Part 24 (1/2)
”And he has not yet returned, then?” she asked. ”You have not seen him?”
The girl shook her fair locks, weeping with piteous little sobs.
”He has not,” she cried, ”and I know not what to do-and the great town seems full of evil men and wicked women. I know not which way to turn, for all plot wrong against me, and would drag me down to shamefulness-and back to my poor mother I cannot go.”
”Wherefore not, poor child?” my lady asked her.
”I have not been made an honest, wedded woman, and none would believe my story, and-and he might come back.”
”And if he came back?” said her ladys.h.i.+p.
At this question the girl slipped from her grasp and down upon her knees again, catching at her rich petticoat and holding it, her eyes searching the great lady's in imploring piteousness, her own streaming.
”I love him,” she wept-”I love him so-I cannot leave the place where he might be. He was so beautiful and grand a gentleman, and, sure, he loved me better than all else-and I cannot thrust away from me that last night when he held me to his breast near our cottage door, and the nightingale sang in the roses, and he spake such words to me. I lie and sob all night on my hard pillow-I so long to see him and to hear his voice-and hearing he had been with you that last morning, I dared to come, praying that you might have heard him let drop some word that would tell me where he may be, for I cannot go away thinking he may come back longing for me-and I lose him and never see his face again. Oh! my lady, my lady, this place is so full of wickedness and fierce people-and dark kennels where crimes are done. I am affrighted for him, thinking he may have been struck some blow, and murdered, and hid away; and none will look for him but one who loves him-who loves him. Could it be so?-could it be? You know the town's ways so well. I pray you, tell me-in G.o.d's name I pray you!”
”G.o.d's mercy!” Anne breathed, and from behind her hands came stifled sobbing. My Lady Dunstanwolde bent down, her colour dying.
”Nay, nay,” she said, ”there has been no murder done-none! Hush, poor thing, hush thee. There is somewhat I must tell thee.”
She tried to raise her, but the child would not be raised, and clung to her rich robe, shaking as she knelt gazing upward.
”It is a bitter thing,” my lady said, and 'twas as if her own eyes were imploring. ”G.o.d help you bear it-G.o.d help us all. He told me nothing of his journey. I knew not he was about to take it; but wheresoever he has travelled, 'twas best that he should go.”
”Nay! nay!” the girl cried out-”to leave me helpless. Nay! it could not be so. He loved me-loved me-as the great duke loves you!”
”He meant you evil,” said my lady, shuddering, ”and evil he would have done you. He was a villain-a villain who meant to trick you. Had G.o.d struck him dead that day, 'twould have been mercy to you. I knew him well.”
The young thing gave a bitter cry and fell swooning at her feet; and down upon her knees my lady went beside her, loosening her gown, and chafing her poor hands as though they two had been of sister blood.
”Call for hartshorn, Anne, and for water,” she said; ”she will come out of her swooning, poor child, and if she is cared for kindly in time her pain will pa.s.s away. G.o.d be thanked she knows no pain that cannot pa.s.s! I will protect her-aye, that will I, as I will protect all he hath done wrong to and deserted.”
She was so strangely kind through the poor victim's swoons and weeping that the very menials who were called to aid her went back to their hall wondering in their talk of the n.o.ble grandness of so great a lady, who on the very brink of her own joy could stoop to protect and comfort a creature so far beneath her, that to most ladies her sorrow and desertion would have been things which were too trivial to count; for 'twas guessed, and talked over with great freedom and much shrewdness, that this was a country victim of Sir John Oxon's, and he having deserted his creditors, was ready enough to desert his rustic beauty, finding her heavy on his hands.
Below stairs the men closing the entrance to the pa.s.sage with brick, having caught s.n.a.t.c.hes of the servants' gossip, talked of what they heard among themselves as they did their work.
”Ay, a n.o.ble lady indeed,” they said. ”For 'tis not a woman's way to be kindly with the cast-off fancy of a man, even when she does not want him herself. He was her own wors.h.i.+pper for many a day, Sir John; and before she took the old earl 'twas said that for a s.p.a.ce people believed she loved him. She was but fifteen and a high mettled beauty; and he as handsome as she, and had a blue eye that would melt any woman-but at sixteen he was a town rake, and such tricks as this one he hath played since he was a lad. 'Tis well indeed for this poor thing her ladys.h.i.+p hath seen her. She hath promised to protect her, and sends her down to Dunstanwolde with her mother this very week. Would all fine ladies were of her kind. To hear such things of her puts a man in the humour to do her work well.”
CHAPTER XX-A n.o.ble marriage
When the duke came back from France, and to pay his first eager visit to his bride that was to be, her ladys.h.i.+p's lacqueys led him not to the Panelled Parlour, but to a room which he had not entered before, it being one she had had the fancy to have remodelled and made into a beautiful closet for herself, her great wealth rendering it possible for her to accomplish changes without the loss of time the owners of limited purses are subjected to in the carrying out of plans. This room she had made as unlike the Panelled Parlour as two rooms would be unlike one another. Its panellings were white, its furnis.h.i.+ngs were bright and delicate, its draperies flowered with rosebuds tied in cl.u.s.ters with love-knots of pink and blue; it had a large bow-window, through which the sunlight streamed, and it was blooming with great rose-bowls overrunning with sweetness.
From a seat in the morning suns.h.i.+ne among the flowers and plants in the bow-window, there rose a tall figure in a snow-white robe-a figure like that of a beautiful stately girl who was half an angel. It was my lady, who came to him with blus.h.i.+ng cheeks and radiant s.h.i.+ning eyes, and was swept into his arms in such a pa.s.sion of love and blessed tenderness as Heaven might have smiled to see.
”My love! my love!” he breathed. ”My life! my life and soul!”
”My Gerald!” she cried. ”My Gerald-let me say it on your breast a thousand times!”