Clare Avery Part 33

Open doors were kept at the parsonage, as was generally the case in Elizabethan days. It was therefore no surprise to Mrs Tremayne, who was occupied in the kitchen, with her one servant Alison acting under her orders, to hear a smart rap on the door which shut off the kitchen from the hall.

"Come within!" she called in answer, expecting some paris.h.i.+oner in want of advice or alms.

But in marched an upright, brisk old lady, with silver hair, and a stout staff in her hand.

"I am come to see Thekla Rose," said she.

Mrs Tremayne was surprised now. It was thirty years since that name had belonged to her.

"And Thekla Rose has forgot me," added the visitor.

"There is a difference betwixt forgetting and not knowing," replied Mrs Tremayne with a smile.

"There is so," returned the old lady. "Therefore to make me known, which I see I am not,--my name is Philippa Ba.s.set."

The exclamation of delighted recognition which broke from the Rector's wife must have shown Philippa that she was by no means forgotten. Mrs Tremayne took her visitor into the parlour, just then unoccupied,-- seated her in a comfortable cus.h.i.+oned chair, and, leaving Alison to bake or burn the cakes and pie in the oven as she found it convenient, had thenceforward no eyes and ears but for Philippa Ba.s.set. Certainly the latter had no cause to doubt herself welcome.

"I spake truth, Thekla, child, when I said I was come to see thee. Yet it was but the half of truth, for I am come likewise to see Robin: and I would fain acquaint me with yonder childre. Be they now within doors?"

"They be not all forth, or I mistake," said Mrs Tremayne; and she went to the door and called them--all four in turn. Blanche answered from the head of the stairs, but avowed herself ignorant of the whereabouts of any one else; and Mrs Tremayne begged her to look for and bring such as she could find to the parlour, to see an old friend of Clare's family.

In a few minutes Blanche and Lysken presented themselves. Arthur and Clare were not to be found. Philippa's keen, quick eyes surveyed the two girls as they entered, and mentally took stock of both.

"A vain, giddy goose!" was her rapid estimate of Blanche; wherein, if she did Blanche a little injustice, there was some element of truth.

"Calm and deep, like a river," she said to herself of Lysken: and there she judged rightly enough.

Before any conversation beyond the mere introductions could occur, in trotted Mrs Rose.

"Mistress Philippa, you be the fairest ointment for the eyen that I have seen these many days!" said the lively little Flemish lady. "_Ma foi_!

I do feel myself run back, the half of my life, but to look on you. I am a young woman once again."

"Old friend, we be both of us aged women," said Philippa.

"And it is true!" said Mrs Rose. "That will say, the joints be stiff, and the legs be weakened, and the fatigue is more and quicker: but I find not that thing within me, that men call my soul, to grow stiff nor weak. I laugh, I weep, I am astonied,--just all same as fifty years since. See you?"

"Ah! you have kept much of the childly heart," answered Philippa smiling. "But for me, the main thing with me that is not stiff nor weak in me is anger and grief. Men be such flat fools--and women worser, if worse can be."

Blanche opened her eyes in amazement Lysken looked amused.

"Ah, good Mistress Philippa, I am one of the fools," said Mrs Rose with great simplicity. "I alway have so been."

"Nay, _flog_ me with a discipline if you are!" returned Philippa heartily. "I meant not you, old friend. You are not by one-tenth part so much as--" Her eye fell on Blanche. "Come, I name none.--And thou art Frank Avery's daughter?" she added, turning suddenly to Lysken.

"Come hither, Frances, and leave me look on thee."

"My name is not Frances, good Mistress," replied Lysken, coming forward with a smile.

"Isoult, then? It should be one or the other."

"Nay--it is Elizabeth," said Lysken, with a shake of her head.

"More shame for thee," retorted Philippa jokingly. "What business had any to call thee Elizabeth?"

"My father's mother was Lysken Klaas."

"Good.--Well, Thekla, I have looked this face o'er, and I can read no Avery therein."

"'Tis all deep down in the heart," said Mrs Tremayne.

"The best place for it," replied Philippa. "Thou wilt do, child, as methinks. I would say it were easier to break thy heart than to beguile thy conscience. A right good thing--for the conscience. Is this Clare?" she asked, breaking off suddenly as Clare came in, with a tone which showed that she felt most interest in her of the three. She took both Clare's hands and studied her face intently.

"Walter's eyes," she said. "Isoult Barry's eyes! The maid could have none better. And John Avery's mouth. Truth and love in the eyes; honour and good learning on the lips. Thou wilt do, child, and that rarely well."

"Mistress Philippa Ba.s.set is a right old friend of thy dear grandame, Clare," said Mrs Tremayne in explanation. "Thou canst not remember her, but this worthy gentlewoman doth well so, and can tell thee much of her when they were young maids together, and thy grandmother was gentlewoman unto Mistress Philippa her mother, my sometime Lady Viscountess Lisle."

Clare looked interested, but she did not say much.

Mr Tremayne and Arthur came in together, only just in time for four-hours.

"G.o.d save thee, Robin dear!" was Philippa's greeting. "Art rested from Little Ease? I saw thee but slightly sithence, mind thou, and never had no good talk with thee."

Mr Tremayne laughed more merrily than was usual with him.

"Good Mistress Philippa, if thirty years were not enough to rest a man, in very deed he were sore aweary."

"Now, Arthur," said Philippa, turning to him bluntly, "come and let me look thee o'er."

Arthur obeyed, with grave lips, but amused eyes.

"Robin's eyes--Thekla's mouth--Father Rose's brow--Custance Tremayne's chin," she said, enumerating them rapidly. "If the inward answer the outward, lad, thou shouldst be a rare good one."

"Then I fear it doth not so," said Arthur soberly, "Humbleness will do thee no hurt, lad.--Now, Thekla, let us have our four-hours. I could eat a baken brick wall. Ay me! dost mind thee of the junkets, in old days, at the Lamb?"

"Thekla, I told thee afore, and I do it yet again,--women be flat fools.

The biggest I know is Orige Enville. And in good sooth, that is much to say! She is past old Doll, at Crowe, that threw her kerchief over the candle to put it out. Blanche may be a step the better; methinks she is. But for all that, she is Orige Enville's daughter. I would as soon fetch my bodkin and pierce that child to the heart, as I would send her to the Court, where her blind bat of a mother would fain have her.

'Twere the kindlier deed of the twain. Lack-a-daisy! she would make s.h.i.+pwreck of life and soul in a month. Well, for Clare, then--I give thee to wit, Thekla, thou art that child's mother. Orige is not. She never was worth her salt. And she never will be. So the sooner thou win the maid hither, the better for her."

"She doth abide hither, Mistress Philippa, even now."

"Tush, child! I mean the sooner she weds with Arthur."

"Weds with Arthur!"

It was manifest that the idea had never entered Mrs Tremayne's head until Philippa put it there.

"Prithee, wherefore no?" demanded the old lady coolly. "Orige means it.

Mercy on us, Thekla Rose! art thou gone wood?"

"Mrs Philippa! Who e'er told you my Lady Enville meant any such thing?"