Chapter X: Lettice's Diary (2)

"Then I looked up and met his eyes for a moment, but the softness in them overcame me, and I could not speak.

"'What does all this mean, Roger Drayton?' he resumed, impatiently. 'Does not she know I sent for thee? Surely she has not changed?'

"'Mistress Lettice says she has not changed,' said Roger despondingly, 'and never can.'

"'Then what is all this coil about? She told me months since, in the teeth of prohibitions and entreaties to bestow her hand elsewhere, that you had exchanged troth, and would be true to each other till death.'

"'And after,' said I. 'Death cannot separate us for ever. Only that terrible death, and that only in life.'

"'It was because I guarded the scaffold at the king's beheading,' said Roger.

"'Tush, tush, child,' my father replied, hastily. 'We have been through a wilderness, and which of us has not lost his way? We have been through the fire and smoke of a hundred battles, who expects us to come out with face and hands washed like a Pharisee's?'

"Then suddenly turning to Roger and taking his hand, he said solemnly,--

"'If thou hadst known, Roger Drayton, for what a king that scaffold was in clearing the way, I trow thou hadst rather laid thy head on the block thyself.'

"This Roger did not deny. Was not his silence a confession? And so, when my father laid our hands together in his, could I refuse? The sacred irresistible touch of another hand which had once before so joined them, seemed on us all, and a tender voice from heaven seemed to float above like church music. And still as I listened to-night, in the oratory alone, it seemed to say,--

"'My children, the way is rough, tread it together. The burdens are heavy; share them all. Sorrows, fears, fruitless regrets, fruitful repentances, share them all. Bear each other's burdens, and in so bearing, make them sometimes light and always helpful. To you it is given to love; not with the poor timid transitory love which dares not see, but with the love which dares to see because it helps to purify. My children, the way will not be smooth. Tread it together. The burdens will be heavy. Share them all.'"

OLIVE'S RECOLLECTIONS.

They were married as quietly as might be on a quiet autumn day in the old parish-church of Netherby.

We waited for them in the porch of the old church--the west porch, which our forefathers had built--looking across the green graves of the village churchyard, across the quiet village street to the arched gate which opened opposite from one of the avenues of the hall; my father, Aunt Dorothy (once more at Netherby), Aunt Gretel, my husband, the children and I.

No stately procession issued thence, only Lettice; leaning on her father's arm, wrapped closely in a mantle, with a few faithful old servants following.

We saw them in the distance wending towards us among the grey stems of the beech-trees. Their footsteps fell softly on the fallen leaves as they crossed the church path. We met them at the churchyard gate.

So we entered the church, which we had not done before.

And there a sight met us which went deep to our hearts.

There had been no triumphal wedding arches, no banners, no flowers strewn on the bride's path.

Netherby was a Puritan village, and we Puritans were at no time great in pomps and ceremonials, Moreover, there was a weight of joy in the crowning of this hope so long deferred, and a depth of content, which moved rather to tears than to shouts of welcome. Nor were the times very joyous to us. With two thousand deprived ministers to be kept from starving, and thousands of those who believed as we did, not to be kept from prisons, our festivities naturally took a sober colouring.

We had not therefore been prepared to find the church full from door to altar; full of people from the village and from all the country round--old men and women, and the youngest children that could be trusted to be quiet. (For, as one mother said afterwards, "I would like them to be able to say to their children, 'I was there when Mr. Roger and Mistress Lettice were married.'") They rose as we passed up the aisle, and a soft murmur of benediction seemed to fill the silent church.

For Roger and Lettice were dearly loved in the dear old place, with an affection which had grown with their growth from infancy, and which was strong through the intertwining roots of centuries. (It will be long before the new roots in the New World strike so deep.)

And through all the generations of Davenants and Draytons this was the first time the lines had met in marriage.

It was a solemn as well as a joyful thing to see those two stand with joined hands at the altar, with the tombs of our fathers beside them in the oldest transept, and the stately monuments of the Davenants opposite, whilst the whole village of our tenants and servants (children of generations of our tenants and servants) were gathered behind.

