A Noble Wife. A novel

Front matter

Uniform with "A Noble Wife." Crown 8vo, cloth. PRICE 3/6 EACH. ST. WYNFRITH. By E. Everett-Green. 2nd Edition. " It is a pretty story, delicately and carefully written, of life in an almshouse." — The Star. JONATHAN MERLE. A West Country Story of the Times. By Elisabeth Boyd Bayly. 5th Edition, " Rich in character and incident, and as charming in substance as it is elevated in tone. In general character it frequently and pleasantly reminds us of the work of Dr. George MacDonald." — Spectator. ALFREDA HOLME. A Story of Australian Life. By Elisabeth Boyd Bayly. 3rd Edition. " It is not often that we meet with a narrative of experiences so full of freshness and force as are to be found in this excellent ' Story of Social Life in Australia. ' " — Temperance Record. ZACHARY BROUGH'S VENTURE. By Elisabeth Boyd Bayly. 2nd Edition.

"We have nothing but unstinted praise for this book." — Cambridge Independent Press. TEN YEARS AFTER (Sequel to " Zachary Brough's Venture"). PHŒBE DEACON. By Hude Myddleton. GILDAS HAVEN. By M. S. Haycraft. A NOBLE WIFE. By John Saunders, Author of " Israel Mort," " Abel Drake's Wife," &c. THE MINISTER'S MAN. By G. M. Fairburn. London: Jarrold and Sons, io &r> xi, Warwick Lane, E.C. I $ob cl BY J. SAUNDERS Author of "Abel Drake's Wife," " Israd\gort," " The Shadow in the House" etc. LONDON JARROLD & SONS, io & n, WARWICK LANE, E.C. [All rights reserved]

Preface

. In taking for the groundwork of this story the facts, few but suggestive, that are known in connection with the original of "A Noble Wife," I had but one desire, one aim, namely, to develope dramatically the character they indicated, with harmonious surroundings. The religious events of the period are therefore used only as a background for the picturesque display of character. I have not had the slightest intention to exalt one form of Christian faith to the prejudice of the other. I am too conscious of all we owe to our Catholic ancestors to be willing to say one word from myself implying hostility to the views of their descendants. To sum up in few words. It is a drama, in the form VI

PREFACE.

. and under the conditions of a novel, that I have attempted to produce ; where all else should be subsidiary. JOHN SAUNDERS. CONTENTS. PAGE Chap. I. A Castle of Indolence i II. A Thought and Its Wayward Growth . . 13 III. How the Chaplain Failed 21 IV. A Struggle — Long Postponed .... 26 V. A Wife's Submission 34 VI. Sir John Ratifies the Terms of Peace . . 43 VII. The Prophecy Fulfilled . . . . ' . 47 VIII. The Superscription of a Letter ... 50 IX. The Chaplain's Counsel 54 X. The Wisdom of the Serpent, etc. ... 62 XI. The Wife's Story Continued . . . .73 XII. " Madam, I am a Catholic ! " .... 78 XIII. Victor or Victim : which is it best to be? . . 89 XIV. The Light of the Hill 91 XV. Ishmael Johnes, Tailor 96 XVI. Ishmael Acknowledges the Angel . . . 106 XVII. A Guarded Correspondence no XVIII.

Departure 116 XIX. Ghosts of Our Former Selves .... 122 XX. How it was Proposed to Convert the King . 135 XXI. The Bloody Statute 143 XXIL Sir John's "Capital Story" .... 149 XXIII. The Archdeacon's Warning 159 XXIV. The Children ! where are they ? . . .162 XXV. It Leaves Me Heart-Broken 166 XXVI. Here are Two Mothers :— Choose . . . 171 XXVII. Sir John and the Stranger 176 XXVIII. Rejoice, Father, with Me ! .... 184 XXIX. The Playmates 187 XXX. Exile 189 XXXI. Master Gerald's Naughtiness . . . .192 XXXII. The Way He Should Go 198 XXXIIL The Illuminated Missal 205 XXXIV. Gerald's First Mass CONTENTS. VIII CHAP. PAGE XXXV. The Architect's Discovery *i6 XXXVI. The Play ! The Play's the Thing . . . - 21 XXXVII. A Domestic Tilt-Yard 231 XXXVIIL The Chaplain's Revenge 233 XXXIX. The Interlude 246 XL.

