Clare Avery Part 51

"Good lack! 'tis the first time I heard ever a woman--without she were a black Papist--pray G.o.d defend her from reading of His Word. Well, Niece, may be He will hear you. Howbeit, 'tis writ yonder that a meek spirit and a quiet is of much worth in His sight. I count you left that behind at Chester, with Audrey and the two gowns that lack?" [That are wanting.]

"I would you did not call me Niece!" responded Gertrude in a querulous tone. "'Tis too-too [exceedingly] ancient. No parties of any sort do now call as of old [Note 2],--'Sister,' or 'Daughter,' or 'Niece'."

"Dear heart! Pray you, what would your Ladys.h.i.+p by your good-will be called?"

"Oh, Gertrude, for sure. 'Tis a decent name--not an ugsome [ugly]

old-fas.h.i.+oned, such as be Margaret, or Cicely, or Anne."

"'Tis not old-fas.h.i.+oned, in good sooth," said Rachel satirically; "I ne'er heard it afore, nor know I from what tongue it cometh. Then--as I pick out of your talk--decent things be new-fangled?"

"I want no mouldy old stuff!--There! Put the yellow silk on the lowest shelf."

"'Tis old-fas.h.i.+oned, I warrant you, to say to your sister, 'An' it please you'?"

"And the murrey right above.--Oh, stuff!"

The first half of the sentence was for Clare; the second for Rachel.

"'Tis not ill stuff, Niece," said the latter coolly, as she left the room.

"And what thinkest of Gertrude?" inquired Sir Thomas of his sister, when she rejoined him and Lady Enville.

"Marry!" said Rachel in her dryest manner, "I think the goods be mighty dear at the price."

"I count," returned her brother, "that when Gertrude's gowns be paid for, there shall not be much left over for Jack's debts."

"Dear heart! you should have thought so, had you been above but now. To see her Grace (for she carrieth her like a queen) a-counting of her gowns, and a-cursing of her poor maid Audrey that two were left behind, when seventeen be yet in her coffers!"

"Seventeen!" repeated the Squire, in whose eyes that number was enough to stock any reasonable woman for at least half her life.

"Go to--seventeen!" echoed Rachel.

"Well-a-day! What can the la.s.s do with them all?" wondered Sir Thomas.

"Dear hearts! Ye would not see an earl's daughter low and mean?"

interposed Lady Enville.

"If this Gertrude be not so, Orige,--at the least in her heart,--then is Jennet a false speaker, and mine ears have bewrayed me, belike.

Methinks a woman of good breeding might leave swearing and foul talk to the men, and be none the worse for the same: nor see I good cause wherefore she should order her sisters like so many Barbary slaves."

"Ay so!--that marketh her high degree," said Lady Enville.

"I wis not, Orige, how Gertrude gat her degree, nor her father afore her," answered Rachel: "but this I will tell thee--that if one of the 'beggarly craftsmen' that Jack loveth to snort at, should allow him, before me, in such talk as I have heard of her, I would call on Sim to put him forth with no more ado. Take my word for it, she cometh of no old nor honourable stock, but is of low degree in very truth, if the truth were known."

Rachel's instinct was right. Lady Gertrude's father was a _parvenu_, of very mean extraction. Her great-uncle had made the family fortune, partly in trade, but mostly by petty peculations; and her father, who had attracted the Queen's eye when a young lawyer, had been rapidly promoted through the minor grades of n.o.bility, until he had reached his present standing. Gertrude was not n.o.ble in respect of anything but her t.i.tle.

Lady Enville, with a smile which was half amus.e.m.e.nt and half contempt, rose and retired to her boudoir. Sir Thomas and Rachel sat still by the hall fire, both deeply meditating: the former with his head thrown back, gazing--without seeing them--at the s.h.i.+elds painted on the ceiling; while the latter leaned forward towards the fire, resting her chin on both hands.

"What saidst, Tom?" asked Rachel in a dreamy voice.

