"I commenced a letter, my sweet friend, yet, I fear me, have written an homily; but forgive it, Constance, and take it as it is intended.
"I hear the Lady Frances is with you. I pray you call me to her remembrance. She is a lively but honourable lady, and I should be glad that Mr. Rich found favour in the sight of her father; for I do believe her heart has been fixed, at least more fixed upon him than upon any other, for some time. We have been pa.s.sing a few days in this dear spot--the nest, I may well call it, of our affections. My husband, in the days of his bachelorhood, had been cautioned to take heed of Richmond, as a place so fatal to love, that never any disengaged young person went thither who returned again free; and I wonder not at it, for there is a sober and most happy beauty in its very aspect, that tranquillises and composes the thoughts to gentleness and affection. We have visited our old music-master, at whose house we both boarded for the practice of the lute! He was so pleased to find I still studied! observing that many married ladies relinquished it soon; and he praised my husband"s execution on the viol in no small degree.
"Adieu, my dear young friend. We crave earnestly to be kindly thought of by him whom your soul "delighteth to honour!" May the blessing of the Lord dwell within your house, and sanctify all things for your good! Such is the prayer of your true and loving friend,
"LUCY HUTCHINSON.
"My husband, who is indeed a most kind counsellor in all things, says that I ought to tender any a.s.sistance I can offer, seeing that I am near London, and you may require sundry habits befitting a bridal; if so, command my services as fully as you do my affections."
Lady Frances placed the letter on Constantia"s writing-table, and for some time offered no observation on its contents.
"Is not she a beautiful model for a married woman?" inquired Constantia.
"It was very good of her to remember a giddy pate like me," replied Frances; "and I do confess that she is one of my perfections, though in general I hate your pattern-women, where every thing is fitted and fitting--women of plaster and parchment--to cut one"s character by; who are to be spoken of, not to; who can make no excuse for people"s failings, because they think they are themselves exempt from fault; who study devout looks, and leer at their lovers from under their hoods--hole-and-corner flirts, yet held up as pattern-women, bless the term! to innocent and laughter-loving maidens like myself, who having no evil to conceal, speak openly, and love not the conventicle."
"But Mrs. Hutchinson is none of these," interrupted Constance. "She is pure in heart--in word--in look. She really has nothing to conceal; she is all purity and grace, and with her husband shared for years the friendship of the ill.u.s.trious Selden and Archbishop Usher."
"Well, I am willing to admit all this," retorted Frances, eager to catch at any thing to divert her friend"s melancholy. "But, for all that, I never could feel easy in the society of your very wise people; it is not pleasant to know that those you are speaking to regard you as a fool, though they may be too well-bred to tell you so. And now I remember a story about Selden that always amused me much. When he was appointed among the lay members to sit in the a.s.sembly of Divines at Westminster, one of the ministers, with all the outward show of self-sufficient ignorance, declared that the sea could not be at any very great distance from Jerusalem; that as fish was frequently carried from the first to the last place, the interval did not probably exceed thirty miles! and having concocted this opinion, he gave it forth, as it had been one of the laws of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not! Well, the Synod were about to adopt this inference, when Selden quietly observed, that in all likelihood it was "salt fish!" Was not that excellent?"
"Yet his wit, in my estimation, was his least good quality. Methinks the Commonwealth has reason to be most proud of two such men as John Selden and Archbishop Usher."
"But the glory has departed from Israel," was Frances" reply, "for they are gathered to their fathers."
"The sun may be shorn of its beams," said Constantia, with something of her former energy of manner, "but it is still a sun. Cromwell is the Protector of England!"
That was the rallying point of Lady Frances" feelings, and she embraced her friend with increased affection.
"I love you more than all," said the kind girl, "for your appreciation of my father; I only hope that posterity may do him equal justice. But why, I ask again, dear Constance, have you not permitted me to speak to him about this wedding? You reap sorrow, and not joy, of the contract.
Well, well," she continued, perfectly understanding Constantia"s mute appeal for silence, "I will say no more, for I ought to be satisfied with the privilege of being thus enabled to disturb the solitude you consider so sweet."
"How lessened," exclaimed Constance, "I must appear in the eyes of all good and wise people! How they will jeer at the lofty Mistress Cecil selling herself--for--they know not what!"
"Lessened!" repeated Frances; "on the contrary. You certainly do sacrifice yourself to fulfil this contract; but that deserves praise.
Besides, Burrell is a man whom many admire."
"There, talk not of it, Frances--talk not of it: henceforth, the world and I are two--I mix no more in it, nor with it."
"Now, out upon you for a most silly lady!" retorted Lady Frances. "It may be my fate, despite the affection I bear _poor_ Rich (I like the linking of these words), to wed some other man--one who will please my father and benefit the state. Is not the misery of being chained to a thing you loathe and detest sufficient cause for trouble, without emulating bats and owls! No, no; if I must be ironed, I will cover my fetters with flowers--they shall be perfumed, and tricked, and trimmed.
I shall see you gay at court, dear Constance. Besides, if you are to be married, you must not twine willow with your bridal roses--that will never do."
There was no smile upon Constantia"s lips at her friend"s kind and continued efforts to remove the weight that pressed upon her heart.
"This is the last night that I can dare trust myself to speak of Walter.
