Constance Sherwood: An Autobiography of the Sixteenth Century

I marvel how she lived through it; but she assured us she was never even near unto fainting, but stood immovable, hearing every sound, listening to each word and groan, printing them on the tablet of her heart, wherein they have ever remained as sacred memories.

Mr. Wells, so far from being terrified by the sight of his friend's death, expressed a desire to have his own hastened; and, like unto Sir Thomas More, was merry to the last; for he cried, "Despatch, despatch, Mr. Topcliffe! Be you not ashamed to suffer an old man to stand here so long in his shirt in the cold? I pray God make you of a Saul a Paul, of a persecutor a Catholic." A murmur, hoarse and loud, from the crowd apprised us when all was over.

"Where is Muriel?" I cried, going to the window. Thence I beheld a sight which my pen refuseth to describe – the sledge which was carrying away the mangled remains of those dear friends which so short a time before we had looked upon alive! Like in a dream I saw this spectacle; for the moment afterward I fainted. Many persons were running after the cart, and Muriel keeping pace with what to others would have been a sight full of horror, but to her were only relics of the saintly dead. She followed, heedless of the mob, unmindful of their jeers, intent on one aim – to procure some portion of those sacred remains, which she at last achieved in an incredible manner; one finger of Edmund Genings's hand, which she laid hold of, remaining in hers. This secured, she hastened home, bearing away this her treasure.

When I recovered from a long swoon, she was standing on one side of me and Lady Arundel on the other. Their faces were very pale, but peaceful; and when remembrance returned, I also felt a great and quiet joy diffused in mine heart, such as none, I ween, could believe in who have not known the like. For a while all earthly cares left me; I seemed to soar above this world. Even Basil I could think of with a singular detachment. It seemed as if angels were haunting the house, whispering heavenly secrets. I could not so much as think on those blessed departed souls without an increase of this joy sensibly inflaming my heart.

After Lady Arundel had left us, which she did with many loving words and tender caresses, Muriel and I conversed long touching the future. She told me that when her duty to her father should end with his life, she intended to fulfil the vow she long ago had made to consecrate herself wholly to God in holy religion, and go beyond the seas, to become a nun of the order of St. Augustine.

"May I not leave this world?" I cried; "may I not also, forgetting all things else, live for God alone?"

A sweet sober smile illumined Muriel's face as she answered, "Yea, by all means serve God, but not as a nun, good Constance. Thine I take to be the mere shadow of a vocation, if even so much as that. A cloud hath for a while obscured the sunshine of thy hopes and called up this shadow; but let this thin vapor dissolve, and no trace shall remain of it. Nay, nay, sweet one, 'tis not chafed, nor yet, except in rare instances, riven hearts which God doth call to this special consecration – rather whole ones, nothing or scantily touched by the griefs and joys which this world can afford. But I warrant thee – nay, I may not warrant," she added, checking herself, "for who can of a surety forecast what God's designs should be? But I think thou wilt be, before many years have past, a careful matron, with many children about thy apron-strings to try thy patience."

"O Muriel," I answered, "how should this be? I have made my bed, and I must lie on it. Like a foolish creature, unwittingly, or rather rashly, I have deceived Basil into thinking I do not love him; and if my face should yet recover its old fairness, he shall still think mine heart estranged."

Muriel shook her head, and said more entangled skeins than this one had been unravelled. The next day she resumed her wonted labors in the prisons and amongst the poor. Having procured means of access to Mistress Wells, she carried to her the only comfort she could now taste – the knowledge of her husband's holy, courageous end, and the reports of the last words he did utter. Then having received a charge thereunto from Mr. Genings, she discovered John Genings's place of residence, and went to tell him that the cause of his brother's coming to London was specially his love for him; that his only regret in dying had been that he was executed before he could see him again, or commend him to any friend of his own, so hastened was his death.

But this much-loved brother received her with a notable coldness; and far from bewailing the untimely and bloody end of his nearest kinsman, he betrayed some kind of contentment at the thought that he was now rid of all the persuasions which he suspected he should otherwise have received from him touching religion.

