Robin Tremayne Part 2

It was a minute before Isoult Avery could speak; and when she did so, her voice trembled a little. She lifted up her heart to G.o.d for wisdom, and then said--

"Dear my Lady, we be all traitors unto G.o.d, and are all under the condemnation of His holy law. Shall the traitor arraign the Judge? And unto the repenting traitor, G.o.d's hand falleth not in punishment, but only in loving discipline and fatherly training. You slack not, I count, to give Honor her physic, though she cry that it is bitter and loathsome; nor will G.o.d set aside His physic for your Ladys.h.i.+p's crying.

Yet, dear my Lady, this is not because He loveth to see you weep, but only because He would heal you of the deadly plague of your sins. Our Lord's blood shed upon the rood delivereth us from the guilt of our sins; but so tied to sin are we, that we must needs be set under correction for to make us to loathe it. I pray your Ladys.h.i.+p mercy for my rude speaking, but it is at your own commandment."

"Ah! 'tis pity thou art not a man, that thou mightest have had the tonsure," replied Lady Lisle drily. "Ah me, children! If this be physic, 'tis more like to kill than cure."

Little Honor lived through the night; and when the morning came, they were still awaiting the King's messenger. As those who loved her sat round her bed, the child opened her eyes.

"Aunt Isoult," she said in her little feeble voice, "how soon will Jesus come and take me?"

Isoult looked for an answer to Dr Thorpe, who was also present. He brushed his hand over his eyes.

"Would you liefer it were soon or long, little maid?" said he.

"For Mother's sake, I would liefer He waited," she whispered; "but for mine, I would He might come soon. There will be no more physic, will there--nor no more pain, after He cometh?"

"Poor heart!" exclaimed Lady Lisle, who sat in the window.

"Nay, little maid," answered Dr Thorpe.

"Nor no more crying, Honor," said Isoult.

"I would He would take Mother along with me," pursued the child. "She hath wept so much these two years past. She used to smile so brightly, and it was so pretty to see her. I would she could do that again."

"Thou shalt see her do that again, dear Honor," said Isoult, as well as she could speak, "but not, methinks, in this world."

But her voice failed her, for she remembered a time when that smile had been brighter than ever Honor saw it.

"If He would take us all," the child continued faintly: "me, and Mother, and Arthur, and Grandmother, and Aunt Philippa! And Father is there waiting--is not he?"

"I think he is, Honor," answered Isoult.

"That would be so good," she said, as she closed her eyes. "Aunt Isoult, would it be wrong to ask Him?"

"It is never wrong to tell Him of our wants and longings, dear heart,"

was the answer. "Only we must not forget that He knoweth best."

"Please to ask Him," the child whispered. But Isoult's voice broke down in tears. "Ask Him thyself, little maid," said Dr Thorpe. The child folded her little hands on her breast. "Lord Jesus!" she said, in her faint voice, "I would like Thee to come and take me soon. I would like Thee to take us all together--specially Mother and Grandmother--with me.

And please to make Grandmother love Thee, for I am afeard she doth not much; and then make haste and fetch her and Mother to me. Amen."

"G.o.d bless thee, little maid!" said Dr Thorpe in a low voice. "All the singing of the angels will not stay that little prayer from reaching His ear."

"But list the child!" whispered Lady Lisle under her breath.

Honor lay a minute with her eyes closed, and then suddenly opened them, and clasped her little hands again.

"I forgot to ask Him one thing," she said. "Please, Lord Jesus, not to send the angels, but come and fetch me Thyself."

And her eyes closed again. Frances came softly in, and sat down near the bed; and a few minutes after her, Philippa looked in, and then came forward and stood in the window. She and Dr Thorpe looked at each other, and he nodded. Philippa whispered a word or two to Lady Lisle, who appeared to a.s.sent to something; and then she came to Frances.

"Dr Thorpe confirmeth me in my thought," said she, "that 'twill not be long now; therefore I will fetch Father Dell."

But Frances rose, and laid her hand on her sister's arm.

"Nay, Philippa!" she said. "I will not have the child's last hour disturbed."

"Disturbed by the priest!" exclaimed Philippa, opening her eyes.

"What do ye chaffer about?" cried Lady Lisle, in her old sharp manner.

"Go thy ways, Philippa, and send for the priest."

The noise aroused the dying child.

"Must the priest come?" asked the faint little voice from the bed.

"Will Jesus not be enough?"

Frances bent down to kiss her with a resolved look through all her pain.

