Just as Mr. Forster’s visit to Dilston is by some pretended to have had a political meaning, so Lord Derwentwater’s visit to Bamborough in the following June is also wrongly so described, as will immediately become apparent. In truth, there was in neither any political or rebellious intentions whatever; but as at Dilston the Radcliffe cousins assembled to keep their Christmas and New Year with the Earl, so at Bamborough the Protestant gentlemen, including those who then and afterwards remained well affected to the Hanover usurpation, gathered together to meet Lord Derwentwater. People in the south cannot understand how Protestants and Catholics can meet in Northumberland without immediately falling to loggerheads and quarrelling about the Pope. And it seems the belief of the common sort in London that the appearance of a Catholic should be the signal for the throwing of brickbats, dead cats, and stones at his head. This kind of piety we do not understand. Alas! it was my unhappiness during this time of company, when everyone expected smiles and a face of joy, to feel that such a reply would have to be given to my lord as would fill two hearts with unhappiness. I carried Lady Crewe’s letter with me always, not for comfort, but for support, for it afforded me small consolation to know that I had the permission or license of the Church to make myself unhappy. Father Howard, on the other hand, would have given me authority to be happy. I perceived, too, that Mr. Hilyard had fully divined my secret, because he now sat glum, and looked at me with eyes full of pity, though he spoke not for a time. This is a grievous thing for a young woman who hath a great secret, to find that a third person has guessed it; for then must she either confess it to that person, in which case she blabs the secret of another, or she must go on pretending to hide what has already been discovered, like an ostrich with her eggs, or the pelican who is said to bury her head in the sand, and so to think that all is concealed. Mr. Hilyard gave no sign of his discovery save by tell-tale eyes, which, dissimulator of looks though he was, could not hide from me the truth that he knew my trouble and sorrow.
A day or two before my lord arrived, he began, Tom being present, to speak very briskly about badgers, otters, cub-foxes, seafowl, and other things with which his lordship might be amused; and presently, Tom having withdrawn, he said to me gravely:
‘Miss Dorothy, I would that I could hope to see the roses return to your cheeks when my lord comes. Believe me, those others who love you (in thine own station and with the respect due) take it greatly to heart that they see you thus going in sorrow and trouble.’
At these kind words I began to cry and lament.
‘Nay,’ he said, ‘there is, be assured, no man in the world worth your tears. And there is remedy for those who will find it, as is shown in the “Remedium Amoris.” Cressida forsook Troilus for Diomede; Paris left Oenone for Helen; Helen preferred, to the tender care of the best of husbands, Paris and the flouts of the Trojan ladies; one Cupid is painted contending with another, because one love driveth out another.’
‘I know not,’ I replied, ‘how there can be two loves in one life. These are idle words, Mr. Hilyard. What is Helen or Cressida to me?’
‘It were much to be desired,’ said Mr. Hilyard, without replying to this question, ‘that the passion of love could be treated as copiously and minutely by ingenious women as it hath been by men, who have written all the love-stories and poems on love, so that the world may very well learn the miseries caused by that passion in men, and its incitements, growth, violence, and remedies. Yet for women there has been nothing (a few fragments by Sappho excepted) written by themselves to tell of the origin, symptoms, and strength of the passion, nor how it differs from the corresponding emotion in men. So that, though physicians may very well understand the existence of the disease (if it be a disease), even though it exhibit to outward view less violent symptoms than in men, they are apt to treat it as if it were the same in kind, whereas (as I conceive and in my poor judgment) it is by no means of the same kind. This I could make manifest to you, had you the patience to listen.’
‘Indeed, sir,’ I said, ‘I doubt not that you are a very learned person; but suffer me, pray, to know my own heart without your interpretation.’
‘For the cure of love in young men,’ he went on, ‘there are prescribed many things of little service in the case of the other sex. For instance, fasting, exercise, study, the use of lettuce, melons, water-lilies, and rue, combined (in obstinate cases) with flogging. None of these remedies seem convenient or apt for a woman; indeed, for a true remedium amoris I think there is nothing absolutely sovereign for a woman, except the comprehension or the discovery that the object of her passion, on account of some vitium or defect which he may possess in mind or body, is among his fellows contemptible or mean. Others think that a woman is most easily cured by the knowledge of her lover’s infidelity or loss of affection; but this produces jealousy, and jealousy incites to revenge, or even madness. Wherefore, Miss Dorothy, I would recommend to all young ladies who are in love that they should steadily keep before their imaginations the imperfections of their lovers.’