About a fortnight afterward Mr. Congleton expired. Alas! so troublesome were the times, that to see one, howsoever loved, sink peacefully into the grave, had not the same sadness which usually belongs to the like haps.

Muriel had procured a priest for to give him extreme unction – one Mr. Adams, a friend of Mr. Wells, who had sometimes said mass in his house. He also secretly came for to perform the funeral rites before his burial in the cemetery of St. Martin's church.

When we returned home that day after the funeral, this reverend gentleman asked us if we had heard any report touching the brother of Mr. Genings; and on our denial, he said, "Talk is ministered amongst Catholics of his sudden conversion."

"Sudden, indeed, it should be," quoth Muriel; "for a more indifferent listener to an afflicting message could not be met with than he proved himself when I carried to him Mr. Genings's dying words."

"Not more sudden," quoth Mr. Adams, "than St. Paul's was, and therefore not incredible."

Whilst we were yet speaking, a servant came in, and said a young gentleman was at the door, and very urgent for to see Muriel.

"Tell him," she said, raising her eyes, swollen with tears, "that I have one hour ago buried my father, and am in no condition to see strangers."

The man returned with a paper, on which these words were written:

"A penitent and a wanderer craveth to speak with you. If you shed tears, his do incessantly flow. If you weep for a father, he grieveth for one better to him than ten fathers. If your plight is sad, his should be desperate, but for God's great mercy and a brother's prayers yet pleading for him in heaven as once upon earth.

"JOHN GENINGS."

"Heavens!" Muriel cried, "it is this changed man, this Saul become a Paul, which stands at the door and knocks. Bring him in swiftly; the best comfort I can know this day is to see one who awhile was lost and is now found."

When John Genings beheld her and me, he awhile hid his face in his hands, and seemed unable to speak. To break this silence Mr. Adams said, "Courage, Mr. Genings; your holy brother rejoiceth in heaven over your changed mind, and further blessings still, I doubt not, he shall yet obtain for you."

Then this same John raised his head, and with as great and touching sorrow as can be expressed, after thanking this unknown speaker for his comfortable words, he begged of Muriel to relate to him each action and speech in the dying scene she had witnessed; and when she had ended this recital, with the like urgency he moved me to tell him all I could remember of his brother's young years, all my father had written of his life and virtues at college, all which we had heard of his labors since he had come into the country, and lastly, in a manner most simple and affecting, we all entreating him thereunto, he made this narrative, addressing himself chiefly to Muriel:

"You, madam, are acquainted with what was the hardness of mine heart and cruel indifference to my brother's fate; with what disdain I listened to you, with what pride I received his last advice. But about ten days after his execution, toward night, having spent all that day in sports and jollity, being weary with play, I resorted home to repose myself. I went into a secret chamber, and was no sooner there sat down, but forthwith my heart began to be heavy, and I weighed how idly I had spent that day. Amidst these thoughts there was presently represented to me an imagination and apprehension of the death of my brother, and, amongst other things, how he had not long before forsaken all worldly pleasure, and for the sake of his religion alone endured dreadful torments. Then within myself I made long discourses concerning his manner of living and mine own; and finding the one to embrace pain and mortification, and the other to seek pleasure – the one to live strictly, and the other licentiously – I was struck with exceeding terror and remorse. I wept bitterly, desiring God to illuminate mine understanding, that I might see and perceive the truth. Oh, what great joy and consolation did I feel at that instant! What reverence on the sudden did I begin to bear to the Blessed Virgin and to the Saints of God, which before I had never scarcely so much as heard of! What strange emotions, as it were inspirations, with exceeding readiness of will to change my religion, took possession of my soul! and what heavenly conception had I then of my brother's felicity! I imagined I saw him – I thought I heard him. In this ecstasy of mind I made a vow upon the spot, as I lay prostrate on the ground, to forsake kindred and country, to find out the true knowledge of Edmund's faith. Oh, sir," he ended by saying, turning to Mr. Adams, which he guessed to be a priest, "think you not my brother obtained for me in heaven what on earth he had not obtained? for here I am become a Catholic in faith without persuasion or conference with any one man in the world?"