Love 257 XLI. The Breaking of the Idols 263 XLII. The Archdiacon's Summons .... 273 XLIII. "The King is Dead" 276 XLIV. The Exile's Return, Notwithstanding . . 279 XLV. Ishmael's Apparitions 283 XLVI. Gerald Oldcastle 289 XLVII. Gerald's Discovery 299 XLVIII. Lady Oldcastle's Dream 301 XLIX. Ungrateful Boy 306 L. In the Mother's Arms 309 LI. 'Ware the Hawks ! 314 LH. A Great Day at Old St. Paul's . . . 323 LIII. Am I Now Forgiven ? 330 LIV. Gathering Clouds 334 LV. In which an Old Acquaintance Re-appears . 33S LVI. Sir John's New Home 348 LVII. The Lesser Fry 354 LVIII. " Recant or Burn " 360 LIX. Ishmael's Den 364 LX. A Poor Man, whom Nobody Knew . . . 368 LXI. The Ball of Calamity Still Rolling On . . 372 LXII. Dreams of Hope 374 LXIII. A Bridal and a Departure .....

Chapter I

A CASTLE OF INDOLENCE. ;HERE is, perhaps, no other period of our history so truly momentous in its progress and conse quences as that which comprised the early days of the Reformation. England, still essentially Roman Catholic, was beginning dimly and uneasily to perceive she was entering without any will or particular wish of her own upon a new and strange road ; dark, thorny, and dangerous ; leading she knew not whither ; and aided only by such very dubious guidance as might be found in the " gospel light" of "Bullen's eyes." To King Henry that road was steeped in a haze of romance ; for was it not leading him to the goal of his wilful and pas sionate desires, divorce from his Queen, Catherine, and marriage with his new favourite whom he created Marchion ess of Pembroke ? The great Cardinal, Wolsey, was dead ; Thomas Cromwell had become the King's adviser; Cranmer was rising into distinction.

All things betokened change. Yet if any man E ventured to believe that the religion, policy, and social state of a great kingdom were all about to be put in a state of flux, to enable the sovereign to put away one woman and take another, he kept his thoughts to himself, or whispered them only to his nearest and most trusty friend. It was a time when scarcely a day passed without fresh rumours as to the courage, fortitude, and sufferings of the good Queen Catherine ; and of the doings, real or supposed, against her, by the King, and the kingly Government. These rumours penetrated quickly to the firesides of our towns, and passed on slowly but surely to the most distant and solitary hamlets ; becoming at each remove more formid able through the medium by which they passed, the supersti tious imaginations of an ignorant and credulous, but also of a loyal and piously-disposed people.

Meanwhile there might have been found here and there sparingly dispersed over the land, truth-loving, pure-minded, courageous, possibly (should the occasion demand) heroic souls, who had seen and hailed — through the superstitious dark ness of their time — the first gleams of penetrating light that issued from the upheld torch of the great German Reformer ; and who thenceforward waited in patient hope for that more serene and all-pervading splendour which must belong to the consummate days of the fulfilled Reformation. Among these, were poor folk and rich ; ignorant and learned ; the humblest, and the highest. Though it must be owned the lower the condition the stronger generally the faith ; whilst the higher the condition, the more did it tend to intellectual and scholastic exercise ; to misgivings the meaning of which it was not found advisable to consider too deeply ; and to healthy stirrings of conscience which the progress of events made it impossible to ignore, even while the persons in ques tion were grievously perplexed, like monarchs, by the fear of change.

