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By What Authority?

CHAPTER XII A WINDING-UP The curtained windows on the ground-floor of the Dower House shone red from within as Isabel and Dr. Carrington, with three or four servants behind, rode round the curving drive in front late on the Monday evening. A face peeped from Mrs. Carroll's window as the horse's hoofs sounded on the gravel, and by the time that Isabel, pale, wet, and worn-out with her seventy miles' ride, was dismounted, Mistress Margaret herself was at the door, with Anthony's face at her shoulder, and Mrs. Carroll looking over the banisters. Isabel was not allowed to see her father's body that night, but after she was in bed, Lady Maxwell herself, who had been sent for when he lay dying, came down from the Hall, and told her what there was to tell; while Mistress Margaret and Anthony entertained Dr. Carrington below. "Dear child," said the old lady, leaning with her elbow on the bed, and holding the girl's hand tenderly as she talked, "it was all over in an hour or two. It was the heart, you know. Mrs. Carroll sent for me suddenly, on Saturday morning; and by the time I reached him he could not speak. They had carried him upstairs from his study, where they had found him; and laid him down on his bed, and—yes, yes—he was in pain, but he was conscious, and he was praying I think; his lips moved. And I knelt down by the bed and prayed aloud; he only spoke twice; and, my dear, it was your name the first time, and the name of His Saviour the second time. He looked at me, and I could see he was trying to speak; and then on a sudden he spoke 'Isabel.' And I think he was asking me to take care of you. And I nodded and said that I would do what I could, and he seemed satisfied and shut his eyes again. And then presently Mr. Bodder began a prayer—he had come in a moment before; they could not find him at first—and then, and then your dear father moved a little and raised his hand, and the minister stayed; and he was looking up as if he saw something; and then he said once, 'Jesus' clear and loud; and, and—that was all, dear child." The next morning she and Anthony, with the two old ladies, one of whom was always with them during these days, went into the darkened oak room on the first floor, where he had died and now rested. The red curtains made a pleasant rosy light, and it seemed to the children impossible to believe that that serene face, scarcely more serene than in life, with its wide closed lids under the delicate eyebrows, and contented clean-cut mouth, and the scholarly hands closed on the breast, all in a wealth of autumn flowers and dark copper-coloured beech leaves, were not the face and hands of a sleeping man. But Isabel did not utterly break down till she saw his study. She drew the curtains aside herself, and there stood his table; his chair was beside it, pushed back and sideways as if he had that moment left it; and on the table itself the books she knew so well. In the centre of the table stood his inlaid desk, with the papers lying upon it, and his quill beside them, as if just laid down; even the ink-pot was uncovered just as he had left it, as the agony began to lay its hand upon his heart. She stooped and read the last sentence. "This is the great fruit, that unspeakable benefit that they do eat and drink of that labour and are burden, and come—" and there it stopped; and the blinding tears rushed into the girl's eyes, as she stooped to kiss the curved knob of the chair-arm where his dear hand had last rested. When all was over a day or two later the two went up to stay at the Hall, while the housekeeper was left in charge of the Dower House. Lady Maxwell and Mistress Margaret had been present at the parish church on the occasion of the funeral, for the first time ever since the old Marian priest had left; and had assisted too at the opening of the will, which was found, tied up and docketed in one of the inner drawers of the inlaid desk; and before its instructions were complied with, Lady Maxwell wished to have a word or two with Isabel and Anthony. She made an opportunity on the morning of Anthony's departure for Cambridge, two days after the funeral, when Mistress Margaret was out of the room, and Hubert had ridden off as usual with Piers, on the affairs of the estate. "My child," said she to Isabel, who was lying back passive and listless on the window-seat. "What do you think your cousin will direct to be done? He will scarcely wish you to leave home altogether, to stay with him. And yet, you understand, he is your guardian." Isabel shook her head. "We know nothing of him," she said, wearily, "he has never been here." "If you have a suggestion to make to him you should decide at once," the other went on, "the courier is to go on Monday, is he not, Anthony?" The boy nodded. "But will he not allow us," he said, "to stay at home as usual? Surely——" Lady Maxwell shook her head. "And Isabel?" she asked, "who will look after her when you are away?" "Mrs. Carroll?" he said interrogatively. Again she shook her head. "He would never consent," she said, "it would not be right." Isabel looked up suddenly, and her eyes brightened a little. "Lady Maxwell—" she began, and then stopped, embarrassed. "Well, my dear?" "What is it, Isabel?" asked Anthony. "If it were possible—but, but I could not ask it." "If you mean Margaret, my dear"; said the old lady serenely, drawing her needle carefully through, "it was what I thought myself; but I did not know if you would care for that. Is that what you meant?" "Oh, Lady Maxwell," said the girl, her face lighting up. Then the old lady explained that it was not possible to ask them to live