"Ay, my good friend," Mr. Adams replied; "the blood of martyrs will ever prove the seed of the Church. Let us then, in our private prayers, implore the suffrages of those who in this country do lose their lives for the faith, and take unto ourselves the words of Jeremiah: 'O Lord, remember what has happened unto us. Behold and see our great reproach; our inheritance is gone to strangers, our houses to aliens. We are become as children without a father, our mothers are made as it were widows.'"

These last words of Holy Writ brought to mine own mind private sorrows, and caused me to shed tears. Soon after John Genings departed from England without giving notice to us or any of his friends, and went beyond seas to execute his promise. I have heard that he has entered the holy order of St. Francis, and is seeking to procure a convent of that religion at Douay, in hopes of restoring the English Franciscan province, of which it is supposed he will be first provincial. Report doth state him to be an exceeding strict and holy religious, and like to prove an instrument in furnishing the English mission with many zealous and apostolical laborers.

Muriel and I were solitary in that great city where so many misfortunes had beset us; she with her anchor cast where her hopes could not be deceived; I by mine own folly like unto a ship at sea without a chart. Womanly reserve, mixed, I ween, with somewhat of pride, restraining me from writing to Basil, though, as my face improved each day, I deplored my hasty folly, and desired nothing so much as to see him again, when, if his love should prove unchanged (shame on that word if! which my heart disavowed), we should be as heretofore, and the suffering I had caused him and endured myself would end. But how this might happen I foresaw not; and life was sad and weary while so much suspense lasted.

Muriel would not forsake me while in this plight; but although none could have judged it from her cheerful and amiable behavior, I well knew that she sighed for the haven of a religions home, and grieved to keep her from it. After some weeks spent in this fashion, with very little comfort, I was sitting one morning dismally forecasting the future, writing letter after letter to Basil, which still I tore up rather than send them – for I warrant you it was no easy matter for to express in writing what I longed to say. To tell him the cause of my breaking our contract was so much as to compel him to the performance of it; and albeit I was no longer so ill-favored as at the first, yet the good looks I had before my sickness had by no means wholly returned. Sometimes I wrote: "Your thinking, dear Basil, that I do affection any but yourself is so false and injurious an imagination, that I cannot suffer you to entertain it. Be sure I never can and never shall love any but you; yet, for all that, I cannot marry you." Then effacing this last sentence, which verily belied my true desire, I would write another: "Methinks if you should see me now, yourself would not wish otherwise than to dissolve a contract wherein your contentment should be less than it hath been." And then thinking this should be too obscure, changed it to – "In sooth, dear Basil, my appearance is so altered that you would yourself, I ween, not desire for to wed one so different from the Constance you have seen and loved." But pride whispered to restrain this open mention of my suspicious fears of his liking me less for my changed face; yet withal, conscience reproved this misdoubt of one whose affection had ever shown itself to be of the nobler sort, which looketh rather to the qualities of the heart and mind than to the exterior charms of a fair visage.

Alas! what a torment doth perplexity occasion. I had let go my pen, and my tears were falling on the paper, when Muriel opened the door of the parlor.

"What is it?" I cried, hiding my face with mine hand that she should not see me weeping.

"A letter from Lady Arundel," she answered.

I eagerly took it from her; and on the reading of it found it contained an urgent request from her ladyship, couched in most affectionate terms, and masking the kindness of its intent under a show of entreating, as a favor to herself that I would come and reside with her at Arundel Castle, where she greatly needed the solace of a friend's company, during her lord's necessary absences.

"Mine own dear, good Constance," she wrote, "come to me quickly. In a letter I cannot well express all the good you will thus do to me. For mine own part, I would fain say come to me until death shall part us. But so selfish I would not be; yet prithee come until such time as the clouds which have obscured the fair sky of thy future prospects have passed away, and thy Basil's fortunes are mended; for I will not cease to call him thine, for all that thou hast thyself thrust a spoke in a wheel which otherwise should have run smoothly, for the which thou art now doing penance: but be of good cheer; time will bring thee shrift. Some kind of comfort I can promise thee in this house, greater than I dare for to commit to paper. Lose no time then. From thy last letter methinks the gentle turtle-dove at whose side thou dost now nestle hath found herself a nest whereunto she longeth to fly. Let her spread her wings thither, and do thou hasten to the shelter of these old walls and the loving faithful heart of thy poor friend,

"ANNE ARUNDEL AND SURREY."

