Constance Sherwood: An Autobiography of the Sixteenth Century

"Ah," he said, "methinks if you answer in so true and grave a manner my rude catechizing. Mistress Sherwood, I be not bold enough to continue the inventory of your faults."

"I pray you do," I answered; for I felt in my soul an unusual liking for his conversation, and the more so when, leaving off jesting, he said, "The last fault Mr. Roper did charge you with was lack of prudence in matters wherein prudence is most needed in these days."

"Alas!" I exclaimed; "for that also do I cry mercy; but indeed, Master Rookwood, there is in these days so much cowardice and time-serving which doth style itself prudence, that methinks it might sometimes happen that a right boldness should be called rashness."

Raising my eyes to his, I thought I saw them clouded by a misty dew; and he replied, "Yea, Mistress Constance, and if it is so, I had sooner that myself and such as I have a friendship for should have to cry mercy on their death-beds for too much rashness in stemming the tide, than for too much ease in yielding to it. And now," he added, "shall I repeat what Mr. Roper related of your virtues?"

"No," I answered, smiling. "For if the faults he doth charge me with be so much smaller than the reality, what hope have I that he should speak the truth in regard to my poor merits?"

Then some persons moving nearer to where we were sitting, some general conversation ensued, in which several took part; and none so much to my liking as Basil, albeit others might possess more ready tongues and a more sparkling wit. In all the years since I had left my home, I had not found so much contentment in any one's society. His mind and mine were like two instruments with various chords, but one key-note, which maintained them in admirable harmony. The measure of our agreement stood rather in the drift of our desires and the scope of our approval, than in any parity of tastes or resemblance of disposition. Acquaintanceship soon gave way to intimacy, which bred a mutual friendship that in its turn was not slow to change into a warmer feeling. We met very often. It seemed so natural to him to affection me, and to me to reciprocate his affection, that if our love began not, which methinks it did, on that first day of meeting, I know not when it had birth. But if it be difficult precisely to note the earliest buddings of the sweet flower love, it was easy to discern the moment when the bitter root of jealousy sprang up in Hubert's heart. He who had been suspicious of every person whose civilities I allowed of, did not for some time appear to mislike the intimacy which had arisen betwixt his brother and me. I ween from what he once said, when on a later occasion anger loosened his tongue, that he held him in some sort of contempt, even as a fox would despise a nobler animal than himself. His subtle wit disdained his plainness of speech. His confiding temper he derided; and he had methinks no apprehension that a she-wit, as he was wont to call me, should prove herself so witless as to prefer to one of his brilliant parts a man notable for his indifferency to book learning, and to his smooth tongue and fine genius the honest words and unvarnished merits of his brother.

Howsoever, one day he either did himself notice some sort of particular kindness to exist between us, or he was advertised thereof by some of the company we frequented, and I saw him fix his eyes on us with so arrested a persistency, and his frame waxed so rigid, that methought Lot's wife must have so gazed when she turned toward the doomed city. I was more frighted at the dull lack of expression in his face than at a thousand frowns or even scowls. His eyes were reft of their wonted fire; the color had flown from his lips; his always pale cheek was of a ghastly whiteness; and his hand, which was thrust in his bosom, and his feet, which seemed rooted to the ground, were as motionless as those of a statue. A shudder ran through me as he stood in this guise, neither moving nor speaking, at a small distance from me. I rose and went away, for his looks freezed me. But the next time I met him this strangeness of behavior had vanished, and I almost misdoubted the truth of what I had seen. He was a daily witness, for several succeeding weeks, of what neither Basil nor I cared much to conceal – the mutual confidence and increasing tenderness of affection, which was visible in all our words and actions at that time, which was one of greater contentment than can be expressed. That summer was a rare one for fineness of the weather and its great store of sun-shiny days. We had often pleasant divertisements in the neighborhood of London, than which no city is more famous for the beauty of its near scenery. One while we ascended the noble river Thames as far as Richmond, England's Arcadia, whose smooth waters, smiling meads, and hills clad in richest verdure, do equal whatsoever poets have ever sung or painters pictured. Another time we disported ourselves in the gardens of Hampton, where, in the season of roses, the insects weary their wings over the flower-beds – the thrifty bees with the weight of gathered honey – and the gay butterflies, idlers as ourselves, with perfume and pleasure. Or we went to Greenwich Park, and underneath the spreading trees, with England's pride of shipping in sight, and barges passing to and fro on the broad stream as on a watery highway, we whiled away the time in many joyous pastimes.