Frances," she said, after a long pause, "I have no fears for his personal safety, because I know with whom he left this house: but, one thing I would say; and if, my dearest, kindest friend, I have not prated to you of my sorrows--joys, alas! I have not to communicate--it is because I must not. With all the childish feeling of a girl you have a woman"s heart, true and susceptible, as ever beat in woman"s bosom. I know you have thought me cold and reserved; an iceberg, where nothing else was ice:--true, I am chilled by circ.u.mstances, not by nature. I am sure you can remember when my step was as light, and my voice as happy, though not as mirthful, as your own: but the lightness and the mirthfulness have pa.s.sed:--only, Frances, when the world dyes my name in its own evil colour, I pray you say----" She paused as if in great perplexity.
"Say what? Surely all the world can say is, that you did what thousands of devoted girls have done before you--married to fulfil a contract,"
observed Lady Frances, who well knew that some deadly poison rankled in her heart, and almost overturned her reason.
"True, true," repeated Constance--"I had forgotten; for I am, as you may see, bewildered by my misery. But one thing, dear Frances, you can surely do:--take this poor trinket--it perplexed you once--and if ever you should meet the Cavalier who parted lately in such company, give it him back. That simple girl, poor Barbara, found it to-day within the Fairy Ring, and brought it me:--it is the only memento I had of him,"
she continued, placing it in Lady Frances" hand--"the only one--there, put it away. And now, dear Frances, since you will companion me through this last night of liberty, go, fetch your lute, and sing me all the songs we learned together; or talk in your own sweet way of those we knew, esteemed, or jested at."
"When I do sing, or when I talk, you do not listen," replied the youngest of Cromwell"s daughters, taking down her lute and striking a few wild chords: "your ears are open but their sense is shut."
"Forgive me; but, even if it is so, your music and your voice is a most soothing accompaniment to much bitterness; it is a pretty fable, that of the nightingale resting her bosom on a thorn, while warbling her finest notes."
"It proves to me that the nightingale who does so is a most foolish bird," retorted Frances, rallying, "inasmuch as she might select roses, instead of thorns, and they are both soft and fragrant."
"And fading," added Constance: "you perceive I heard you."
"Your heart, my dear friend," replied Lady Frances, "only echoes one tone, and that is a melodious melancholy. Shall I sing you "Withers"
Shepherd"s Resolution,"--my father"s rhyming "Major-general," who lorded it so st.u.r.dily over the county of Surrey? For my own part, I like the spirit of the man, particularly as it comes forth in the third verse."
And with subdued sportiveness she sung:--
"Shall a woman"s virtues move Me to perish for her love?
Or her well deservings knowne, Make me quite forget mine owne?
"Be she with that goodness blest Which may merit name of best; If she be not such to me, What care I how good she be?
"Great or good, or kind or fair, I will ne"er the more despair; If she love me, this believe, I will die ere she shall grieve.
"If she slight me when I wooe, I can scorne and let her goe, If she be not fit for me, What care I for whom she be?"
"Do you not admire it, Constantia?" she said.
"Admire what?"
"Why, the conceit of the song."
"I fear I did not heed it. I was thinking of--of--something else."
"Shall I sing it again?"
"Not to-night, dearest: and yet you may; methinks it is the last night I shall ever listen to minstrelsy--not but that there is philosophy in music, for it teaches us to forget care; it is to the ear what perfume is to the smell. How exquisite is music! the only earthly joy of which we are a.s.sured we shall taste in heaven. Play on."
Lady Frances again sung the lay, but with less spirit than before, for she felt it was unheeded by her friend, and she laid the lute silently on the ground when she had finished.
"Do you know," said Constance, after a time, "I pity your waiting lady, who was married to Jerry White, as you call him, so unceremoniously."
"Pity her!" repeated Lady Frances, with as disdainful a toss of her head, as if she had always formed a part of the aristocracy. "Pity her!
methinks the maid was well off to obtain the man who aspired to her mistress."
"But she loved him not," observed Constantia, in a sad voice.
"Poor Jerry!" laughed Lady Frances, "how could she love him; the Commonwealth jester; wanting only cap, bells, and a hobby-horse, to be fool, _par excellence_, of the British dominions? And yet he is no fool either; more knave than fool, though my father caught him at last."
"It was a severe jest," said Constantia.
"Why, it was--but verily I believe my father thought there was danger of having two fools at his court, instead of one. It was after this fashion. Jerry presumed a good deal upon the encouragement his Highness had given him--for the Protector loves a jest as well as any, when there is n.o.body by to repeat it to the grave ones: and his chaplain, Jerry White, chimed in with his humour, and was well-timed in his conceits; and this so pleased my good father, that he suffered him much in private about his person. So he fell, or pretended to fall, desperately in love with my giddy self. It was just at the time, too, when Charles Stuart made his overtures of marriage, that so caught my mother"s fancy; and my imagination was marvellously moved by two such strings to my bow--a prince and a preacher--a rogue and a fool:--only think of it, Constantia! However, Jerry grew much too tender, and I began to think seriously I was going too far; so I told my sister Mary, and I am sure she told my father; for, as I was pa.s.sing through a private anteroom at Whitehall, his reverence was there in ambush, and commenced his usual jargon of love and dove, faithfulness and fidelity, gentleness and gentility, and at last fell upon his knees, while I, half laughing, and half wondering how his rhapsody would end, as end it must--Well, there!
fancy Jerry"s countenance, clasped hands, and bended knees! and I pulling my hood (I had just returned from a walk) over my face to conceal my merriment, trying to disengage my hand from the creature"s claws--when, I really don"t know how, but there stood my father before me, with a half smile on his lip, and his usual severity of aspect.