Apparently, however, there are those to be found who, even in such a time, do not hear, or who refuse to heed, much less to join in echoing, the public excitement. They dwell, per haps, in a castle of indolence of their own ; happy if left to themselves, with only the society of their slumbers or their dreams. Such a home, and so tenanted at the time of our narrative, appears to be the fine ancestral seat of the Oldcastles in Gloucestershire. They are a branch of the family which had Sir John Oldcastle, knight, the Lollard martyr of Henry the Fifth's reign, for a member. Whether the present owner of Oldcastle Grange, who bears the same name and title as his illustrious relative, has pondered so long and deeply over the reforming tendency and tragical end of the latter, as to feel at once attracted and repelled — inclining to the belief, but afraid of the danger — as some cynical gossip has been known to say ; or whether it is, that his learning and literary tastes, cultivated to an extent most unusual among the provincial gentry of the time, satisfies him with the enjoyment and distinction they afford, it is certain that he keeps jealously aloof from interference of any kind in the bitter and ever widening strifes of the outer world.

And if one might judge of the resulting happiness of the owner by the serene beauty and picturesque environments of the home, then was Sir John wise, indeed, to have so chosen his lot. A wanderer through his park on a certain June afternoon, will never as long as she lives forget how all the trouble that assailed her could not still shut out from her eyes and her heart the double sense of the languor and the glory around. The trees, in spring freshness and summer glare, became dazzling visions of embowered delight upon the lawns, and along the glades ; and made masses of emerald up the slopes of the hill, where the woods became most dense. The intense heat caused so deep a hush and stillness, that the nightingales, looking out from the delicious depths and cool darkness of the woods on the shaded side, seemed to take the afternoon for a golden night, and sang almost incessantly.

The huge weeping-willows that fringed the wood, and leaned towards the waters of the lake, seemed in their gentle swaying motion to thrill with the melody ; and to wish to bend ever lower down that they might the better listen. In such a scene and hour the intrusion of human-kind — in its ordinary and prosaic shapes, at least — becomes almost an impertinence. Yet such forms are near. A break in the irregular circle of the woods occurs to our right, and in the centre of the opening stands an antique chantry or chapel, built by the monks who once owned the Grange. On its farther side the meadow-lands come up to it ; and by a gate stands the wife of Sir John's head gardener, talking to an old man who lies half-asleep under the hedge of the hay-field. She has come hither in search of her three small children, who have strayed, unnoticed by her, as far as the old chapel to gather the white roses that almost smother the building in their embrace, — that hang in floating garlands from the roof and chimney, and trail from the base downwards to the moss-grown steps, where loving hands have simply pushed them aside, and bound them so as to admit free passage.

The doors of the chapel open, and a form stands on the threshold, and looks inquisitively round. At the first sight ofthe children she waves her hands angrily, as if to hurry them away ; while mother and children stand staring at her for a moment or two in mute wonder. Hurrying down the steps, she cries to the woman, — " Quick ! quick ! Out of the way with them. My lady is just coming from the chapel. She must not see the children f Quick, woman, quick ! " The mother snatched up the youngest of the little toddling flower-gatherers, and deposited it on her left arm ; took another by the still disengaged hand ; and menaced the third into running before her, till they had all got round the farther corner of the chapel side, where they would be out of sight of any one passing from it towards the near, but tree-veiled mansion.

Recent events, however, had left the gardener's wife too deeply interested in the idea of a possible glimpse of her lady, to lose the present opportunity by entirely concealing herself. Moving along the wall to the corner opposite that where she had first found shelter, she stood where she could not be seen unless Lady Oldcastle turned to look that way. She kept close to the wall, concealing the elder children between it and her skirts. She then held the infant's head down on one shoulder, while she gazed over the other, with a look in which fear and pity blended, towards the spot where her mistress was expected to pass. Yet when the figure, at whose anticipated approach the children had been snatched away in such panic, did appear, there was surely nothing about it, one would think, to cause alarm to the most timid of the little rose-gatherers.