On an occasion of this sort it happened that both brothers went with us, and we forecasted to spend the day at a house in the village of Paddington, about two miles from London, where Mr. Congleton's sister, a lady of fortune, resided. It stood in a very fair garden, the gate of which opened on the high road; and after dinner we sat with some other company which had been invited to meet us under the large cedar trees which lined a broad gravel-walk leading from the house to the gate. The day was very hot, but now a cooling air had risen, and the young people there assembled played at pastimes, in which I was somewhat loth to join; for jesting disputations and framing of questions and answers, an amusement then greatly in fashion, minded one of that fatal encounter betwixt Martin Tregony and Thomas Sherwood, the end of which had been the death of the one and a fatal injury to the soul of the other. Hubert was urgent with me to join in the arguments proposed; but I refused, partly for the aforesaid reason, and methinks, also, because I doubted that Basil should acquit himself so admirably as his brother in these exercises of wit, wherein the latter did indeed excel, and I cared not to shine in a sport wherein he took no part. So I set myself to listen to the disputants, albeit with an absent mind; for I had grown to be somewhat thoughtful of late, and to forecast the future with such an admixture of hope and fear touching the issue of those passages of love I was engaged in, that the trifles which entertained a disengaged mind lacked ability to divert me. I ween Polly, if she had been then in London, should have laughed at me for the symptoms I exhibited of what she styled the sighing malady.

A little while after the contest had begun, a sound was heard at a distance as of a trampling on the road, but not discernible as yet whether of men or horses' feet. There was mixed with it cries of hooting and shouts, which increased as this sort of procession (for so it should seem to be) approached. All who were in the garden ran to the iron railing for to discover the cause. From the houses on both sides the road persons came out and joined in the clamor. As the crowd neared the gate where we stood, the words, "Papists – seditious priests – traitors," were discernible, mixed with oaths, curses, and such opprobrious epithets as my pen dares not write. At the hearing of them the blood rushed to my head, and my heart began to beat as if it should burst from the violence with which it throbbed; for now the mob was close at hand, and we could see the occasion of their yells and shoutings. About a dozen persons were riding without bridle or spur or other furniture, on lean and bare horses, which were fastened one to the other's tails, marching slowly in a long row, each man's feet tied under his horse's belly and his arms bound hard and fast behind him. A pursuivant rode in front and cried aloud that those coming behind him were certain papists, foes to the gospel and enemies to the commonwealth, for that they had been seized in the act of saying and hearing mass in disobedience to the laws. And as he made this proclamation, the rabble yelled and took up stones and mud to cast at the prisoners. One man cried out, "Four of them be vile priests." O ye who read this, have you taken heed how, at some times in your lives, in a less space than the wink of an eye, thought has outrun sight? So did mine with lightning speed apprehend lest my father should be one of these. I scanned the faces of the prisoners as they passed, but he was not amongst them; however I recognized, with a sharp pain, the known countenance of the priest who had shriven my mother on her death-bed. He looked pale and worn to a shadow, and hardly able to sit on his horse. I sunk down on my knees, with my head against the railings, feeling very sick. Then the gate opened, and with a strange joy and trembling fear I saw Basil push through the mob till he stood close to the horse's feet where the crowd had made a stoppage. He knelt and took off his hat, and the lips of the priests moved, as they passed, for to bless him. Murmurs rose from the rabble, but he took no heed of them. Till the last horseman had gone by he stood with his head uncovered, and then slowly returned, none daring to touch him. "Basil, dear Basil!" I cried, and, weeping, gave him my hand. It was the first time I had called him by his name. Methinks in that moment as secure a troth-plight was passed between us as if ten thousand bonds had sealed it. When, some time afterward, we moved toward the house, I saw Hubert standing at the door with the same stony rigid look which had frighted me once before. He said not one word as I passed him. I have since heard that a lady, endowed with more sharpness than prudence or kindness, had thus addressed him on this occasion: "Methinks, Master Hubert Rookwood, that you did perform your part excellently well in that ingenious pastime which procured us so much good entertainment awhile ago; but beshrew me if your brother did not exceed you in the scene we have just witnessed, and if Mistress Sherwood's looks do not belie her, she thought so too. I ween his tragedy hath outdone your comedy." Then he (well-nigh biting his lips through, as the person who related it to me observed) made answer: "If this young gentlewoman's taste be set on tragedy, then will I promise her so much of it another day as should needs satisfy her."