Before a fortnight was overpast Muriel and I had parted; she for her religious home beyond seas, I for the castle of my Lord Arundel, whither I travelled in two days, resting on my way at the pleasant village of Horsham. During the latter part of the journey the road lay through a very wild expanse of down; but as soon as I caught sight of the sea my heart bounded with joy; for to gaze on its blue expanse seemed to carry me beyond the limits of this isle to the land where Basil dwelt. When I reached the castle, the sight of the noble gateway and keep filled me with admiration; and riding into the court thereof, I looked with wonder on the military defences bristling on every side. But what a sweet picture smiled from one of the narrow windows over above the entrance-door! – mine own loved friend, yet fairer in her matronly and motherly beauty than even in her girlhood's loveliness, holding in her arms the pretty bud which had blossomed on a noble tree in the time of adversity. Her countenance beamed on me like the morning sun's; and my heart expanded with joy when, half-way up the stairs which led to her chamber, I found myself inclosed in her arms. She led me to a settle near a cheerful fire, and herself removed my riding-cloak, my hat and veil, stroked my cheek with two of her delicate white fingers, and said with a smile,

"In sooth, my dear Constance, thou art an arrant cheat."

"How so, most dear lady?" I said, likewise smiling.

"Why, thou art as comely as ever I thee; which, after all the torments inflicted on poor Master Rookwood by thy prophetical vision of an everlasting deformity, carefully concealed from him under the garb of a sudden fit of inconstancy, is a very nefarious injustice. Go to, go to; if he should see thee now, he never would believe but that that management of thine was a cunning device for to break faith with him."

"Nay, nay," I cried; "if I should be ever so happy, which I deserve not, for to see him again, there could never be for one moment a mistrust on his part of a love which is too strong and too fond for concealment. If the feebleness of sickness had not bred unreasonable fears, methinks I should not have been guilty of so great a folly as to think he would prize less what he was always wont most to treasure far above their merits – the heart and mind of his poor Constance – because the casket which held them had waxed unseemly. But when the day shall come in which Basil and I may meet, God only knoweth. Human foresight cannot attain to this prevision."

Lady Arundel's eyes had a smiling expression then which surprised me. For mine own heart was full when I thus spoke, and I was wont to meet in her with a more quick return of the like feelings I expressed than at that time appeared. Slight inward resentments, painfully, albeit not angrily, entertained, I was by nature prone to; and in this case the effect of this impression suddenly checked the joy which at my first arrival I had experienced. O, how much secret discipline should be needed for to rule that little unruly kingdom within us, which many look not into till serious rebellions do arise, which need fire and sword to quell them for lack of timely repression! Her ladyship set before me some food, and constrained me to eat, which I did merely for to content her. She appeared to me somewhat restless: beginning a sentence, and then breaking off suddenly in the midst thereof; going in and out of the chamber; laughing at one time, and then seeming as if about to weep. "When I had finished eating, and a servant had removed the dishes, she sat down by my side and took my hand in hers. Then the tears truly began to roll down her cheeks.

"O, for God's sake, what aileth you, dearest lady?" I said, uneasily gazing on her agitated countenance.

"Nothing ails me," she answered; "only I fear to frighten thee, albeit in a joyful manner."

"Frightened with joy!" I sadly answered. "O, that should be a rare fright, and an unwonted one to me of late."

"Therefore," she said, smiling through her tears, "peradventure the more to be feared."

"What joy do you speak of? I pray you, sweet lady, keep me not in suspense."

"If, for instance," she said in a low voice, pressing my hands very hard, – "if I was to tell thee Constance, that thy Basil was here, shouldst thou not be affrighted?"

Methinks I must have turned very white; leastways, I began to tremble.

"Is he here?" I said, almost beside myself with the fearful hope her words awoke.

