CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.
CHECK!
Pandora would have spoken as soon as they left the dining-room, but shewas stopped by a motion of her aunt's hand. Mrs Collenwood took herinto her own bedroom, shut and barred the door, glanced inside a hangingcloset to see that no one was secreted there, and seating herself on thecushioned seat which ran round the inside of the bay window, signed toher niece to take a seat beside her.
"Now, Dorrie, speak thy desire."
"Aunt Frances, I am surprised with wonder! Pray you, what ail I, that Imust quit home thus suddenly? I feel right well, and knew not there wasaught ado with mine health."
Pandora's voice betrayed a little alarm. It certainly was a startlingthing for a girl who felt and believed herself in excellent health, tohear suddenly that unless she had instant change of air, seriousconsequences might be expected to ensue.
Mrs Collenwood smiled--an affectionate, almost compassionate smile--asshe patted Pandora's shoulder.
"Take thine heart to thee, Dorrie. Thou art not sick, and if I can havethee away in sufficient time, God allowing, thou shalt not be. But Ifear, if thou tarry, thou mayest have an attack of a certain pestilencethat is rife in Kent at this season."
"Pestilence, Aunt Frances! I never heard of no such going about. Butif so, why I alone? There be Father, and True, and Aunt Grena--shouldthey not go likewise?"
"No fear for Gertrude," answered Mrs Collenwood, almost sadly. "Andnot much, methinks, for thy father. I am lesser sure of thine AuntGrena: but I have not yet been able to prevail with her to accompanyus."
"But what name hath this pestilence, under your good leave, AuntFrances?"
"It is called, Dorrie--persecution."
The colour rose slowly in Pandora's cheeks, until her whole face wassuffused.
"Methinks I take you now, Aunt," she said. "But, if I may have libertyto ask at you, wherefore think you Father and True to be safer than AuntGrena and I?"
"Because they would yield, Dorrie. I misdoubt any charge broughtagainst Gertrude; 'tis not such as she that come before religioustribunals. They will know they have her safe enough."
"Aunt Frances," said Pandora in a whisper, "think you I should notyield?"
"I hope thou wouldst not, Dorrie."
"But how wist you--how could you know," asked the girl passionately,"what I had kept so carefully concealed? How could you know that Ihated to go to mass, and availed myself of every whit of excuse thatshould serve my turn to stay away from confession?--that I besought Godevery night, yea, with tears, to do away this terrible state of matters,and to grant us rulers under whom we might worship Him without fear,according to His will and word? I counted I had hidden mine heart fromevery eye but His. Aunt Frances, how _could_ you know?"
Mrs Collenwood drew Pandora into her arms.
"Because, my child, I had done the same."
The girl's arms came round her aunt's neck, and their cheeks werepressed close.
"O Aunt Frances, I am so glad! I have so lacked one to speak withalherein! I have thought at times, if I had but one human creature towhom I might say a word!--and then there was nobody but God--I seemeddriven to Him alone."
"That is blessed suffering, my dear heart, which drives souls to God;and there he will come with nought lesser. Dorrie, methinks thou scarcemindest thy mother?"
"Oh, but I do, Aunt! She was the best and dearest mother that ever was.True loves not to talk of her, nor of any that is dead; so that herealso I had to shut up my thoughts within myself; but I mind her--ay,that I do!"
"Niece, when she lay of her last sickness, she called me to her, andquoth she--`Frances, I have been sore troubled for my little Dorrie: butmethinks now I have let all go, and have left her in the hands of God.Only if ever the evil days should come again, and persecution arisebecause of the witness of Jesus, and the Word of God, and the testimonywhich we hold--tell her, if you find occasion, as her mother's lastdying word to her, that she hold fast the word of the truth of theGospel, and be not moved away therefrom, neither by persuading northreatening. 'Tis he that overcometh, and he only, that shall have thecrown of life.' Never till now, Pandora, my dear child, have I toldthee these words of thy dead and saintly mother. I pray God lay them onthine heart, that thou mayest stand in the evil day--yea, whether thouescape these things or no, thou mayest stand before the Son of Man atHis coming."
Pandora had hidden her face on Mrs Collenwood's shoulder.
"Oh, _do_ pray, Aunt Frances!" she said, with a sob.
The days for a week after that were very busy ones. Every day some oneor two bags were packed, and quietly conveyed at nightfall by MrsCollenwood's own man to an inn about four miles distant. Pandora waskept indoors, except one day, when she went with Mrs Collenwood to takeleave of Christie. That morning the priest called and expressed a wishto speak to her: but being told that she was gone to see a friend, saidhe would call again the following day. Of this they were told on theirreturn. Mrs Collenwood's cheeks paled a little; then, with set lips,and a firm step, she sought her brother in his closet, or as we shouldsay, his study.