This malicious lady misliked Hubert, by reason of his having denied her the praise of wit, which had been reported to her by a third person. She was minded to be revenged on him, and so the shaft contained in her piercing jest had likewise hit those she willed not to injure. It is not to be credited how many persons have been ruined in fortune, driven into banishment, yea, delivered over to death, by careless words uttered without so much as a thought of the evil which should ensue from them.

And now upon the next day Basil was to leave London. Before he went he said he hoped not to be long absent, and that Mr. Congleton should receive a letter, if it pleased God, from his father; which, if it should be favorably received, and I willed it not to be otherwise, should cause our next meeting to be one of greater contentment than could be thought of.

I answered, "I should never wish otherwise than that we should meet with contentment, or will anything that should hinder it." Which he said did greatly please him to hear, and gave him a comfortable hope of a happy return.

He conversed also with Mistress Ward touching the prisoners we had seen the day before, and left some money with her in case she should find means to see and assist them, which she strove to do with the diligence used by her in all such managements. In a few days she discovered Mr. Watson to be in Bridewell, also one Mr. Richardson in the Marshalsea, and three laymen in the Clink. Mr. Watson had a sister who was a Protestant, and by her means she succeeded in relieving his wants, and dealt with the gaolers at the other prisons so as to convey some assistance to the poor men therein confined, whose names she had found out.

One morning when I was at Kate's house Hubert came there; and she, the whole compass of whose thoughts was now circled in her nursery, not minding the signs I made she should not leave us alone, rose and said she must needs go and see if her babe was awake, for Hubert must see him, and he should not go away without first he had beheld him walk with his new leading-strings, which were the tastefullest in the world and fit for a king's son; and that she doubted not we could find good enough entertainment in each other's company, or in Mr. Lacy's books, which must be the wittiest ever written, if she judged by her husband's fondness for them. As soon as the door was shut on her, Hubert began to speak of his brother, and to insinuate that my behavior to himself was changed since Basil had come to London, which I warmly denied.

"If," I said, "I have changed – "

"If," he repeated, stopping my speaking with an ironical and disdainful smile, and throwing into that one little word as he uttered it more of meaning than it would seem possible it should express.

"Yes!" I continued, angered at his defiant looks. "Yes, if my behavior to you has changed, which, I must confess, in some respects it has, the cause did lie in my uncle's commands, laid on me before your brother's coming to London. You know it, Master Rookwood, by the same token that you charged me with unkindness for not allowing of your visits, and refusing to read Italian with you, some weeks before ever he arrived."

"You have a very obedient disposition, madam," he answered in a scornful manner, "and I doubt not have attended with a like readiness to the behest to favor the elder brother's suit as to that which forbade the receiving of the younger brother's addresses."

"I did not look upon you as a suitor," I replied.

"No!" he exclaimed, "and not as on a lover? Not as on one whose lips, borrowing words from enamored poets twenty times in a day, did avow his passion, and was entertained on your side with so much good-nature and apparent contentment with this mode of disguised worship, as should lead him to hope for a return of his affection? But why question of that wherein my belief is unshaken? I know you love me, Constance Sherwood, albeit you peradventure love more dearly my brother's heirship of Euston and its wide acres. Your eyes deceived not, nor did your flushing cheek dissemble, when we read together those sweet tales and noble poems, wherein are set forth the dear pains and tormenting joys of a mutual love. No, not if you did take your oath on it will I believe you love my brother!"

"What warrant have you, sir," I answered with burning cheek, "to minister such talk to one who, from the moment she found you thought of marriage, did plainly discountenance your suit?"

"You were content, then, madam, to be worshipped as an idol," he bitterly replied, "if only not sued for in marriage by a poor man."

My sin found me out then, and the hard taunt awoke dormant pangs in my conscience for the pleasure I had taken and doubtless showed in the disguised professions of an undisguised admiration; but anger yet prevailed, and I cried, "Think you to advance your interest in my friendship, sir, by such language and reproaches as these?"