Whatever of scorn or imperious gesture that figure might be capable of exhibiting when displeased, and when it suited her to show its displeasure, dwellers in the neighbourhood knew well that the handsome and charitable Lady Oldcastle had ever a kind word or gift for children. But a heavy calamity has of late fallen like a thunderbolt into the very heart of Sir John's Castle of Indolence. He has lost his first and only child. Lost his son and long-coveted heir. And if the blow has been heavy for him, it is light, indeed, compared with the suffering and bitter disappointment of his proud, uncommunicative wife. The little son whom she had longed for, planned for, prayed for, during ten wearisome years, had, at last, been born into the world ; and then in the same day been taken out of it. She is yet in the first month of her mourning.

Still she nourishes by silence, seclusion, and incessant prayers and masses whatever of enduring influence her loss has left on heart, mind, and characier. One glimpse alone of her inner life has she allowed uncon sciously to her little world. This was afforded by her in junction that every woman on tlie estate who lived near, or was in, or connected with the household, should keep her children out of Lady Oldcastle's sight. It sounded cruel and selfish ; but not so thought or felt the people concerned. Their hearts were touched. They under stood her. She loved children so well, that she found it hopeless to conquer her grief at the loss of her own child, if there came perpetual reminders. "Give my lady time," they said, "and she'll be all right — never fear ! " But the injunction itself left the mothers, like the gardener's wife, only the more desirous, while duteously obedient, to catch a glimpse of their dear lady, and judge with their own eyes how she bore her great sorrow.

The tall figure, robed in black, with a long necklace of large black beads, glided languidly down the steps, avoiding to tread where a wandering rose-spray had escaped from its fastening ; and then moved along the path where the eyes ofthe gardener's wife watched for her — not on the path towards the house, whither the waiting maid went alone, but on the path towards the lake ; where, as the watcher well knew, it was the mourner's habit of an afternoon on leaving chapel to spend hours in wandering under the giant weeping willows ; accompanied sometimes by the officiating priest, who was the family chaplain, and father confessor, but generally alone. Toward those waters into which her tears have of late so often fallen in big drops, portending a terrible heart-storm, she now goes. The black lace hood shades a fine but slightly imperfect pro file of the Greek type ; and contrasts with a complexion so naturally brilliant, that not even the anguish of these late days can do more than subdue it.

The lustrous dark eyes, with their long lashes, gaze out joylessly over the magnificent park, with its rich avenues and lovely coverts and dales winding far away till out of sight. She sees them steeped in glory wherever they face the sun ; she tries to feel their beauty and repose wherever they lie in the shade. Drops gather on those long lashes ; and though they are driven off by an impatient shake of the delicate shrouded head, the eyes still look as if they could only gather from all they see fresh incentives to grief. They remind one of the eyes of a mother-bird, gazing in pathetic wonder and helplessness, at the fair downy lining of her ravaged nest. My lady's little boat and her curly golden-headed page are waiting for her at the landing steps by the lake. There too, while Lady Oldcastle stands apart as if neglect shown by dependants was no longer a matter worthy of observation, comes with hurrying feet her recent nurse, who has been her humble companion years before.

This is a person to whom Lady Oldcastle is greatly attached. She has been told that to-day (for the first time since the bereavement) she might meet her mistress at the lake alter mass and stay with her ; an incident now known to the whole household, and from it they all frame hopes of a speedy and happy change. No question is asked concerning the seemingly unkind delay. Neither is any reproof uttered. Knowing, as she does, her mistress's ordinary habits, the nurse feels remorsefully in this silence all the significance of her fault ; which is only too effectually reproved by its revelation of the engrossing un happiness that alone makes such silence possible. Lady Oldcastle enters the boat, and is followed by the others. The boy rows them about at his own will, which he is acute enough to understand suits his lady's present humour better than would his asking for any kind of direction.

Suddenly, as if to snap asunder some chain of thought too bitter to be borne except when alone, she bids him cross the lake ; and she points to a summer-house on the bank, which looks like an ivy-clad mound of earth, so thickly is it overgrown, and so hidden are its door and windows. Was it the songs of the nightingales that disturbed her, and which she wished to hear no longer, by getting out of reach ? One was singing now — as the boat approached the bank. He seemed bent on prolonging his plaintive note, as if to make sure the lady of the domain must hear him. She does hear, and droops her head lower and lower. She closes her eyes in pain. Her heart is beating as she thinks of the one little faint cry she had heard and exulted over with tears of joy, but which she can never hear again, and which has left discordant all the world's music for her.