As they knelt down side by side on the altar steps, a ray from the autumn sun fell softly on her bowed head, slightly turned, on the rich brown hair flowing beneath her veil, on the broad fair brow, the drooping eyelids, with their long dark lashes, and the pale cheek. In its repose her face shone on me as if it had been her mother's looking down on her from heaven; so close seemed the likeness, so angelic the calm. It brought my childhood, and all heaven before me, and blinded my eyes with tears.

Good old Dr. Rich was so completely shaken out of his natural dwelling-place in the past by his sympathy with them that he seemed like another man. His voice was deep and tender, and the benedictions fell from his lips with a power which resounded from stone effigies of knight and dame, and thrilled back from every living heart, in a deep echo, "Yea, and they shall be blessed."

The most rigid Puritan in the place conformed for the occasion. Responses went up, not, as Mr. Baxter complains, "in a confused and unmeaning manner," but hearty and clear as an anthem; and the Amens rang through the church like a salute of artillery.

As the service closed and we followed Lettice and Roger down the aisle, I noticed a cavalier wrapped in a large mantle, leaning against one of the pillars near the door. Lettice saw him and pointed him out to Roger, and both then went towards him. It was Walter Davenant. He came forward and grasped their hands.

His voice was low, and had a tremor in it. But I heard him say,--

"If my being publicly here could have been any sign of honour to you, Roger Drayton, I would have come with a cavalcade. But my coming is an honour to none. I pray you think it not a disgrace."

Sir Walter coloured as he saw him (he had forbidden Walter to enter his house), but Lettice placed their hands together, and there was no resisting the entreaty in her sweet pleading face. So the old cavalier went back to the hall leaning on his son's arm.

It seemed as happy an augury as could be given of the blessing to flow from the marriage.

He was the only one of Lettice's kindred except her father who vouchsafed his presence. And I believe it was to counterbalance this cold reception, and testify how he honoured, as much as to show how he loved, his child, that Sir Walter insisted on all the village partaking of such a feast as Netherby had never seen, and on the ringers of all the churches round ringing such peals as the country-side had never heard.

So it came about that at last, after flowing so parallel, so close, and so divided for so many centuries, the two streams of life at Netherby blended in one.

Job Forster said,--

"I always knew it must be--I always knew. Do you think, Mistress Olive, I've watched nightly with Master Roger by the camp-fires on Scotch and Irish moors, on the hills and by the sea, and gone with him into battle after battle, when neither of us knew who would ever come back alive--without finding out where his heart was? and when Mistress Lettice came back from beyond seas as a lily among thorns, I knew she was all right, which made it plain. But I never breathed it to a soul. _She_ (_i.e._ Rachel) of course always knew everything, whether she was told or not. But she was unbelieving about it--fearful and unbelieving. I never knew her so bad about anything. I believe it was because she wished it so much. Scores of times she has vexed me sore about it. 'There was no promise folks should be happy,' said she, 'and have all they wished for.' I had to mind her of the morning long ago, when we went hunting in the dark for a promise for Master Roger when he was in that sore trouble, and no promise came, till at last she found we wanted none, for we'd got beyond the promises to Him who was the Promise of all promises. And here she was standing up again for a promise! 'It was spiritual inward blessing we were looking for then, Job,' said she (nigh as perverse as that poor Quaker maid), 'and of course that's all plain. This is _outward_, and that's another thing altogether. No doubt the good Lord would have us all forgiven and made good. But it's by no means clear to my mind He'd have us all married and made happy just in the way we wish.' 'Well, said I, 'thou'rt a wise woman, a world wiser than me. But thou'st never fought under Oliver. _He_ said he knew not well to distinguish between outward blessings and inward. _To a worldly man they are outward; to a saint, Christian_. The difference is in the subject, if not in the object.' Nor," continued Job, "do I know to distinguish, or care. Leastways thou'st been the best means of grace the Lord ever sent to me. And why shouldn't Master Roger and Lettice be like thee and me? Seems to me scarce thankful, anyway, to put marriage among the outward blessings, like meat!' Which, if it did not convince her (for the best of women can't be always amenable to reason), anyways turned the conversation. And now it's all come about as I said, wife, and thou must give in at last," he concluded. "Sure, thou'lt never be as stiff-necked as those poor wilful Scottish ministers, who were so wise they couldn't even see what the Almighty meant after He had spoken in thunder at Dunbar. Poor souls," he added, "poor stiff-necked souls; they're learning it now on the other side of the book, by the gallows and the boot, and the congregations scattered by the King's soldiers on the hills."