"Ay, beloved--Jesus will be enough!" she answered, "and no priest shall touch thee.--Mother! forgive me for disobeying you this once. But I pray you, by all that you hold dear and blessed, let my child die in peace! If not for my sake, or if not for hers, for their sakes--the dead which have linked you and me--let her depart in peace!"

Philippa shook her head, but she sat down again.

"Have your way, Frank!" answered Lady Lisle, with a strange mingling of sorrow and anger in her voice. "There is more parting us than time or earth, as I can see. I thought it sore enough, when Jack set him on his dying bed against the priest's coming; and then thou saidst never a word. But now--"

"There was no need," said Frances in a quivering voice.

"Have thy way, have thy way!" said her mother again. "I was used to boast there was no heresy in my house. Ah, well! we live and learn. If thou canst fas.h.i.+on to reach Heaven by a new road, prithee do it.

Methinks it will little matter for her. And when my time cometh, thou wilt leave him come to me, maybe."

There was silence for a little while afterwards, and their eyes were all turned where Honor lay, the little life ebbing away like the tide of the ocean. Her eyes were shut, and her breathing slow and laboured.

Suddenly, while they watched her, she opened her eyes, lifted her head, and stretched forth her arms with a cry of pleasure.

"Oh!" she said, delightedly. "Mother--it is not the angels--He is come Himself!"

What she saw, how could they know? The dying eyes were clear: but a film of earth over the living ones hindered their seeing Him. For an instant hers kept fixed on something unseen by the rest, and they shone like stars. Then suddenly a s.h.i.+ver came over her, her eyelids drooped, and she sank back into her mother's arms.

"Is she gone?" asked Lady Lisle.

"With G.o.d," said Dr Thorpe reverently.

Little Honor was buried at Crowe. The evening of her funeral found Isoult Avery in the painful position (for it is both painful and perplexing) of a general confidante. Each member of the family at Crowe took her aside in turn, and poured into her ear the special story of her troubles. This, as it always does, involved complaints of the others.

Of these complaints Lady Frances uttered the fewest, and had the greatest reason. And Isoult now found that Dr Thorpe was right; for more was troubling her than her maternal sorrow. In the first place, they were very poor. The Priory of Frithelstoke, granted some years before to Lord and Lady Lisle by the King their nephew, was all that remained to the widow: and from this piece after piece of land was detached and sold, to supply pressing necessities. The second trouble was of older standing. For the House of Lisle was divided against itself; and the Gospel had brought to them, not peace, but a sword.

Nine years before, while he was yet Governor of Calais, Lord Lisle's heart had been opened to receive the truth, while his wife's remained closed. Frances followed her father, Philippa her mother. And there was in consequence a standing feud in the family, as to which religion should be taught to Arthur, the remaining child left to Frances. But the third trouble was at that moment pressing the sorest. Mr Monke of Potheridge, a gentleman of good family and fortune, had requested Lady Lisle's permission to seek the hand of her widowed daughter. For Frances was Lady Lisle's child by affinity in a double manner, being both her husband's daughter and her son's widow. Lady Lisle, under the impression that Mr Monke was of the "old doctrine" which she professed herself, not only gave him her leave, but aided him by every means in her power, in the hope that Frances might thus be converted from the error of her ways. Very bitter was this to the bereaved mother of the dead child. To be asked to marry again at all was no light matter; but to have the subject continually pressed upon her by the mother and sister of the lost husband whose memory she cherished with unabated devotion,--this was painful indeed. Philippa was less to blame in the matter than her mother. Being herself of less delicate mould than her sister-in-law, she really did not see half the pain she inflicted; and her energetic nature would have led her to endeavour to forget sorrow, rather than to nurse it, at any time. In her belief, Frances thought and mourned too much; she wanted rousing; she ought to make an effort to shake off all her ills, physical and mental. Philippa had honestly mourned for her dead brother, as well as for his child; but now it was over and done with; they were gone, and could not be recalled: and life must go on, not be spent in moping and moaning. This was Philippa's view of matters; and under its influence she gave more distress to the sister whom she dearly loved than, to do her justice, she had the faintest idea that she was giving.

When Lady Frances had unburdened herself, by pouring her troubles into her friend's sympathising ear, Philippa in her turn took Isoult aside and bespoke her sympathy.

"Frances is but foolish and fantastical," she said, "or she should wed with Jack's old friend Mr Monke, that would fain have her. My Lady my mother desireth the same much. It should ease her vastly as matter of money. This very winter doth she sell two parcels of the Frithelstoke lands, for to raise money; and at after, there is but Frithelstoke itself, and Crowe; after the which sold, we may go a-begging."