A Forgotten Hero Part 14

truly, they be rare fun for us old ones. They think they've gotten all the wisdom that ever dwelt in King Solomon's head, and we may stand aside and doff our caps to them. Good lack!--but this world is a queer place, and a merry!"

Clarice thought she had not found it a merry locality by any means.

"And what ails thee at thy knight, child? He is as well-favoured and tall of his hands as e'er a one. Trust me, but I liked him well, and so said thy father. He is a pleasant fellow, no less than a comely. What ails thee at him?"

"Dame, I cannot feel to trust him."

"Give o'er with thy nonsense! Thou mayest trust him as well as another man. They are all alike. They want their own way, and to please themselves, and if they've gotten a bit of time and thought o'er they'll maybe please thee at after. That's the way of the world, child. If thou art one of those silly la.s.ses that look for a man who shall never let his eyes rove from thee, nor never make no love to n.o.body else, why, thou mayest have thy search for thy pains. Thou art little like to catch that lark afore the sky falls."

Clarice thought that lark had been caught for her, and had been torn from her.

"And what matter?" continued Dame La Theyn. "If a man likes his wife the best, and treats her reasonable kind, as the most do--and I make no doubt thine shall--why should he not have his little pleasures? Thou canst do a bit on thine own account. But mind thou, keep on the windward side o' decency. 'Tis no good committing o' mortal sin, and a deal o' trouble to get shriven for it. Mind thy ways afore the world!

And let not thy knight get angered with thee, no more. But I'll tell thee, Clarice, thou wilt anger him afore long, to carry thyself thus towards him. Of course a man knows he must put up with a bit of perversity and bashfulness when he is first wed; because he can guess reasonable well that the maid might not have chose him her own self.

But it does not do to keep it up. Thou must mind thy ways, child."

Clarice was almost holding her breath. Whether horror or disgust were the feeling uppermost in her mind, she would have found difficult to tell. Was this her mother, who gave her such counsel? And were all women like that? _One_ other distinct idea was left to her--that there was an additional reason for dying--to get out of it all.

"Thou art but a simple la.s.s, I can see," reflectively added Dame La Theyn. "Thou hast right the young la.s.s's notions touching truth, and faith, and constancy, and such like. All a parcel of moonshine, child!

There is no such thing, not in this world. Some folks be a bit worse than others, but that's all. I dare reckon thy knight is one of the better end. At any rate, thou wilt find it comfortable to think so."

Clarice was inwardly convinced that Vivian belonged to the scrag end, so far as character went.

"That's the true way to get through the world, child. Shut thy eyes to whatever thou wouldst not like to see. n.o.body'll admire thee more for having red rims to 'em. And, dear heart, where's the good? 'Tis none but fools break their hearts. Wise folks jog on jollily. And if there's somewhat to forgive on the one side, why, there'll be somewhat on the other. Thou art not an angel--don't fancy it. And if he isn't neither--"

Of that fact Clarice felt superlatively convinced.

"The best way is not to expect it of him, and thou wilt be the less disappointed. So get out thy ribbons and busk thee, and let's have no more tears shed. There's been a quart too much already."

A slight movement of nervous impatience was the sole reply.

"Eh, Clarice? Ne'er a word, trow?"

Then she turned round a wan, set, distressed face, with fervent determination glowing in the eyes.

"Mother! I would rather die, and be out of it!"

"Be out of what, quotha?" demanded Dame La Theyn, in astonished tones.

"This world," said Clarice, through her set teeth. "This hard, cold, cruel, miserable, wicked world. Is there only one of two lives before me--either to harden into stone and crush other hearts, or to be crushed by the others that have got hard before me? Oh, Mother, Mother! is there nothing in the world for a woman but _that_?--G.o.d, let me die before I come to either!"

"Deary, deary, deary me!" seemed to be all that Dame La Theyn felt herself capable of saying.

"A few weeks ago," Clarice went on, "before--_this_, there was a higher and better view of life given to me. One that would make _one's_ crushed heart grow softer, and not harder; that was upward and not downward; that led to Heaven and G.o.d, not to h.e.l.l and Satan. There is no hope for me in this life but the hope of Heaven. For pity's sake let me keep that! If every other human creature is going down--you seem to think so--let me go higher, not lower. Because my life has been spoiled for me, shall I deliberately poison my own soul? May G.o.d forbid it me!

If I am to spend my life with demons, let my spirit live with G.o.d."

The feelings of Dame La Theyn, on hearing this speech from Clarice, were not capable of expression in words.

In her eyes, as in those of all Romanists, there were two lives which a man or woman could lead--the religious and the secular. To lead a religious life meant, as a matter of course, to go into the cloister.