"Do you love my brother?" he said again, with an implied contempt which made me mad.

"Sir," I answered, "I entertain for your brother so great a respect and esteem as one must needs feel toward one of so much virtue and goodness. No contract exists between us; nor has he made me the tender of his hand. More than that it behoves you not to ask, or me to answer."

"Ah! the offer of marriage is then the condition of your regard, and love is to follow, not precede, the settlements, I' faith, ladies are very prudent in these days; and virtue and goodness the new names for fortune and lands. Beshrew me, if I had not deemed you to be made of other metal than the common herd. But whatever be the composition of your heart, Constance Sherwood, be it hard as the gold you set so much store on, or, like wax, apt to receive each day some new impress, I will have it; yea, and keep it for my own. No rich fool shall steal it from me."

"Hubert Rookwood," I cried in anger, "dare not so to speak of one whose merit is as superior to thine as the sun outshines a torchlight."

"Ah!" he exclaimed, turning pale with rage, "if I thought thou didst love him!" and clenched his hand with a terrible gesture, and ground his teeth. "But 'tis impossible," he added bitterly smiling. "As soon would I believe Titania verily to doat on the ass's head as for thee to love Basil!"

"Oh!" I indignantly replied, "you do almost constrain me to avow that which no maiden should, unasked, confess. Do you think, sir, that learning and scholarship, and the poor show of wit that lies in a ready tongue, should outweigh honor, courage, and kindliness of heart? Think you that more respect should be paid to one who can speak, and write also, if you will, fair sounding words, than to him who in his daily doings shows forth such nobleness as others only inculcate, and God only knoweth if ever they practise it?"

"Lady!" he exclaimed, "I have served you long; sustained torments in your presence; endured griefs in your absence; pining thoughts in the day, and anguished dreams in the night; jealousies often in times past, and now – "

He drew in his breath; and then not so much speaking the word "despair" as with a smothered vehemence uttering it, he concluded his vehement address.

I was so shaken by his speech that I remained silent: for if I had spoken I must needs have wept. Holding my head with both hands, and so shielding my eyes from the sight of his pale convulsed face, I sat like one transfixed. Then he again: "These be not times, Mistress Sherwood, for women to act as you have done; to lift a man's heart one while to an earthly heaven, and then, without so much as a thought, to cast him into a hellish sea of woes. These be the dealings which drive men to desperation; to attempt things contrary to their own minds, to religion, and to honesty; to courses once abhorred – "

His violence wrung my heart then with so keen a remorse that I cried out, "I cry you mercy, Master Rookwood, if I have dealt thus with you; indeed I thought not to do it. I pray you forgive me, if unwittingly, albeit peradventure in a heedless manner, I have done you so much wrong as your words do charge me with." And then tears I could not stay began to flow; and for awhile no talk ensued. But after a little time he spoke in a voice so changed and dissimilar in manner, that I looked up wholly amazed.

"Sweet Constance," he said, "I have played the fool in my customable fashion, and by such pretended slanders of one I should rather incline to commend beyond his deserts, if that were possible, than to give him vile terms, have sought – I cry you mercy for it – to discover your sentiments, and feigned a resentment and a passion which indeed has proved an excellent piece of acting, if I judge by your tears. I pray you pardon and forget my brotherly device. If you love Basil – as I misdoubt not he loves you – where shall a more suitable match be found, or one which every one must needs so much approve? Marry, sweet lady; I will be his best man when he doth ride to church with you, and cry 'Amen' more loudly than the clerk. So now dart no more vengeful lightnings from thine eyes, sweet one; and wipe away the pearly drops my unmannerly jesting hath caused to flow. I would not Basil had wedded a lady in love with his pelf, not with himself."

"I detest tricks," I cried, "and such feigning as you do confess to. I would I had not answered one word of your false discourse."