Rachel did not plunge into the vexed question his words raised; as to whether the event proved the equity of the cause. She only said,--

"Promise or no promise, Job; inward or outward, I've no manner of doubt the good Lord minds whether we're happy or no, and makes us as happy as may be, while being made as good as we can be. Which, of course, He minds ten thousand times more; because the goodness is the happiness, come which way it may, by the drought or the flood. But if the happiness _will_ make us good, no fear of His stinting that. Good measure pressed down and running over, that's His measure, and that's the measure He's given Mistress Lettice and Master Roger at last, and thee and me, this many a year. Good measure, with His sign and mark on it to show it is good, and no counterfeit."

Aunt Dorothy was the only one among us who thought it necessary to temper Roger and Lettice's content with dark forebodings.

"It is no smooth sea, dear heart," said she to Lettice, "thy bark is launched upon, nor can ye remain long in any haven."

"I know that I have married a soldier," replied Lettice, "and a soldier in a warfare which has no discharges. But I know his lot, and I have chosen it for mine, Aunt Dorothy."

"Aunt Dorothy" fell from her lips for the first time like a caress. There was always a kind of sweet easy majesty about Lettice, which made her caresses seem a dignity as well as a delight, and Aunt Dorothy for the time ceased her forebodings. Her love for Lettice was stronger than she confessed or knew, and she was always more easily led by Lettice than by any amongst us to take a brighter view of things and men. Not that Aunt Dorothy was one given to moan or whine. She did not dread suffering, but she believed it her duty to dread joy and was therefore ever wont to shadow sunny days with the severe foresight of evil days to come. Dark days indeed were her bright days, since on these she permitted herself to enjoy such stray sunbeams as rarely fail to break through the darkest.

During three years after Roger and Lettice's marriage we kept much at Netherby. Sir Walter's failing health made him choose the quiet of his country home. Moreover, the doings of that degraded court, which the loyal Mr. Evelyn called "rather a luxurious and abandoned rout than a court," displeased the old cavalier of the court of Charles the First as much as it did any Puritan amongst us. Except for the contrast which made it yet bitterer for us who had hoped much from the Commonwealth, and remembered Milton dwelling at Whitehall, and the blameless family of the Protector making a pure English home, with dignified courtly festivities and family prayer, where now the eager contests of the gaming-table and wretched French songs resounded, on Sundays as well as on other days, through the apartments where the King's mistresses reigned.

An alliance grew up between Aunt Dorothy, Sir Walter, and good Dr. Rich. Aunt Dorothy could never so far forgive my father, Roger, my husband, or Job Forster, for turning (as she believed) liberty into license, and lawful resistance into rebellion, as to consort with them again as of the same party. With Sir Walter she had a broad common ground in their loyalty to the late king, their lamentations over the present court, their general admiration of the nobleness of the past, and their general hopelessness as to the future. But with Dr. Rich her sympathies were deeper. He would bring her passages from St. Austin, which she thought only second to St. Paul; and, in return, she would acknowledge that there was one passage which she had not once understood as she ought, and that was, "Resist not the power, for they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation." She agreed with Mr. Baxter and Mr. Henry as to the duty of attending, at least occasionally, the services in the church established by law. And he agreed that from primitive times private assemblies for edification in twos and threes were not forbidden.

Sometimes, indeed, they had debates.

"England also has now her St. Bartholomew," she said once, "and no doubt she will have her retribution. Charles the Ninth of France died in agonies of remorse soon after that fatal day of the execution of the Huguenots."

