, and bade us all be hasteful and help
to make ready the guest-chambers. So right busy were we all the morrow,
and no time for no tales of no sort: but in the afternoon, when all was
done, Aunt _Joyce_ had us three up into her chamber, and bade us sit and
listen.
"For it is a sorrowful story I have to tell," saith she: and added, as
though she spake to herself,--"ay, and it were best got o'er ere
_Dulcie_ cometh."
So we sat all in the window-seat, _Milly_ in the midst, and Aunt _Joyce_
afore us in a great cushioned chair.
"When I was of your years, _Milly_," saith she, "I dwelt--where I now do
at _Minster Lovel_, with my father and my sister _Anstace_. Our mother
was dead, and our baby brother _Walter_; and of us there had never been
more. But we had two cousins--one _Aubrey Louvaine_, the son of our
mother's sister,--you wot who he is," she saith, and smiled: "and the
other, the son of our father's sister dwelt at _Oxford_ with his mother,
a widow, and his name was--_Leonard Norris_."
The name was so long a-coming that I marvelled if she meant to tell us.
"I do not desire to make my tale longer than need is, dear hearts,"
pursueth she, "and therefore I will but tell you that in course of time,
with assent of my father and his mother, my cousin _Leonard_ and I were
troth-plight. I loved him, methinks, as well as it was in woman to love
man: and--I thought he loved me. I never knew a man who had such a
tongue to cajole a woman's heart. He could talk in such a fashion that
thou shouldst feel perfectly assured that he loved thee with all his
heart, and none but thee: and ere the sun had set, he should have given
the very same certainty to _Nan_ at the farm, and to _Mall_ down in the
glen. I believe he did rarely make love to so little as one woman at
once. He liked--he once told your father so much--a choice of strings
for his bow. But of all this, at first, lost in my happy love, I knew
nothing. My love to him was so true and perfect, that the very notion
that his could be lesser than so never entered mine head. It was
_Anstace_ who saw the clouds gathering before any other--_Anstace_, to
whom, in her helpless suffering, God gave a strange power of reading
hearts. There came a strange maiden on the scene--a beautiful maiden,
with fair eyes and gleaming hair--and _Leonard's_ heart was gone from me
for ever. Gone!--had it ever come? I cannot tell. May-be some little
corner of his heart was mine, once on a time--I doubt if I had more. He
had every corner and every throb of mine. Howbeit, when this maid--"
"How was she called, Aunt _Joyce_?" saith _Milly_, in rather an hard
voice.
Aunt _Joyce_ did not make answer for a moment: and, looking up on her, I
saw drawn brows and flushed cheeks.
"Never mind that, _Milly_. I shall call her _Mary_. It was not her
name. Well, when this maid first came to visit us, and I brought her
above to my sister, that as ye know might never arise from the couch
whereon she lay--I something marvelled to see how quick from her face to
mine went _Anstace'_ eyes, and back again to her. I knew, long after,
what had been her thought. She had no faith in _Leonard_, and she
guessed quick enough that this face should draw him away from me. She
tried to prepare me as she saw it coming. But I was blind and deaf. I
shut mine eyes tight, and put my fingers in mine ears. I would not face
the cruel truth. For _Mary_ herself, I am well assured she meant me no
ill, nor did she see that any ill was wrought till all were o'er. She
did but divert her with _Leonard's_ words, caring less for him than for
them. She was vain, and loved flatteries, and he saw it, and gave her
them by the bushel. She was a child laking with a firebrand, and never
knew what it were until she burnt her fingers. And at last, maids, mine
eyes were forced open. _Leonard_ himself told me, and in so many words,
what I had refused to hear from others,--that he loved well enough the
gold that was like to be mine, but he did not love me. There were
bitter words on both sides, but mine were bitterest. And so, at last,
we parted. I could show you the flag on which he stood when I saw his
face for the last time--the last, until I saw it yester-morrow. Others
had seen him, and knew him not, through the changes of years. Even your
father did not know him, though they had been bred up well-nigh as
brothers. But mine eyes were sharper. I had not borne that face in
mine heart, and seen it in my dreams, for all these years, that I should
look on him and not know it. I knew the look in his eyes, the poise of
his head, the smile on his lips, too well--too well! I reckon that
between that day and this, a thousand women may have had that smile upon
them. But I thought of the day when I had it--when it was the one light
of life to me--for I had not then beheld the Light of the World.
_Milly_, didst thou think me cruel yester-morrow?--cold, and hard, and
stern? Ah, men do think a woman so,--and women at times likewise--think
her words hard, when she has to crush her heart down ere she can speak
any word at all--think her eyes icy cold, when behind them are a storm
of passionate tears that must not be shed then, and she has to keep the
key hard turned lest they burst the door open. Ah, young maids, you
look upon me as who should say, that I am an old woman from whom such
words are strange to you. They be fit only for a young lass's lips,
forsooth? Childre, you wis not yet that the hot love of youth is nought
to be compared to the yearning love of age,--that the maid that loveth a
man whom she first met a month since cannot bear the rushlight unto her
that has shrined him in her heart for thirty years."
Aunt _Joyce_ tarried a moment, and drew a long breath. Then she saith
in a voice that was calmer and lower--
"_Anstace_ told me I loved not the _Leonard_ that was, but only he that
should have been. But I have prayed God day and night, and I will go on
yet praying, that the man of my love may be the _Leonard_ that yet shall
be,--that some day he may turn back to God and me, and remember the true
heart that poured all that love upon him. If it be so, let the Lord
order how, and where, and when. For if I may know that it is, when I
come into His presence above, I can finish my journey here without the
knowledge."
"But it were better to know it, Aunt _Joyce_?" saith _Helen_ tenderly.
Methinks the tale had stirred her heart very much.
"It were happier, _Nelly_," quoth Aunt _Joyce_ softly. "God knoweth
whether it were best. If it be so, He will give it me.--And now is the
hardest part of my tale to tell. For after a while, _Milly_,
this--_Mary_--came to see what _Leonard_ meant, and methinks she came
about the same time to the certainty that she loved one who was not
_Leonard_. When he had parted from me he sought her, and there was much
bitterness betwixt them. At the last she utterly denied him, and shut
the door betwixt him and her: for the which he never forgave her, but at
a later time, when in the persecutions under King _Henry_ she came into
his power, he used her as cruelly as he might then dare to go. I
reckon, had it been under _Queen Mary_, he should have been content with
nought less than her blood. But it pleased the good Lord to deliver
her, he getting him entangled in some briars of politics that you should
little care to hear: and so when she was freed forth of prison, he was
shut up therein."
"Then, Aunt _Joyce_, is he a _Papist_?" saith _Helen_, of a startled
fashion.
"Ay, _Nell_, he is a black _Papist_. When we all came forth of
_Babylon_, he tarried therein."
"And what came of her you called _Mary_, if it please you, _Aunt_?"
quoth I.
"She was wed to one that dwelt at a distance from those parts, _Edith_,"
saith Aunt _Joyce_, in the constrained tone wherein she had begun her
story. "And sithence then have I heard at times of _Leonard_, though
never meeting him,--but alway as of one that was journeying from bad to
worse--winning hearts and then breaking them. Since Queen _Elizabeth_
came in, howbeit, heard I never word of him at all: and I knew not if he
were in life or no, till I set eyes on his face yesterday."