permanently at the Hall, although of course Isabel must do so until an arrangement had been made; because their father would scarcely have wished them to be actually inmates of a Catholic house; but that he plainly had encouraged close relations between the two houses, and indeed, Lady Maxwell interpreted his mention of his daughter's name, and his look as he said it, in the sense that he wished those relations to continue. She thought therefore that there was no reason why their new guardian's consent should not be asked to Mistress Margaret's coming over to the Dower House to take charge of Isabel, if the girl wished it. He had no particular interest in them; he lived a couple of hundred miles away, and the arrangement would probably save him a great deal of trouble and inconvenience. "But you, Lady Maxwell," Isabel burst out, her face kindled with hope, for she had dreaded the removal terribly, "you will be lonely here." "Dear child," said the old lady, laying down her embroidery, "God has been gracious to me; and my husband is coming back to me; you need not fear for me." And she told them, with her old eyes full of happy tears, how she had had a private word, which they must not repeat, from a Catholic friend at Court, that all had been decided for Sir Nicholas' release, though he did not know it himself yet, and that he would be at home again for Advent. The prison fever was beginning to cause alarm, and it seemed that a good fine would meet the old knight's case better than any other execution of justice. So then, it was decided; and as Isabel walked out to the gatehouse after dinner beside Anthony, with her hand on his horse's neck, and as she watched him at last ride down the village green and disappear round behind the church, half her sorrow at losing him was swallowed up in the practical certainty that they would meet again before Christmas in their old home, and not in a stranger's house in the bleak North country. On the following Thursday, Sir Nicholas' weekly letter showed evidence that the good news of his release had begun to penetrate to him; his wife longed to tell him all she had heard, but so many jealous eyes were on the watch for favouritism that she had been strictly forbidden to pass on her information. However there was little need. "I am in hopes," he wrote, "of keeping Christmas in a merrier place than prison. I do not mean heaven," he hastened to add, for fear of alarming his wife. "Good Mr. Jakes tells me that Sir John is ill to-day, and that he fears the gaol-fever; and if it is the gaol-fever, sweetheart, which pray God it may not be for Sir John's sake, it will be the fourteenth case in the Tower; and folks say that we shall all be let home again; but with another good fine, they say, to keep us poor and humble, and mindful of the Queen's Majesty her laws. However, dearest, I would gladly pay a thousand pounds, if I had them, to be home again." But there was news at the end of the letter that caused consternation in one or two hearts, and sent Hubert across, storming and almost crying, to Isabel, who was taking a turn in the dusk at sunset. She heard his step beyond the hedge, quick and impatient, and stopped short, hesitating and wondering. He had behaved to her with extraordinary tact and consideration, and she was very conscious of it. Since her sudden return ten days before from the visit which had been meant to separate them, he had not spoken a word to her privately, except a shy sentence or two of condolence, stammered out with downcast eyes, but which from the simplicity and shortness of the words had brought up a sob from her heart. She guessed that he knew why she had been sent to Northampton, and had determined not to take advantage in any way of her sorrow. Every morning he had disappeared before she came down, and did not come back till supper, where he sat silent and apart, and yet, when an occasion offered itself, behaved with a quick attentive deference that showed her where his thoughts had been. Now she stood, wondering and timid, at that hurried insistent step on the other side of the hedge. As she hesitated, he came quickly through the doorway and stopped short. "Mistress Isabel," he said, with all his reserve gone, and looking at her imploringly, but with the old familiar air that she loved, "have you heard? I am to go as soon as my father comes back. Oh! it is a shame!" His voice was full of tears, and his eyes were bright and angry. Her heart leapt up once and then seemed to cease beating. "Go?" she said; and even as she spoke knew from her own dismay how dear that quiet chivalrous presence was to her. "Yes," he went on in the same voice. "Oh! I know I should not speak; and—and especially now at all times; but I could not bear it; nor that you should think it was my will to go." She stood still looking at him. "May I walk with you a little," he said, "but—I must not say much—I promised my father." And then as they walked he began to pour it out. "It is some old man in Durham," he said, "and I am to see to his estates. My father will not want me here when he comes back, and, and it is to be soon. He has had the offer for me; and has written to tell me. There is no choice." She had turned instinctively towards the house, and the high roofs and chimneys were before them, dark against the luminous sky. "No, no," said Hubert, laying his hand on her arm; and at the touch she thrilled so much that she knew she must not stay, and went forward resolutely up the steps of the terrace. "Ah! let me speak," he said; "I have not troubled you much, Mistress Isabel." She hesitated again a moment. "In my father's room," he went on, "and I will bring the letter." She nodded