Now I wept for vexation to have been so circumvented and befooled as to own some sort of love for a man who bad not yet openly addressed me. And albeit reassured in some wise, touching what my conscience had charged me with when I heard Hubert's vehement reproaches, I misdoubted his present sincerity. He searched my face with a keen investigation, for to detect, I ween, if I was most contented or displeased with his late words. I resolved, if he was false, I would be true, and leave not so much as a suspicion in his mind that I did or ever had cared for him. But Kate, who should not have left us alone, now returned, when her absence would have been most profitable. She had her babe in her aims, and must needs call on Hubert to praise its beauty and list to its sweet crowing. In truth, a more winsome, gracious creature could not be seen; and albeit I had made an inpatient gesture when she entered, my arms soon eased hers of their fair burthen, and I set to playing with the boy, and Hubert talking and laughing in such good cheer, that I began to credit his passion had been feigning, and his indifferency to be true, which contented me not a little.

A few days afterward Mr. Congleton received a letter, in the evening, when we were sitting in my aunt's room, and a sudden fluttering in my heart whispered it should be from Basil's father. Mine eyes affixed themselves on the cover, which had fallen on the ground, and then travelled to my uncle's face, wherein was a smile which seemed to say, "This is no other than what I did expect." He put it down on the table, and his hand over it. My aunt said he should tell us the news he had received, to make us merry; for that the fog had given her the vapors, and she had need of some good entertainment.

"News!" quoth he. "What news do you look for, good wife?"

"It would not be news, sir," she answered, "if I expected it."

"That is more sharp than true," he replied. "There must needs come news of the queen of France's lying-in; but I pray you how will it be? Shall she live and do well? Shall it be a prince or a princess?"

"Prithee, no disputings, Mr. Congleton," she said. "We be not playing at questions and answers."

"Nay, but thou dost mistake," he cried out, laughing. "Methinks we have here in hand some game of that sort if I judge by this letter."

Then my heart leapt, I knew not how high or how tumultuously; for I doubted not now but he had received the tidings I hoped for.

"Constance," he said, "hast a mind to marry?"

"If it should please you, sir," I answered; "for my father charged me to obey you."

"Good," quoth he. "I see thou art an obedient wench. And thou wilt marry who I please?"

"Nay, sir; I said not that."

"Oh, oh!" quoth he. "Thou wilt marry so as to please me, and yet – "

"Not so as to displease myself, sir," I answered.

"Come," he said, "another question. Here is a gentleman of fortune and birth, and excellent good character, somewhat advanced in years indeed, but the more like to make an indulgent husband, and to be prudent in the management of his affairs, hath heard so good a report from two young gentlemen, his sons, of thy abilities and proper behavior, that he is minded to make thee a tender of marriage, with so good a settlement on his estate in Suffolk as must needs content any reasonable woman. Wilt have him, Conny?"

"Who, sir?" I asked, waxing, I ween, as red as a field-poppy.

"Mr. Rookwood, wench – Basil and Hubert's father."

Albeit I knew my uncle's trick of jesting, my folly was so great just then, hope and fear working in me, that I was seized with fright, and from crimson turned so white, that he cried out:

"Content thee, child! content thee! 'Tis that tall strapping fellow Basil must needs make thee an offer of his hand; and by my troth, wench, I warrant thee thou wouldst go further and fare worse; for the gentleman is honorably descended, heir-apparent to an estate worth yearly, to my knowledge, three thousand pounds sterling, well disposed in religion, and of a personage without exception. Mr. Rookwood declares he is more contented with his son's choice than if he married Mistress Spencer, or any other heiress; and beshrew me, if I be not contented also."

Then he bent his head close to mine ear, and whispered, "And so art thou, methinks, if those tell-tale eyes of thine should be credited. Yea, yea, hang down thy head, and stammer 'As you please, sir!' And never so much as a Deo gratias for thy good fortune! What thankless creatures women be!" I laughed and ran out of the room before mine aunt or Mistress Ward had disclosed their lips; for I did long to be in mine own chamber alone, and, from the depths of a heart over full of, yea overflowing with, such joy as doth incline the knees to bend and the eyes to raise themselves to the Giver of all good – he whom all other goodness doth only mirror and shadow forth – pour out a hymn of praise for the noble blessing I had received. For, I pray you, after the gift of faith and grace for to know and love God, is there aught on earth to be jewelled by a woman like to the affection of a good man; or a more secure haven for her to anchor in amid the present billows of life, except that of religion, to which all be not called, than an honorable contract of marriage, wherein reason, passion, and duty do bind the soul in a triple cord of love?