Part 13 (2/2)
”So thou art become Dame Clarice?” said her father, jovially.
The smile died instantly from Clarice's lips. ”Yes,” she said, drearily.
”Where is thy knight, la.s.s?” demanded her mother.
”You will see him in hall,” replied Clarice. And when they went down to supper she presented Vivian in due form.
No one knew better than Vivian Barkeworth how to adapt himself to his company. He measured his bride's parents as accurately, in the first five minutes, as a draper would measure a yard of calico. It is not surprising if they were both delighted with him.
The Countess received her guests with careless condescension, the Earl with kind cordiality. Dame La Theyn was deeply interested in seeing both. But her chief aim was a long _tete-a-tete_ discourse with Clarice, which she obtained on the day following her arrival. The Countess, as usual, had gone to visit a shrine, and Clarice, being off duty, took her mother to the terrace, where they could chat undisturbed.
Some of us modern folks would rather shrink from sitting on an open terrace in February; but our forefathers were wonderfully independent of the weather, and seem to have been singularly callous in respect to heat and cold. Dame La Theyn made no objection to the airiness of her position, but settled herself comfortably in the corner of the stone bench, and prepared for her chat with much gusto.
”Well, child,” was the Dame's first remark, ”the good saints have ordered matters rarely for thee. I ventured not to look for such good fortune, not so soon as this. Trust me, but I was rejoiced when I read thy lady's letter, to hear that thou wert well wed unto a knight, and that she had found all the gear. I warrant thee, the gra.s.s grew not under my feet afore Dame Rouse, and Mistress Swetapple, and every woman of our neighbours, down to Joan Stick-i'-th'-Lane, knew the good luck that was come to thee.”
Clarice sat with her hands in her lap looking out on the river. Good luck! Could Dame La Theyn see no further than that!
”Why, la.s.s, what is come to thee?” demanded the Dame, when she found no response. ”Sure, thou art not ungrateful to thy lady for her care and goodness! That were a sin to be shriven for.”
Clarice turned her wan face towards her mother.
”Grateful!” she said. ”For what should I be thankful to her? Dame, she has torn me away from the only one in the world that I loved, and has forced me to wed a man whom I alike fear and hate. Do you think that matter for thankfulness, or does she!”
”Tut, tut!” said the Dame. ”Do not ruffle up thy feathers like a pigeon that has got bread-crumbs when he looked for corn! Why, child, 'tis but what all women have to put up with. We all have our calf-loves and bits of maidenly fancies, but who ever thought they were to rule the roast?
Sure, Clarice, thou hast more sense than so?”
”Dame, pardon me, but you understand not. This was no light love of mine--no pa.s.sing fancy that a newer one might have put out. It was the one hope and joy of my whole life. I had nothing else to live for.”
To Clarice's horror, the rejoinder to her rhetoric was what the Dame herself would have called ”a jolly laugh.”
”Dear, dear, how like all young maids be!” cried the mother. ”Just the very thought had I when my good knight my father sent away Master Pride, and told me I must needs wed with thy father, Sir Gilbert. That is twenty years gone this winter Clarice, and I swear to thee I thought mine heart was broke. Look on me now. Look I like a woman that had brake her heart o' love? I trow not, by my troth!”
No; certainly no one would have credited that rosy, comfortable matron with having broken her heart any number of years ago.
”And thou wilt see, too, when twenty years be over, Clarice, I warrant thee thou shalt look back and laugh at thine own folly. Deary me, child! Folks cannot weep for ever and the day after. Wait till thou art forty, and then see if thy trouble be as sore in thy mind then as now.”
Forty! Should she ever be forty? Clarice fondly hoped not. And would any lapse of years change the love which seemed to her interwoven with every fibre of her heart? That heart cried out and said, Impossible!
But Dame La Theyn heard no answer.
”When thou hast dwelt on middle earth [Note 1], child, as long as I have, thou wilt look on things more in proportion. There be other affairs in life than lovemaking. Women spend not all their days thinking of wooing, and men still less. I warrant thee thy lover, whoso he be, shall right soon comfort himself with some other damsel. Never suspect a man of constancy, child. They know not what the word means.”
Clarice's inner consciousness violently contradicted this sweeping statement. But she kept silence still.
”Ah, I see!” said her mother, laughing. ”Not a word dost thou credit me. I may as well save my breath to cool my porridge. Howsoe'er, Clarice, when thou hast come to forty years, if I am yet alive, let me hear thy thoughts thereupon. Long ere that time come, as sure as eggs be eggs, thou shalt be a-reading the same lesson to a la.s.s of thine, if it please G.o.d so to bless thee. And she'll not believe thee a word, any more than thou dost me. Eh, these young folks, these young folks!
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