"I spake not to know it, good Sister: but have what I said, an' thou so wilt. I was thinking on that word of Paul--'Not many n.o.ble are called.'

I thought, Rachel, how far it were better to be amongst the called of G.o.d, than to be of the n.o.ble."

"'Tis not the first, time that I have thanked the Lord I am not n.o.ble,"

said Rachel without changing her att.i.tude. "'Tis some comfort to know me not so high up that any shall be like to take thought to cut my head off. And if Gertrude be n.o.ble--not to say"--Rachel's voice died away.

"Tom," she said in a moment later, "we have made some blunders in our lives, thou and I."

"I have, dear Rachel," said Sir Thomas sighing: "what thine may be I wis not."

"G.o.d knoweth!" she replied in a low voice. "And I know of one--the grandest of all blunders. Thou settedst out for Heaven these few months gone, Tom. May be thou shalt find more company on the road than thou wert looking for."

"Dear Rachel!"

"Clare must be metely well on by this time," she continued in the dry tone with which she often veiled her deepest feelings, "and Blanche is tripping in at the gate, or I mistake. I would not by my goodwill have thee lonely in the road, Tom: and I suppose--there shall be room for more than two a-breast, no' will?" [Will there not?]

During all this time, the once close intercourse between the Court and the parsonage had been somewhat broken off. Arthur had never been in the Squire's house since the day when Lucrece jilted him; and Clare was shy of showing herself in his vicinity. Blanche visited Mrs Tremayne occasionally, and sometimes Lysken paid a return visit; but very much less was seen of all than in old times. When, therefore, it became known at Enville Court that Arthur had received holy orders at the Bishop's last ordination, the whole family as it were woke with a start to the recollection that Arthur had almost pa.s.sed out of their sphere.

He was to be his father's curate for the present--the future was doubtful; but in an age when there were more livings than clergy to fill them, no difficulty need be expected in the way of obtaining promotion.

Just after Jack and Gertrude had returned to London (to the great relief of every one, themselves not excepted), in his usual unannounced style, Mr John Feversham made his appearance at Enville Court. Blanche greeted him with a deep blush, for she felt ashamed of her former unworthy estimate of his character. John brought one interesting piece of news--that his uncle and aunt were well, and Lucrece was now the mother of a little boy.

Lady Enville looked up quickly. Then John was no longer the heir of Feversham Hall. It might therefore be necessary--if he yet had any foolish hopes--to put an extinguisher upon him. She rapidly decided that she must issue private instructions to Sir Thomas. That gentleman, she said to herself, really was so foolish--particularly of late, since he had fallen into the pit of Puritanism--that if she did not look sharply after him, he might actually dream of resigning his last and fairest daughter to a penniless and prospectless suitor. If any such idea existed in the mind of Sir Thomas, of John Feversham, or of Blanche,--and since John had saved Blanche's life, it was not at all unlikely,--it must be nipped in the bud.

Accordingly, on the first opportunity, Lady Enville began.

"Of course you see now, Sir Thomas, how ill a match Master John Feversham should have been for Blanche."

"Wherefore?" was the short answer.

"Sith he is no longer the heir." [Sith and since are both contractions of sithence.]

"Oh!--ah!" said Sir Thomas, as unpromisingly as before.

"Why, surely you would ne'er dream of so monstrous a thing?"

Sir Thomas, who had been looking out of the window, came across to the fire, and took up the master's position before it--standing just in the middle of the hearth with his back to the fire.

"Better wait, Orige, and see whereof John and Blanche be dreaming," said he calmly.

"What reckoneth he to do now, meet for livelihood?"

It would be difficult to estimate the number of degrees by which poor John had fallen in her Ladys.h.i.+p's thermometer, since he had ceased to be the expected heir of Feversham Hall.

"He looketh," said Sir Thomas absently, as if he were thinking of something else, "to receive--if G.o.d's good pleasure be--holy orders."

"A parson!" shrieked Lady Enville, in her languid style.

"A parson, Orige. Hast aught against the same?"