"Anniversaries are not always wise to observe, madam," he replied. "On the eve of St. Bartholomew's day seventeen years ago, the Commonwealth prohibited the use of the Common Prayer even in private. That also is an anniversary. And some might say this St. Bartholomew is the retribution. God forbid I should accuse Him of punishing one injustice by another. But by all means let us avoid predictions. Even agonies of remorse are not the most hopeless end of guilty souls."

"Yet," said my father, "nothing is more safe than predictions of retribution. Most men being likely to suffer, and all men being sure to die, what can be safer than to threaten either affliction or death, or both, to those we deem guilty? It seems to me," he continued, "an endless and fruitless toil to make up the balance of accounts between the churches as to persecution. Perhaps all that can be said is, that those who have had the least power have had the privilege of inflicting the least wrong. He who ruled England once said 'he never yet knew the sect who, when in power, would allow liberty to the rest.'"

"He was for license," interposed Aunt Dorothy. "Heaven forbid we should call that liberty."

"Ay, sister Dorothy, no doubt," said my father, smiling, "with many sects liberty to any other is license. That was what the Protector thought. Be thankful that you have no chance just now of making a St. Bartholomew of your own."

"The Protector has had his retribution, brother," said Aunt Dorothy, solemnly, "let us leave him and his politics in peace."

"But, sir," rejoined my father, turning to Dr. Rich, "after all, the worst retributions are in our sins. The loss of the soul in sinning must be greater than any subsequent loss in suffering; and I confess, to me no severer retribution seems possible to the Church which inflicts this present wrong than the wrong itself, the loss of two thousand of her most fervent and holy pastors, and the rending from her of the tens of thousands who revere and follow them. The losses of churches, after all, are not in livings but in lives; not in money but in men."

Bitter and biting, indeed, were the times around us, yet the prisons of those days were more honourable than the palaces. Better beyond comparison any disgrace and suffering that reckless Court could inflict than the disgrace of belonging to it.

With two thousand good ministers and their families thrown destitute on the world, it was impossible that any of those who honoured them could feel their own possessions anything but a trust to be scrupulously husbanded for their succour. Many hundreds also were in prison, though none, I rejoice to think, of those two thousand, were ever in prison for debt. Then there were the Quakers, who bore the brunt of the battle, carrying passive resistance as close to action as possible, and persisting in meeting in public assemblies, though certain to be dispersed by constables or soldiers with wounds or loss of life.

Indeed it was for this reason, amongst others, we kept away from London during the years following the passing the Act of Uniformity, in the hope of keeping Annis Nye out of the peril we knew she would confront if near enough to attend a meeting of Friends.

It was not any one party in the state whose hearts began to fail, but the good men of all parties.

It was no longer Royalists or Roundheads only that were sinking, but England. It was not Puritanism or Presbyterianism only that the Court affronted, but righteousness, purity, and truth.

Already the weapons of ecclesiastical or theological controversy, the subtle and "unanswerable" arguments wherewith Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Independents, Erastians, Calvinists, Arminians, Semi-Arminians, and all the sixty sects Mr. Baxter had enumerated, had been assailing each other during the past years, seemed to hang rusting over our heads, as mere curious antiquities, such as the bills and crossbows our ancestors had used in the wars of the Roses.

The contest was being carried to other ground; to the oldest battle-field of all, and the most plainly marked.

As Job Forster said,--

"There's a good deal of the fighting that's been done these last years, Mistress Olive, that's been a sore puzzle to a plain man like me. I mean the wars with words as well as with swords. Friend and foe used so much the same battle-cries, and fought under banners so much alike, that when a man had gained a victory, it wasn't always easy to see whether to make it a day of humiliation or of thanksgiving. The safest way was to make it both. And after he who could see for us all was taken from our head, things got clean hopeless, and it was all shooting in the dark. But now there's a kind of doleful comfort in putting by all the long hard words with which Christians fight each other, and taking up for weapons the Ten Commandments. A man feels more sure anyway they can't hit wrong. There's been a deal of fighting and a deal of talking these last years, and seems to me now as if the Almighty were calling us all to a Quaker's silent meeting, to keep still a bit, and mind our own business. Perhaps when the talking and the fighting begin again, they'll both be the better for the silence."