‘Oh, sir,’ I cried, ‘this talk is trifling! You have found out my secret and shamed me. You know that I love a man whom I cannot marry. Let that be enough. Why tease me with this foolish prating of lettuce and water-lilies? My lord may —— nay, he must —— go away and find another woman for his wife. This must I bear without jealousy or revenge, as a Christian woman should, because there is no help for it. But that I should think upon his defects, who hath none! Fie, Mr. Hilyard! I thought not you could say anything so foolish and so cruel.’
‘Forgive me,’ he replied, seeing that I was now moved to anger.
‘Why, after this foolish talk about fickle women (I may not have been so beautiful as Helen, but I have certainly been more constant), and about the symptoms of love (as if any woman who respects herself would talk to a man about her thoughts and hopes), and about love’s remedies and lettuces (as if what one eats and drinks could alter the affections of the heart!)—— after all this talk, I say, to advise me that I should fix my mind on my lord’s imperfections —— of all men the least imperfect!’
‘Forgive me, Miss Dorothy. I know of no defects in his lordship, except that he hath made you unhappy with loving you —— a thing which he could not help, unless he had been the most insensible of men. Yet I would venture on anything if I could only restore the merry face of my mistress. Did you take counsel with any —— any in authority?’
Here he blushed and looked shamefaced; I know not why.
‘Lady Crewe hath written to me, enjoining me, in the name of the Bishop, to proceed no farther.’
‘Yet your happiness is more to me —— I mean, to yourself —— even than the order of the Bishop. Wherefore, Miss Dorothy’ (he endeavoured to speak boldly, but failed, and spoke in some confusion, like unto one who first would open up his mind as regards a horrid crime)——‘wherefore let us consider that case of conscience which you once laid before me again. It may be that —— we shall see —— the Bishop may not thoroughly understand. There are excuses’ (he seemed feeling about for them). ‘It may very well be argued that a young gentlewoman, such as you described in your questions, might be considered as an exceptional case; for not only her own, but also her lover’s happiness, is concerned. And he a great nobleman. And though we hold a purer form of faith, yet it cannot be denied that the Catholics have a most venerable ——’
‘Oh, Mr. Hilyard,’ I interrupted, ‘your arguments come too late!’
‘If you are unhappy,’ he replied, ‘how much more I, who am the cause!’
‘You the cause?’
‘Yes,’ he hung his head; ‘because —— because —— well, if I had given a different reply to that question.’
He sighed again, and went away; but looked as if there was something still on his mind, if he dared to say it out. And still he was silent, and behaved like one with a burden on his conscience when in my company. But this did not at all prevent him from being in good voice, and with a cheerful countenance, such as becomes a man who is happy and of a clear conscience, when Mr. Forster had visitors and the drinking and singing began. However, I had long ceased to wonder at the variations in this man, all for virtue in the morning, with a conscience tender, and converse pious and sincere. Yet in the evening, virtue forgotten, folly made welcome, and revelry proclaimed with wicked and idle songs.
The month of June is the spring of Northumberland, and a most beautiful time it is, when every morning yields a new surprise, and the dullest heart cannot but rejoice in the long days and the warm sunshine, after the cold east winds of April and May. In June the very sands upon the shore below the castle show of brighter hue, while the hedges are gay with flowers, and the trees are all glorious with their new finery of leaf. Nowhere, Mr. Hilyard assures me, are the leaves of the trees more large and full, or the flowers of field, hedge, and ditch more varied, than in this favoured country. It is in this month that a young lover should woo his mistress; it was in this month that Lord Derwentwater came to pay his court to one who was, alas! bidden to say him nay.
He came for no other purpose —— though it was given out that he came to stay with Tom Forster, to visit his property in the north of the county (in right of this the north transept of Bamborough Church belonging to him), to talk politics, and whatever the people pleased —— he came, I say, with no other object than to see me, and to remind me that the six months had come to an end.
On the first day, and on the second, and on the third, there was no opportunity for private discourse between us, because there was no moment when so honoured a guest was left alone to follow his own course unattended; one gentleman after another being presented to his lordship, and continual amusements (whereof great men must become wearied) being provided for him. But still he followed me with eyes full of love, and still I trembled, thinking of what was to come, and how I should find the courage to say it.
The first day he explored, with a great company, the dismantled and ruinous chambers of the great castle, Mr. Hilyard going with the party in order to discourse upon the history and antiquities of the place, to describe its sieges, and to enlarge upon the greatness of the Forsters, so that some gentlemen present of equally good family wished that they, too, had in their own houses an Oxford scholar who could keep their accounts, rehearse, as if he were a great historian, the ancient glories of their line, and in the evening sing, and act, and play the buffoon for them to laugh. Truly a valuable servant, a Phoenix of stewards! Lord Derwentwater spoke in great admiration of this venerable pile, compared with which, he said, his own ruined castle of Langley was small and insignificant. He also made some very pertinent remarks about the decay of great families, and the passage of estates into the female line, and congratulated Mr. Forster the Elder (of Etherston) on the happy circumstances which still preserved this great monument for the original and parent stock, not knowing the truth, that the place belonged to none other than Lord Crewe.