and passed into the hall without speaking, and turned to Sir Nicholas' study; while Hubert's steps dashed up the stairs to his mother's room. Isabel went in and stood on the hearth in the firelight that glowed and wavered round the room on the tapestry and the prie-dieu and the table where Hubert had been sitting and the tall shuttered windows, leaning her head against the mantelpiece, doubtful and miserable. "Listen," said Hubert, bursting into the room a moment later with the sheet open in his hand. "'Tell Hubert that Lord Arncliffe needs a gentleman to take charge of his estates; he is too old now himself, and has none to help him. I have had the offer for Hubert, and have accepted it; he must go as soon as I have returned. I am sorry to lose the lad, but since James——'" and Hubert broke off. "I must not read that," he said. Isabel still stood, stretching her hands out to the fire, turned a little away from him. "But what can I say?" went on the lad passionately, "I must go; and—and God knows for how long, five or six years maybe; and I shall come back and find you—and find you——" and a sob rose up and silenced him. "Hubert," she said, turning and looking with a kind of wavering steadiness into his shadowed eyes, and even then noticing the clean-cut features and the smooth curve of his jaw with the firelight on it, "you ought not——" "I know, I know; I promised my father; but there are some things I cannot bear. Of course I do not want you to promise anything; but I thought that if perhaps you could tell me that you thought—that you thought there would be no one else; and that when I came back——" "Hubert," she said again, resolutely, "it is impossible: our religions——" "But I would do anything, I think. Besides, in five years so much may happen. You might become a Catholic—or—or, I might come to see that the Protestant Religion was nearly the same, or as true at least—or—or—so much might happen.—Can you not tell me anything before I go?" A keen ray of hope had pierced her heart as he spoke; and she scarcely knew what she said. "But, Hubert, even if I were to say——" He seized her hands and kissed them again and again. "Oh! God bless you, Isabel! Now I can go so happily. And I will not speak of it again; you can trust me; it will not be hard for you." She tried to draw her hands away, but he still held them tightly in his own strong hands, and looked into her face. His eyes were shining. "Yes, yes, I know you have promised nothing. I hold you to nothing. You are as free as ever to do what you will with me. But,"—and he lifted her hands once more and kissed them, and dropped them; seized his cap and was gone. Isabel was left alone in a tumult of thought and emotion. He had taken her by storm; she had not guessed how desperately weak she was towards him, until he had come to her like this in a whirlwind of passion and stood trembling and almost crying, with the ruddy firelight on his face, and his eyes burning out of shadow. She felt fascinated still by that mingling of a boy's weakness and sentiment and of a man's fire and purpose; and she sank down on her knees before the hearth and looked wonderingly at her hands which he had kissed so ardently, now transparent and flaming against the light as if with love. Then as she looked at the red heart of the fire the sudden leaping of her heart quieted, and there crept on her a glow of steady desire to lean on the power of this tall young lover of hers; she was so utterly alone without him it seemed as if there were no choice left; he had come and claimed her in virtue of the master-law, and she—how much had she yielded? She had not promised; but she had shown evidently her real heart in those half dozen words; and he had interpreted them for her; and she dared not in honesty repudiate his interpretation. And so she knelt there, clasping and unclasping her hands, in a whirl of delight and trembling; all the bounds of that sober inner life seemed for the moment swept away; she almost began to despise its old coldnesses and limitations. How shadowy after all was the love of God, compared with this burning tide that was bearing her along on its bosom!... She sank lower and lower into herself among the black draperies, clasping those slender hands tightly across her breast. Suddenly a great log fell with a crash, the red glow turned into leaping flames; the whole dark room seemed alive with shadows that fled to and fro, and she knelt upright quickly and looked round her, terrified and ashamed.—What was she doing here? Was it so soon then that she was setting aside the will of her father, who trusted and loved her so well, and who lay out there in the chancel vault? Ah! she had no right here in this room—Hubert's room now, with his cap and whip lying across the papers and the estate-book, and his knife and the broken jesses on the seat of the chair beside her. There was his step overhead again. She must be gone before he came back. There was high excitement on the estate and in the village a week or two later when the rumour of Sir Nicholas' return was established, and the paper had been pinned up to the gatehouse stating, in Lady Maxwell's own handwriting, that he would be back sometime in the week before Advent Sunday. Reminiscences were exchanged of the glorious day when the old knight came of age, over forty years ago; of the sports on the green, of the quintain-tilting for the gentlefolks, and the archery in the meadow behind the church for the vulgar; of the high mass and the dinner that followed it. It was rumoured that Mr. Hubert and Mr. Piers had already selected the ox that was to be roasted whole, and that materials for the bonfire were in process of collection