Page:Once a Week Volume 8.djvu/351

21, 1863.] forgetting Margaret: but we know what she would wish.”

Henrietta was passive. She was not stunned, as Helen had for a moment feared. The mood of exaltation endured. She had a mission to fulfil: she must be above selfishness and sorrow: she had hitherto, in fact, suffered from the want of self-respect. Now she found herself called to be a heroine. The word might not have occurred to her; but she had the feeling. She had no confidence that she could endure always; but she would not fail in these first hours of her new life. She nerved herself to part with Margaret, bitterly as the thought of Margaret dying wrung her heart incessantly during the night. She lay down and closed her eyes, though sleep was impossible. She even wrote these few lines to Lady Carlisle after she rose.

“I thank God that we have met. You were a prophet and teacher to me, preparing me for duty and obedience. My uncle will tell you what has happened, and what must happen; and some day I will tell you why it is that with a settled mind, though so suddenly, I shall this morning have become the wife of Harry Carewe. We marry in the midst of mourning, so I write no more. You will approve: pray for us also. To you I for the last time sign myself, “.”

Lady Carlisle never told Henrietta what her own remark was on her shaking off that rebel name: and it was not till long afterwards that she told her what the Queen said on hearing the news of her late guest. Her Majesty told the King that that pretty little devotee of a royalist had already married her Puritan lover. She hoped the poor child would make herself happy; for it would really be a disagreeable thing to hear that she had lost herself by marrying a malcontent, for the honour of fetching and carrying in the royal service. Queen Henrietta was not altogether a lady, according to the established English notions of ladyhood.

In a high mood of devotedness Henrietta let her attendants dress her. She appeared without traces of tears; she spoke her vows calmly; she forgot no member of the household in making her farewells; and through it all Harry was, with reason, satisfied. She was devoted; but there was no self-sacrifice. She was obeying Heaven’s will; but it was in no contrariety to her own. Her destiny was taken out of the jurisdiction of her own conscience; and it was to be what she would have desired, but not have dared to seek.

Margaret was living when the party arrived at Fawsley; but there was not any more hope on that account. Her husband and father were so grief-stricken that Henrietta felt at the first moment as if uncertain whether it was they who came out to receive her. It was a settled thing in the minds of them all that there was no other such daughter, no other such young wife as Margaret; and life without her seemed black as night to those who were nearest to her.

“I know that no one can comfort you,” said Henrietta, as she stood with her father’s arms about her: “but I shall be with you henceforward, to do what I can. If there is any solace,—any help,—any service that Harry and I can render—”

“I can only bless you, my child, for bringing me comfort in an hour like this.”

“It is a comfort to you, then,—what we have done?”

“I could not have believed that my heart could be so lightened, my love. It seems to me that after long straying, and losing each other in the thorny thicket, my Henrietta and Harry have been led to meet in a pleasant glade, and that they follow it, hand in hand, to their own old home, just when eyes and hearts are longing for them. Oh, yes, my girl! this is indeed comfort.”

Margaret would have said as much if she could have spoken. But life was flickering in her brain and on her lips. Her countenance showed her satisfaction in seeing Henrietta by her bedside: and she touched the wedding-ring again and again in a way which Henrietta understood. They thought she commended her child to her sister. Her father, certainly. Then she seemed to desire to be alone with Richard; and no one else saw her again living. In two hours Richard was heard to go into his own study; and those who entered Margaret’s chamber found her in her last long sleep, as he had laid her down when she had breathed her last breath on his shoulder.

The household remained together till she was laid in the vault of the Knightleys. Then, anxious to be worthy of her who had wrought with them in many a painful duty, they dispersed on their several errands. Philip went home to Hampden, with Henrietta and her husband, and the poor infant given into their charge. Richard, glad to be anywhere but at home, became his father’s envoy to those leaders of the parliament party who had long been in league, with Fawsley for their rendezvous. Mr. Hampden feared that he had been absent from London too long,—selfish in his private griefs. The Lord Deputy was now known to have advised at the council-board that the King should help himself at pleasure from his people’s substance, as they would do nothing that he desired; and the Lord Deputy must be called to account for this counsel. Some one had given a warrant to Sir William Beecher to search the persons of Lords Brooke and Say, and the Earl of Warwick; and not only had their cabinets and desks been opened and rifled, but the officers had entered their chambers when they were in bed, and had emptied the pockets of their clothes. There was no doubt in men’s minds that this was done by the King’s order; but the point must be ascertained: and Mr. Hampden’s presence was necessary to it. There were riots in Southwark and Lambeth,—the people being unrestrainable when they found that no gaol delivery was to be hoped for from the Parliament. If there was to be no Parliament, they would themselves deliver the prisoners who were crowding the gaols, for refusal or inability to pay the ship-money and other charges, or for refusing to attend the popish services exhibited in the churches by the archbishop and his creatures. The White Lion prison in Southwark was thrown open by a rising of the people; and the vengeance taken by the Royalist