By What Authority? Part 17

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 Sat.u.r.day 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 k.n.o.b 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 a.s.sisted 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 pa.s.sive 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, embarra.s.sed.

"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, "G.o.d 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 pa.s.s 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 G.o.d 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.