"Yea," she said. "Since three days he is here."

For a moment I neither spoke nor moved.

"How comes it about? how doth it happen?" I began to say; but a passion of tears choked my utterance. I fell into her arms, sobbing on her breast; for verily I had no power to restrain myself. I heard her say, "Master Rookwood, come in." Then, after those sad long weary years, I again heard his cheerful voice; then I saw his kind eyes speaking what words could never have uttered, or one-half so well expressed. Then I felt the happiness which is most like, I ween, of any on earth to that of heaven: after long parting, to meet again one intensely loved – each heart overflowing with an unspoken joy and with an unbounded thankfulness to God. Amazement did so fill me at this unlooked-for good, that I seemed content for a while to think of it as of a dream, and only feared to be awoke. But oh, with how many sweet tears of gratitude – with what bursts of wonder and admiration – I soon learnt how Lady Arundel had formed this kind plot, to which Muriel had been privy, for to bring together parted lovers, and procure to others the happiness she so often lacked herself – the company of the most loved person in the world. She had herself written to Basil, and related the cause of my apparent change; a cause, she said, at no time sufficient for to warrant a desperate action, and even then passing away. But that had it forever endured, she was of opinion his was a love would survive any such accident as touched only the exterior, when all else was unimpaired. She added, that when Mr. Congleton, who was then at the point of death, should have expired, and Muriel gone beyond seas to fulfil her religious intent, she would use all the persuasion in her power to bring me to reside with her, which was the thing she most desired in the world; and that if he should think it possible under another name for to cross the seas and land at some port in Sussex, he should be the welcomest guest imaginable at Arundel Castle, if even, like St. Alexis, he should hide his nobility under the garb of rags, and come thither begging on foot; but yet she hoped, for his sake, it should not so happen, albeit nothing could be more honorable if the cause was a good one. It needed no more inducement than what this letter contained for to move Basil to attempt this secret return. He took the name of Martingale, and procured a passage in a small trading craft, which landed him at the port of a small town named Littlehampton, about three or four miles from Arundel. Thence he walked to the castle, where the countess feigned him to be a leech sent by my lord to prescribe remedies for a pain in her head, which she was oftentimes afflicted with, and as such entertained him in the eyes of strangers as long as he continued there, which did often move us to great merriment; for some of the neighbors which she was forced to see, would sometimes ask for to consult the countess's physician; and to avoid misdoubts, Basil once or twice made up some innocent compounds, which an old gentleman and a maiden lady in the town vowed had cured them, the one of a fit of the gout, and the other of a very sharp disorder in her stomach. But to return to the blissful first day of our meeting, one of the happiest I had yet known; for a paramount affection doth so engross the heart, that other sorrows vanish in its presence like dewdrops in the sunshine. I can never forget the smallest particle of its many joys. The long talk between Basil and me, first in Lady Arundel's chamber, and then in the gallery of the castle, walking up and down, and when I was tired, I sitting and he standing by the window which looked on the fair valley and silvery river Arun, running toward the sea, through pleasant pastures, with woody slopes on both sides, a fair and a peaceful scene; fair and peaceful as the prospect Basil unfolded to me that day, if we could but once in safety cross the seas; for his debtors had remitted to him in France the moneys which they owed him, and he had purchased a cottage in a very commodious village near the town of Boulogne-sur-Mer, with an apple-orchard and a garden stored with gay flowers and beehives, and a meadow with two large walnut-trees in it. "And then bethink thee," he added, "mine own dear love, that right in front of this fine mansion doth stand the parish church, where God is worshipped in a Catholic manner in peace and freedom; and nothing greater or more weighty need, methinks, to be said in its praise."

I said I thought so too, and that the picture he drew of it liked me well.

"But," quoth Basil suddenly, "I must tell thee, sweetheart, I liked not well thy behavior touching thine altered face, and the misleading letter thou didst send me at that time. No!" he exclaimed with great vehemency, "it mislikes me sorely that thou shouldst have doubted my love and faith, and dealt with me so injuriously. If I was now by some accident disfigured, I must by that same token expect thine affection for me should decay."