To-day that little plaintive cry haunts her more pertinaciously than ever. To have heard it for the first time, and then to hear it no longer, was, at once, a bliss and an anguish that only a mother can realise. The bliss died with the occasion — the anguish ever remains. Many fancies trouble her perturbed brain. One minute her boy is lost ; the next he seems, in a sense, not lost, for that cry comes back, through the cruel kindness of busy memory. Still it rings through her very soul as the boat glides under the shade of the great willows, and makes for the landing steps before the ivy-clad edifice. Suddenly she clasps her hands. Her large eyes dilate and fill with quivering moisture, as she exclaims aloud, — "This is no dream! I do hear it! It is real — the cry! Margaret, surely you heard it too ; or am I going mad ?

" Before the nurse could reply to the unexpected appeal in any other way than by bending, now this way, now that, over the edge of the boat to listen, the page began hurriedly to back water, to avoid running into a small, fairy-like craft that floated between them and the landing-steps. No, Lady Oldcastle's ears had not deceived her to-day, as they had so often deceived her before. In that little intercept ing boat, which was almost entirely covered with a crimson silk garment of some kind, there lay, nestling in a hollow of the centre, with a long spray of the white wild rose covered with its exquisite blossoms circling about it, an infant, white and beautiful as sculptured marble. But this marble lived. It was just waking from deep sleep, and, as it waked, raised a faint cry, and slept again, as if it were under the influence of some medicament, or lulled by the drowsiness of the day.

Checking with abrupt decision the exclamations of the nurse and the page, Lady Oldcastle looked to see if the little craft was fastened to the landing steps ; and the page with his boat-hook answered her by lifting from the water the connecting rope. Bidding him move carefully on, she landed at the steps, and there waited, while the page drew the strange boat to the shore, and was about to raise the child, but he was stopped by the voice of Lady Oldcastle : — " No ! no ! Mind your own business. Let the nurse do that." Then turning to the latter she added, " Be careful, Margaret. What God may have sent hither so safely, let us not heedlessly endanger." As the child, which was dressed all in white, with only a single gleam of colour about it in the red narrow ribbon fastened round its throat, was taken forth, its great eyes opened and stared at the aged and kindly face of the nurse ; and then the absence of its mother seemed to come keenly home, and, in an instant, the noble placidity of the first look was changed to one, alike irresistible in its pathos, and in the wonderful expression of the lip, which neither of the observers could see without a smile.

The nurse took the child to her lady ; who practising upon him the wiles in which all true mothers are so rich, soon calmed it, and was allowed by way of reward to kiss it, and so by degrees got it to smile ; when she nearly spoiled all by a burst of convulsive emotion, as she thought, — " Mine was not unlike this ! " and so pressed the baby before she knew what she was doing, that the very lustiest of infantine screams broke forth. " It's a boy, my lady, depend on it ! No girl could cry like that," said the nurse. Lady Oldcastle, while striving once more to reassure the child, caught sight of something which turned her thoughts in a new direction. "Margaret," she said, — "quick! take off this ribbon, there's something attached to it." The nurse did so ; and drew forth with the ribbon a little packet in white silk, tied with threads of red silk.

Handing the child to the nurse, and for the moment no longer regarding its cries, Lady Oldcastle, who felt strange thoughts stirring within her, undid, with tremulous fingers, the slight fastening, and drew forth and opened out a letter. The beauty of the handwriting made her for a moment forget what might be the importance of the matter written. She had never seen anything that could for a moment compare with it ; it was so plain, so delicate, so subtly expressive of character and refinement, so original in its half foreign aspect, that Lady Oldcastle seemed to know something of the writer before she had read a single line. She was interrupted, as she was about to read, by the page, who had been inquisitively examining the little craft. " Why, my lady, it's our own little old boat, that was stowed away on the upper waters of the lake, as being too rotten to be of any more use ; and it's been covered over with a lady's cloak, - — the biggest one I ever saw, — and there's one of our old garden baskets, but filled with new-plucked flowers and grass under neath for him to lie in."

