Constance Sherwood Part 41

"And now my faltering pen must needs transcribe the last letter I received from my beloved husband, for your heart, dear friend, is one with mine. You have known its sufferings through the many years evil influences robbed it of that love which, for brief intervals of happiness afterward and this long separation since, hath, by its steady and constant return, made so rich amends for the past. In these final words you shall find proofs of his excellent humility and notable affection for my unworthy self, which I doubt not, my dear instance, shall draw water from your eyes. Mine yield no moisture now.

Methinks these last griefs have exhausted in them the fountain of tears.

"'Mine own good wife, I must now in this world take my last farewell of you; and as I know no person living whom I have so much offended as yourself, so do I account this opportunity of asking your forgiveness as a singular benefit of Almighty G.o.d. And I most humbly and heartily beseech you, even for his sake and of your charity, to forgive me all whereinsoever I have offended you; and the a.s.surance I have of this your forgiveness is my greatest contentment at this present, and will be a greater, I doubt not, when my soul is ready to depart out of my body. I call G.o.d to witness it is no small grief unto me that I cannot make you recompense in this world for the wrongs I have done you. Affliction gives understanding. G.o.d, who knows my heart, and has seen my true sorrow in that behalf, has, I hope, of his infinite mercy, remitted all, I doubt not, as you have done in your singular charity, to mine infinite comfort.

"Now what remaineth but in a few brief sentences to relate how this loved husband spent his last hours, and the manner of his death? Those were for the most part spent in prayer; sometimes saying his beads, sometimes such psalms and prayers as he knew by heart. Seeing his servants (one of which hath been the narrator to me of these his final moments) stand by his bedside in the morning weeping in a mournful manner, he asked them 'what o'clock it was? they answering that it was eight or thereabout, 'Why, then,' said he, 'I have almost run out my course, and come to the end of this miserable mortal life,' desiring them not to weep for him, since he did not doubt, by the grace of G.o.d, but all would go well with him; which being said he returned to his prayers upon his beads again, though then with a very slow, hollow, and fainting voice; and so continued as long as he was able to draw so much breath as was sufficient to sound out the names of Jesus and Mary, which were the last words he was ever heard to speak. The last minute of his last hour being come, lying on his back, his eyes firmly fixed toward heaven, his long, lean, consumed arms out of the bed, his hands upon his breast, laid in cross one upon the other, about twelve o'clock at noon, in a most sweet manner, without any sign of grief or groan, only turning his head a little aside as one falling into a pleasing sleep, he surrendered his soul into the hands of G.o.d who to his own glory had created it. And she who writeth this letter, she who loved him since her most early years--who when he was estranged from her waited his return--who gloried in his virtues, doated on his perfections, endured his afflictions, and now lamenteth his death, hath nothing left but to live a widow; indeed with no other glory than that which she doth borrow from his merits, until such time as it shall please G.o.d to take her from this earth to a world where he hath found, she doth humbly hope, rest unto his soul."

The Countess of Arundel is now aged. The virtues which have crowned her mature years are such, as her youth did foreshadow. My pen would run on too fast if it took up that theme. This only will I add, and so conclude this too long piece of writing--she hath kept her constant resolve to live and die a widow. I have seen many times letters from both Protestants and Catholics which made unfeigned protestations that they were never so edified by any as by her. As the Holy Scriptures do say of that n.o.ble widow Judith, "Not one spoke an ill word of her,"

albeit these times are extremely malicious. For mine own part I never read those words of Holy Writ, "Who shall find a valiant woman?" and what doth follow, but I must needs think of Ann Dacre, the wife of Philip Howard, earl of Arundel and Surrey.

After the lapse of some years, it hath been my hap to have a sight of this ma.n.u.script, the reading of which, even as the writing of it in former days, doth cause me to live over again my past life. This lapse of time hath added nothing notable except the dreadful death of Hubert, my dear Basil's only brother, who suffered last year for the share he had, or leastways was judged to have, in the Gunpowder Plot and treason. Alas! he which once, to improve his fortunes, denied his faith, when fortune turned her back upon him grew into a virulent hatred of those in power, once his friends and tempters, and consorted with desperate men; whether he was privy to their counsels, or only familiar with them previous to their crimes, and so fell into suspicion of their guilt, G.o.d knoweth. It doth appear from some good reports that he died a true penitent. There is a better hope methinks for such as meet in this world with open shame and suffering than for secret sinners who go to their pompous graves unchastised and unabsolved.

By his brother's death Basil recovered his lands; for his present majesty hath some time since recalled the sentence of his banishment.

And many of his friends have moved him to return to England; but for more reasons than one he refused so much as to think of it, and has compounded his estate for 700, 8s. 6d.

Our children have now grown unto ripe years. Muriel (who would have been a nun if she had followed her G.o.dmother's example) is now married, to her own liking and our no small contentment, to a very commendable young gentleman, the son of Mr. Yates, and hath gone to reside with him at his seat in Worcestershire; and Ann, Lady Arundel's G.o.d-daughter, nothing will serve but to be a "holy Mary," as the French people do style those dames which that great and good prelate, M. de Geneve, hath a.s.sembled in a small hive at Annecy, like bees to gather honey of devotion in the garden of religion. This should seem a strange fancy, this order being so new in the Church, and the place so distant; but time will show if this should be G.o.d's will; and if so, then it must needs be ours also.

What liketh me most is that my son Roger doth prove the very image of his father, and the counterpart of him in his goodness. I am of opinion that nothing better can be desired for him than that he never lose so good a likeness.

And now farewell, pen and ink, mine old companions, for a brief moment resumed, but with a less steady hand than heretofore; now not to be again used except for such ordinary purposes as housewifery and friendship shall require.

[THE END]