In the evening there was a very splendid supper; not, truly, so fine as could be given at Dilston, but a banquet to simple gentlemen, and there was great havoc among the bottles, though as usual his lordship begged early to be excused, on the ground that though his heart was Northumbrian, his head was still French, and could not endure the generous potations of his friends. They would have been better pleased had he remained toasting and drinking with them, until all were laid on the floor together. In this manner, Indeed, many of them proved the friendliness with which they regarded his lordship.
The next day a party was made up to go a-shooting among the wild birds of the Staples and the Farnes, though there is little sport where the birds are so plentiful and so tame that it is mere slaughter and butchery. That seems to me true sport when a pheasant is discerned among the bushes, and presently put up; or a covey of partridges rises among the turnips, or a fox is made to stake his swiftness and cunning against the swiftness of the hounds; but it is a poor thing indeed to stand upon a rock and shoot among a flying crowd of birds who have no fear of man.
On the morning of the fourth day, Lord Derwentwater rose early, and finding me already up and dressed, surprised me by asking for a dish of chocolate. The habit of drinking chocolate in the morning, although it hath found great favour (surely it is a most delightful and wholesome beverage) among the ladies, is as yet little esteemed by the gentlemen of the north. To these last a tankard of small-ale is considered better for the composing of the stomach and the satisfying of thirst.
‘You shall have, my lord,’ I said, ‘as fine a dish of chocolate as if you were at St. Germain’s itself.’
I begged him to wait a few minutes only, and ran quickly and called Jenny, my maid, to help me. Then, though my heart was beating, I made the chocolate with my own hands, strong, hot, and foaming, while Jenny spread a white cloth and laid the table in the garden under a walnut-tree. When the chocolate was ready I found a new scone made of the finest meal, boiled two or three eggs, and spread all out, with cream and yellow butter from the dairy, and a dish of last year’s honey.
‘Your breakfast is ready, my lord,’ I said, like a waiting-maid. ‘But you must take it in the garden, where I have laid it for you.’
He followed me, and protested that he had neither expected nor deserved so great an honour as to be served by Miss Dorothy.
‘I am pleased,’ I said, ‘and honoured in doing so small a service for your lordship, if you can eat eggs and honey and drink chocolate, instead of pressed beef and beer.’
‘It is the food of the gods,’ he replied, ‘or, at least, of Arcadia shepherds. Dorothy, was there ever in Arcadia such a shepherdess?’
One knows not what might have been said further had not Mr. Hilyard appeared abruptly, taking the early air in a morning-gown, ragged and worn. He would have retired, seeing his lordship, but I bade him stay.
‘Here is another of our shepherds,’ I said. ‘But fie, Mr. Hilyard! Do shepherds in Arcadia wear ragged gowns when they rise in the morning to see great noblemen?’
‘Mr. Hilyard will not allow anyone to forget him,’ said his lordship kindly. ‘He discourses learnedly by day on history and antiquity, and in the evening he displays the powers of the most accomplished mime. I thank you, sir, for your exertions in both capacities. Especially, let me say, for the former.’
‘My lord,’ said Mr. Hilyard, ‘I am like the nightingale. My pipe is kept for the evening. By day I am at the commands of Miss Dorothy.’
‘Then, sir, truly you ought to be the happiest of men.’
‘My lord,’ replied Mr. Hilyard gravely, ‘I have the kindest and best of mistresses, who hath ever treated me with a consideration I should be the basest wretch not to feel and acknowledge. In this house there is not one who doth not daily pray for her happiness, and I, who am the most unworthy, pray the most continually.’
So saying, he bowed low and left the garden, for which I thanked him in my heart, knowing why he did so; and yet trembled, because I remembered my weakness at Dilston, and that I would need to keep careful watch over my words, to discipline my inclinations, and to submit myself and my will wholly to the authority of the Bishop.
Then were we left alone in the garden, whither in the early morning none ever came, except sometimes the gardener. The place was well fitted for our talk, being a bower surrounded on two sides by a hawthorn hedge, now all in blossom and at its sweetest; on the third side having an elderberry-tree, just preparing to flower, and looking upon the bowling-green. Often in the warm evenings the gentlemen would take their tobacco after supper in this retreat.
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