Clare Avery Part 52

"Oh no!--so he come not anear Blanche."

"Wilt hold him off with the fire-fork?"

"Sir Thomas, I do beseech you, consider this matter in sober sadness.

Only think, if Blanche were to take in hand any fantasy for him, after his saving of her!"

"Well, Orige--what if so?"

"I cannot bring you to a right mind, Sir Thomas!" said his wife pettishly. "Blanche,--our fairest bud and last!--to be cast away on a poor parson--she who might wed with a prince, and do him no disgrace!

It were horrible!"

"Were it?" was the dry response.

"I tell you," said Lady Enville, sitting up in her chair--always with her a mark of agitation--"I would as soon see the child in her coffin!"

"Hush, Orige, hush thee!" replied her husband, very seriously now.

"It were as little grief, Sir Thomas! I would not for the world--nay, not for the whole world--that Blanche should be thus lost. Why, she might as well wed a fisherman at once!"

"Well, the first Christian parsons were fishermen; and I dare be bound they made not ill husbands. Yet methinks, Orige, if thou keptest thy grief until the matter came to pa.s.s, it were less waste of power than so."

"'Forewarned is forearmed,' Sir Thomas. And I am marvellous afeared lest you should be a fool."

"Marry guep!" [probably a corruption of _go up_] e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Rachel, coming in. "'Satan rebuketh sin,' I have heard say, but I ne'er listed him do it afore."

After all, Lady Enville proved a true prophet. Mr John Feversham was so obtuse, so unreasonable, so unpardonably preposterous, as to imagine it possible that Blanche Enville might yet marry him, though he had the prospect of a curacy, and had not the prospect of Feversham Hall.

"I told you, Sir Thomas!" said the prophetess, in the tone with which she might have greeted an earthquake. "Oh that you had listed me, and gat him away hence ere more mischief were done!"

"I see no mischief done, Orige," replied her husband quietly. "We will call the child, and see what she saith."

"I do beseech you, Sir Thomas, commit not this folly! Give your own answer, and let it be, Nay. Why, Blanche may be no wiser than to say him ay."

"She no may," [she may not] said Sir Thomas dryly.

But he was determined to tell her, despite the earnest protestations of his wife, who dimly suspected that Blanche's opinion of John was not what it had been, and was afraid that she would be so wanting in worldly wisdom as to accept his offer. Lady Enville took her usual resource--an injured tone and a handkerchief--while Sir Thomas sent for Blanche.

Blanche, put on her trial, faltered--coloured--and, to her mother's deep disgust, pleaded guilty of loving John Feversham at last. Lady Enville shed some real tears over the demoralisation of her daughter's taste.

"There is no manner of likeness, Blanche, betwixt this creature and Don John," she urged.

"Ay, mother, there is _no_ likeness," said Blanche calmly.

"I thank Heaven for that mercy!" muttered Rachel.

"Likeness!" repeated Sir Thomas. "Jack Feversham is worth fifty Don Johns."

"Dear heart! how is the child changed for the worser!" sobbed her disappointed mother, who saw the coronet and fortune, on which she had long set her heart for Blanche, fading away like a dissolving view.

"Orige, be not a fool!" growled Rachel suddenly. "But, dear heart! I am a fool to ask thee."

There was a family tempest. But at last the minority succ.u.mbed; and Blanche became the betrothed of John Feversham.

From the day of Jack's departure from Enville Court with Gertrude, Sir Thomas never heard another word of his debts. Whether Jack paid them, or compounded for them, or let them alone, or how the matter was settled, remained unknown at Enville Court. They only heard the most flourishing accounts of everything connected with Jack and Gertrude.

They were always well; Jack was always prospering, and on the point of promotion to a higher step of the social ladder. Sir Thomas declared drily, that his only wonder was that Jack was not a duke by this time, considering how many steps he must have advanced. But Lady Gertrude never paid another visit to Enville Court; and n.o.body regretted it except Jack's step-mother. Jack's own visits were few, and made at long intervals. His language was always magniloquent and sanguine: but he grew more and more reserved about his private affairs, he aged fast, and his hair was grey at a time of life when his father's had been without a silver thread. Sir Thomas was by no means satisfied with his son's career: but Jack suavely evaded all inquiries, and he came to the sorrowful conclusion that nothing could be done except to pray for him.