"Strange ! " mused the lady. "Our own boat and basket; flowers and grass no doubt from our own park ; no provision beforehand by the mother for so making her child's bed, then perhaps for the last time, and sending it out upon the waters to seek — what? whom? Could it have been to seek me?" She closed her eyes for a moment, while holding the unread letter, and seemed to pray : though the nature of that prayer, if it were one, would hardly, perhaps, be recognisable by her self, a few moments later, in the feeling she was then to ex perience. The letter ran thus : — " Madam, " A young mother, a wife, the spouse of an honoured and beloved man, knowing no other corner of England to which she could fly for refuge from troubles that have all but over whelmed her, and under circumstances at present impossible to explain, came to your neighbourhood, guided by the faintest of hopes, yet my only one, that the wife of Sir John Oldcastle, (a gentleman of whom I heard long ago things it was sweet to a Christian maiden and a Lutheran Reformer to hear, — " Lady Oldcastle paused, looked away from the letter, and a change, apparently inexplicable, came over her face as she again read the words, " a Christian maiden and a Lutheran Reformer."

Then she breathed heavily, and continued her reading, repeating some of the words : — " — things it was sweet to a Christian maiden and a Lutheran Reformer to hear, when they — as I mistakenly thought — no other wise concerned me) would pity me, sympathise with me, per haps — if God can only be so good to me to-day as to answer my prayers, — help me in the sorest trial that can assail our sex. In trouble my boy was born, through trouble prematurely born, while on my route hither, but he is well, strong, beautiful. O God, and His dear Son, help me, and forgive me if I err at this time in what I am doing ! " But, good and honoured madam, there are reasons why I must instantly quit this place, quit even this country ; while I am so weak that I can neither suckle my chiid, nor guard it safely through the perils of my homeward way.

" Dare I venture to appeal to you by so dangerous a mode as a reference to your own late calamity ? Ah, madam, my heart has been with you night and day ever since I knew. I have almost forgotten to pray for myself in praying for you. Can your heart so open to me ? You guess, you know, you see what I wish. It seems criminal to ask you to take my babe as your own for a little while, yet my heart, hope, aims, are pure, unselfish, self-sacrificing. If this were not true, what must I be ? " The morning before the unexpected birth of my boy I was at church, and the first lesson was the story of the abandonment of Moses by his mother. It strangely thrilled me. I asked myself what I could do — if my child were born before I reached the distant place and country to which I was bound. A great flood of light at that moment suffused the whole building, and I almost believed I saw an angel within it, and it seemed to repeat to me the words of my own thought, guiding me hither, but with an accent divinely sweet and full of comforting pro mise.

But the glory faded away ; it was but an angel's head sculptured on a corbel. That day my child was born ; and in that hour I resolved to seek you, and trust you with my other and newer life. Exhausting illnesses have long delayed me on the road. Good Lady Oldcastle, with you lies all the rest"

Chapter II

A THOUGHT, AND ITS WAYWARD GROWTH. HE attendants were startled to hear Lady Oldcastle say' 'n s'lort> sharp sentences, as she broke from a reverie that followed the reading of the letter, — " George, put everything back as it was, ready to receive the child ; and then find Sir John, and say I request his immediate presence here. And you, Mar garet, place the boy in the boat, and stay with him till my husband comes, to whom you can relate the occurrence. I shall undertake no such responsibilities as are here asked of me. I am going home." While her orders were being carried out, Lady Oldcastle moved to go away ; but returned, and paced to and fro, evidently dissatisfied with herself, but still more angry with this unknown mother ; who, while abandoning her child, called herself a Lutheran Reformer, mixed up Sir John's name with such abominable ideas, and expected sympathy on that ground ; na)', who evidently dared to hope and believe that she (Lady Oldcastle) would train the boy in the same pestilent heresy, and so make him as bad as his unnatural parent.