Matrimony and piety were simply incompatible. Clarice was a married woman: _ergo_, she could not possibly be religious. Dame La Theyn's mind, to use one of her favourite expressions, was all of a jumble with these extraordinary ideas of which her daughter had unaccountably got hold. "What on earth is the child driving at? is she mad?" thought her mother.

"What dost thou mean, child?" inquired the extremely puzzled Dame.

"Thou canst not go into the cloister--thou art wed. Dear heart, but I never reckoned thou hadst any vocation! Thou shouldst have told thy lady."

"I do not want the cloister," said Clarice. "I want to do G.o.d's will.

I want to belong to G.o.d."

"Why, that is the same thing!" responded the still perplexed woman.

"The Lord Earl is not a monk," replied Clarice. "And I am sure he belongs to G.o.d, for he knows Him better than any priest that I ever saw."

"Child, child! Did I not tell thee, afore ever thou earnest into this house, that thy Lord was a man full of queer fancies, and all manner of strange things? Don't thee go and get notions into thine head, for mercy's sake! Thou must live either in the world or the cloister. Who ever heard of a wedded woman devote to religion? Thou canst not have both--'tis nonsense. Is that one of thy Lord's queer notions? Sure, these friars never taught thee so?"

"The friars never taught me anything. Father Bevis tried to help me, but he did not know how. My Lord was the only one who understood."

"Understood? Understood what?"

"Who understood me, and who understood G.o.d."

"Clarice, what manner of tongue art thou talking? 'Tis none I never learned."

No, for Clarice was beginning to lisp the language of Canaan, and "they that kept the fair were men of this world." What wonder if she and her thoroughly time-serving mother found it impossible to understand each other?

"I cannot make thee out, la.s.s. If thou wert aware afore thou wert wed that thou hadst a vocation, 'twas right wicked of thee not to tell thy confessor and thy mistress, both. But I cannot see how it well could, when thou wert all head o'er ears o' love with some gallant or other-- the saints know whom. I reckon it undecent, in very deed, Clarice, to meddle up a love-tale with matters of religion. I do wonder thou hast no more sense of fitness and decorum."

"It were a sad thing," said Clarice quietly, "if only irreligious people might love each other."

"Love each other! Dear heart, thy brains must be made o' forcemeat!

Thou hast got love, and religion, and living, and all manner o' things, jumbled up together in a pie. They've nought to do with each other, thou silly la.s.s."

"If religion has nought to do with living, Dame, under your good pleasure, what has it to do with?"

A query which Dame La Theyn found it as difficult to comprehend as to answer. In her eyes, religion was a thing to take to church on Sunday, and life was restricted to the periods when people were not in church.

When she laid up her Sunday gown in lavender, she put her religion in with it. Of course, nuns were religious every day, but n.o.body else ever thought of such an unreasonable thing. Clarice's new ideas, therefore, to her, were simply preposterous and irrational.

"Clarice!" she said, in tones of considerable surprise, "I do wonder what's come o'er thee! This is not the la.s.s I sent to Oakham. Have the fairies been and changed thee, or what on earth has happened to thee? I cannot make thee out!"

"I hardly know what has happened to me," was the answer, "but I think it is that I have gone nearer G.o.d. He ploughed up my heart with the furrow of bitter sorrow, and then He made it soft with the dew of His grace. I suppose the seed will come next. What that is I do not know yet. But my knowing does not matter if He knows."

The difference which Dame La Theyn failed to understand was the difference between life and death. The words of the Earl had been used as a seed of life, and the life was growing. It is the necessity of life to grow, and it is an impossibility that death should appreciate life.

"Well!" was the Dame's conclusion, delivered as she rose from the stone bench, in a perplexed and disappointed tone, "I reckon thou wilt be like to take thine own way, child, for I cannot make either head or tail of thy notions. Only I do hope thou wilt not set up to be unlike everybody else. Depend upon it, Clarice, a woman never comes to no good when she sets up to be better than her neighbours. It is bad enough in anybody, but 'tis worser in a woman than a man. I cannot tell who has stuck thy queer notions into thee--whether 'tis thy Lord, or thy lover, or who; but I would to all the saints he had let thee be. I liked thee a deal better afore, I can tell thee. I never had no fancy for philosophy and such."

"Mother," said Clarice softly, "I think it was G.o.d."

"Gently, child! No bad language, prithee." Dame La Theyn looked upon pious language as profanity when uttered in an unconsecrated place.

"But if it were the Almighty that put these notions into thy head, I pray He'll take 'em out again."

"I think not," quietly replied Clarice.