"Tom," she said, when the door was safely shut, "we must be gone thisnight."
Mr Roberts looked up in considerable astonishment.
"This night!--what mean you, Frances? The clouds be gathering for rain,and your departure was fixed for Thursday."
"Ay, the clouds be gathering," repeated Mrs Collenwood meaningly, "andI am 'feared Pandora, if not I, may be caught in the shower. Have younot heard that Father Bastian desired to speak with her whilst we werehence this morrow? We must be gone, Tom, ere he come again."
Mr Roberts, who was busy with his accounts, set down a five as theaddition of eight and three, with a very faint notion of what he wasdoing.
"Well!" he said, in an undecided manner. "Well! it is--it is not--itshall look--"
"How should it look," replied Mrs Collenwood, with quiet incisiveness,"to see Pandora bound to the stake for burning?"
Mr Roberts threw out his hands as if to push away the terriblesuggestion.
"It may come to that, Tom, if we tarry. For, without I mistake, thegirl is not made of such willowy stuff as--some folks be."
She just checked herself from saying, "as you are."
Mr Roberts passed his fingers through his hair, in a style which said,as plainly as words, that he was about at his wits' end. Perhaps he hadnot far to go to reach that locality.
"Good lack!" he said. "Dear heart!--well-a-day!"
"She will be safe with me," said her aunt, "for a time at least. And ifdanger draw near there also, I can send her thence to certain friends ofmine in a remote part amongst the mountains, where a priest scarcecometh once in three years. And ere that end, God may work changes inthis world."
"Well, if it must be--"
"It must be, Tom; and it shall be for the best."
"It had been better I had wist nought thereof. They shall be sure toquestion me."
Mrs Collenwood looked with a smile of pitying contempt on the man whowas weaker than herself. The contempt predominated at first: then itpassed into pity.
"Thou shalt know nought more than now, Tom," she said quietly. "Go thouup, and get thee a-bed, but leave the key of the wicket-gate on thistable."
"I would like to have heard you had gat safe away," said poor MrRoberts, feeling in his pockets for the key.
"You would speedily hear if we did not," was the answer.
Mr Roberts sighed heavily as he laid down the key.
"Well, I did hope to keep me out of this mess. I had thought, byoutward conforming, and divers rich gifts to the priest, and so forth--'Tis hard a man cannot be at peace in his own house."
"'Tis far harder when he is not at peace in his own soul."
"Ah!" The tone of the exclamation said that was quite too good toexpect, at any rate for the speaker.
Mrs Collenwood laid her hand on her brother's shoulder.
"Tom, we are parting for a long season--it
may be for all time. Sufferme speak one word with thee, for the sake of our loving mother, and forher saintly sake that sleepeth in All Saints' churchyard, whose head layon my bosom when her spirit passed to God. There will come a day, goodbrother, when thou shalt stand before an higher tribunal than that of myLord Cardinal, to hear a sentence whence there shall be none appeal.What wouldst thou in that day that thou hadst done in this? As thouwilt wish thou hadst done then, do now."
"I--can't," faltered the unhappy waverer.
"I would as lief be scalded and have done with it, Tom, as live in suchendless terror of hot water coming nigh me. Depend on it, it should bethe lesser suffering in the end."
"There's Gertrude," he suggested in the same tone.
"Leave Gertrude be. They'll not touch her. Gertrude shall be of thatreligion which is the fashion, to the end of her days--without the Lordturn her--and folks of that mettle need fear no persecution. Nay, Tom,'tis not Gertrude that holdeth thee back from coming out on the Lord'sside. God's side is ever the safest in the end. It is thine own weakheart and weak faith, wherein thou restest, and wilt not seek thestrength that can do all things, which God is ready to grant thee butfor the asking."
"You are a good woman, Frances," answered her brother, with more feelingthan he usually showed, "and I would I were more like you."
"Tarry not there, Tom: go on to `I would I were more like Christ.'There be wishes that fulfil themselves; and aspirations after God be ofthat nature. And now, dear brother, I commend thee to God, and to theword of His grace. Be thou strong in the Lord, and in the power of Hismight!"
They kissed each other for the last time, and Mrs Collenwood stoodlistening to the slow, heavy step which passed up the stairs and intothe bedroom overhead. When Mr Roberts had shut and barred his door,she took up the key, and with a sigh which had reference rather to hisfuture than to her present, went to seek Pandora. Their little packagesof immediate necessaries were soon made up. When the clock struckmidnight--an hour at which in 1557 everybody was in bed--two wellcloaked and hooded women crept out of the low-silled window of thedinning-room, and made their silent and solitary way through the shrubsof the pleasure-ground to the little wicket-gate which opened on theGoudhurst road.
All's Well Page 21