in the woodyard of the home farm. Sir Nicholas' letters became more and more emphatically underlined and incoherent as the days went on, and Lady Maxwell less and less willing for Isabel to read them; but the girl often found the old lady hastily putting away the thin sheets which she had just taken out to read to herself once again, on which her dear lord had scrawled down his very heart itself, as if his courting of her were all to do again. It was not until the Saturday morning that the courier rode in through the gatehouse with the news that Sir Nicholas was to be released that day, and would be down if possible before nightfall. All the men on the estate were immediately called in and sent home to dress themselves; and an escort of a dozen grooms and servants led by Hubert and Piers rode out at once on the north road, with torches ready for kindling, to meet the party and bring them home; and all other preparations were set forward at once. Towards eight o'clock Lady Maxwell was so anxious and restless that Isabel slipped out and went down to the gatehouse to look out for herself if there were any signs of the approach of the party. She went up to one of the little octagonal towers, and looked out towards the green. It was a clear starlight night, but towards the village all was bathed in the dancing ruddy light of the bonfire. It was burning on a little mound at the upper end of the green, just below where Isabel stood, and a heavy curtain of smoke drifted westwards. As she looked down on it she saw against it the tall black posts of the gigantic jack and the slowly revolving carcass of the ox; and round about the stirring crowd of the village folk, their figures black on this side, luminous on that. She could even make out the cassock and square cap of Mr. Bodder as he moved among his flock. The rows of houses on either side, bright and clear at this end, melted away into darkness at the lower end of the green, where on the right the church tower rose up, blotting out the stars, itself just touched with ruddy light, and on the top of which, like a large star itself, burned the torch of the watcher who was looking out towards the north road. There was a ceaseless hum of noise from the green, pierced by the shrill cries of the children round the glowing mass of the bonfire, but there was no disorder, as the barrels that had been rolled out of the Hall cellars that afternoon still stood untouched beneath the Rectory garden-wall. Isabel contrasted in her mind this pleasant human tumult with the angry roaring she had heard from these same country-folk a few months before, when she had followed Lady Maxwell out to the rescue of the woman who had injured her; and she wondered at these strange souls, who attended a Protestant service, but were so fierce and so genial in their defence and welcome of a Catholic squire. As she thought, there was a sudden movement of the light on the church tower; it tossed violently up and down, and a moment later the jubilant clangour of the bells broke out. There was a sudden stir in the figures on the green, and a burst of cheering rose. Isabel strained her eyes northwards, but the road took a turn beyond the church and she could see nothing but darkness and low-hung stars and one glimmering window. She turned instinctively to the house behind her, and there was the door flung wide, and she could make out the figures of the two ladies against the brightly lit hall beyond, wrapped like herself, in cloak and hood, for the night was frosty and cold. As she turned once more she heard the clear rattle of trotting hoofs on the hard road, and a glow began to be visible at the lower dark end of the village. The cheering rose higher, and the bells were all clashing together in melodious discord, as in the angle of the road a group of tossing torches appeared. Then she could make out the horsemen; three riding together, and the others as escort round them. The crowd had poured off the grass on to the road by now, and the horses were coming up between two shouting gesticulating lines which closed after them as they went. Now she could make out the white hair of Sir Nicholas, as he bowed bare-headed right and left; and Hubert's feathered cap, on one side of him, and Mr. Boyd's black hat on the other. They had passed the bonfire now, and were coming up the avenue, the crowds still streaming after them, and the church tower bellowing rough music overhead. Isabel leaned out over the battlements, and saw beneath her the two old ladies waiting just outside the gate by the horse-block; and then she drew back, her eyes full of tears, for she saw Sir Nicholas' face as he caught sight of his wife. There was a sudden silence as the horses drew up; and the crowds ceased shouting, and when Isabel leaned over again Sir Nicholas was on the horse-block, the two ladies immediately behind him, and the people pressing forward to hear his voice. It was a very short speech; and Isabel overhead could not catch more than detached phrases of it, "for the faith"—"my wife and you all"—"home again"—"my son Hubert here"—"you and your families"—"the Catholic religion"—"the Queen's grace"—"God save her Majesty." Then again the cheering broke out; and Isabel crossed over to see them pass up to the house and to the bright door set wide for them, and even as she watched them go up the steps, and Hubert's figure close behind, she suddenly dropped her forehead on to the cold battlement, and drew a sharp breath or two, for she remembered again what it all meant to him and to herself. <hr class="long"> <big> PART II</big> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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