It was late in the autumn, and the evening of Blanche's departure from home after her marriage. John Feversham's clerical labours were to lie in the north of Cheshire, so Blanche would not be far away, and might be expected to visit at the Court more frequently than Lucrece or Jack. By the bride's especial request, the whole family from the parsonage were present at the ceremony, and Lysken was one of the bridesmaids.

The guests had been dancing in the hall; they were now resting, standing or sitting in small groups, and conversing,--when Clare stole out of the garden-door, and made her way to the arbour.

She could not exactly tell why she felt so sad. Of course, she was sorry to lose Blanche. Such an occasion did not seem to Clare at all proper for mirth and feasting: on the contrary, it felt the thing next saddest to a funeral. They would see Blanche now and then, no doubt; but she was lost to them on the whole: she would never again be, what she had always been till now, one of themselves, an integral part of the home. And they were growing fewer; only four left now, where there had once been a household of eight. And Clare felt a little of the sadness--felt much more deeply by some than others--of being, though loved by several, yet first with none. Well, G.o.d had fixed her lot: and it was a good one, she whispered to herself, as if to repel the sadness gathering at her heart--it was a good one. She would always live at home; she would grow old, ministering to father and mother and aunt-- wanted and looked for by all three; not useless--far from it. And that was a great deal. What if the Lord had not thought her meet for work in His outer vineyard?--was not this little home-corner in His vineyard still?--She was not a foundation-stone, not a cornice, not a pillar, in the Church of G.o.d. Nay, she thought herself not even one of the stones in the wall: only a bit of mortar, filling up a crevice. But the bit of mortar was wanted, and was in its right place, because the Builder had put it there. That was a great deal--oh yes, it was everything.

"And yet," said Clare's heart,--"and yet!--"

For this was not an unlabelled sorrow. Arthur Tremayne's name was written all over it. And Clare had to keep her heart stayed on two pa.s.sages of Scripture, which she took as specially for her and those in her position. It is true, they were written of men: but did not the grammar say that the masculine included the feminine? If so, what right had any one to suppose (as Lady Enville had once said flippantly) that "there were no promises in the Bible to old maids?"

Were there not these glorious two?--the one promise of the Old Covenant, the one promise of the New.

"Even unto them will I give in Mine house and within My walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters; I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off." [Isaiah sixteen verse 5.]

"These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. These were redeemed from among men, being the first-fruits unto G.o.d and to the Lamb. And in their mouth was found no guile; for they are without fault before the throne of G.o.d." [Revelations fourteen verses 4, 5.]

So Clare was content. Yet it was a sorrowful sort of content, after all--for Clare was human, too.

She was absently pulling off some dead leaves from the arbour, and the sudden jump which she gave showed how much she was startled.

"May I come in, Clare?" asked a voice at the entrance.

"Oh, ay--come in," said Clare, in a flutter, and trembling all over.

"I did not mean to fright you," said Arthur, with a smile, as he came inside and sat down. "I desired speech of you, on a matter whereof I could not well touch save in private. Clare,--may I speak,--dear Clare?"

But of course, dear reader, you know all about it.

So Clare was first with somebody, after all.

Note 1. A price which, about sixty years before, a vice-queen had thought sufficient in presenting a new year's gift to Queen Anne Boleyn.

John Husee writes to his mistress, Honour Viscountess Lisle, in 1534, that he has obtained the kersey for her gift to the Queen, eleven and a quarter yards at 5 shillings the yard, "very fine and very white."

(Lisle Papers, twelve 90.) A few weeks later he writes, "The Queen's grace liketh your kersey specially well." (Lisle Papers, eleven 112.)

Note 2. The disuse of this custom in England really dates from a rather later period. 'Sister' has somewhat resumed its position, but 'Daughter' and 'Niece,' in the vocative, are never heard amongst us now.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.