CHAPTER XVIII.
MOONLIGHT AND APPLE-BLOSSOMS.
The next morning, immediately after breakfast, lord Herbert set out forChepstow first and then Monmouth, both which places belonged to hisfather, and were principal sources of his great wealth.
Still, amid the rush of the changeful tides of war around them, and therumour of battle filling the air, all was peaceful within the defencesof Raglan, and its towers looked abroad over a quiet country, where thecattle fed and the green wheat grew. On the far outskirts of vision,indeed, a smoke might be seen at times from the watch-tower, and acrossthe air would come the dull boom of a great gun from one of thefortresses, at which lady Margaret's cheek would turn pale; but,although every day something was done to strengthen the castle, althoughmasons were at work here and there about the walls like bees, and CasparKaltoff was busy in all directions, now mounting fresh guns, nowrepairing steel cross-bows, now getting out of the armoury the queerestoldest-fashioned engines to place wherever available points could befound, there was no hurry and no confusion, and indeed so littleappearance of unusual activity, that an unmilitary stranger might havepassed a week in the castle without discovering that preparations fordefence were actively going on. All around them the buds were creepingout, uncurling, spreading abroad, straightening themselves, smoothingout the creases of their unfolding, and breathing the air of heaven--insome way very pleasant to creatures with roots as well as to creatureswith legs. The apple-blossoms came out, and the orchard was lovely aswith an upward-driven storm of roseate snow. Ladies were oftener seenpassing through the gates and walking in the gardens--where thefountains had begun to play, and the swans and ducks on the lakes feltthe return of spring in every fibre of their webby feet and cold scalylegs.
And Dorothy sat as it were at the spring-head of the waters, for,through her dominion over the fire-engine, she had become the naiad ofRaglan. The same hour in which lord Herbert departed she went toKaltoff, and was by him instructed in its mysteries. On the third dayafter, so entirely was the Dutchman satisfied with her understanding andmanagement of it, that he gave up to her the whole water-business. Andnow, as I say, she sat at the source of all the streams and fountains ofthe place, and governed them all. The horse of marble spouted and ceasedat her will, but in general she let the stream from his mouth flow allday long. Every water-cock on the great tower was subject to her. Fromthe urn of her pleasure the cistern was daily filled, and from thesummit of defence her flood went pouring into the moat around its feet,until it mantled to the brim, turning the weeds into a cold shadowypavement of green for a foil to its pellucid depth. She understood allthe secrets of the aqueous catapult, at which its contriver had littlemore than hinted on that memorable night when he disclosed so much, andbelieved she could arrange it for action without assistance. At the sametime her new responsibilities required but a portion of her leisure, andlady Margaret was not the less pleased with the wise-headed girl, whosemanners and mental ways were such a contrast to her own, that herhusband considered her fit to be put in charge of his darling invention.But Dorothy kept silence concerning the trust to all but her mistress,who, on her part, was prudent enough to avoid any allusion which mightraise yet higher the jealousy of her associates, by whom she was alreadyregarded as supplanting them in the favour of their mistress.
One lovely evening in May, the moon at the full, the air warm yet fresh,the apple-blossoms at their largest, with as yet no spot upon their fairskin, and the nightingales singing out of their very bones, the season,the hour, the blossoms, and the moon had invaded every chamber in thecastle, seized every heart of both man and beast, and turned all intoone congregation of which the nightingales were the priests. The cockswere crowing as if it had been the dawn itself instead of its ghost theysaw; the dogs were howling, but whether that was from love or hate ofthe moon, I cannot tell; the pigeons were cooing; the peacock had turnedhis train into a paralune, understanding well that the carnival couldnot be complete without him and his; and the wild beasts were restless,uttering a short yell now and then, at least aware that something wasgoing on. All the inhabitants of the castle were out of doors, theladies and gentlemen in groups here and there about the gardens andlawns and islands, and the domestics, and such of the garrison as werenot on duty, wandering hither and thither where they pleased, carefulonly not to intrude on their superiors.
Lady Margaret was walking with her step-son Henry on a lawn under thenorthern window of the picture-gallery, and there the ladies Elizabethand Anne joined them--the former a cheerful woman, endowed with a largeshare of her father's genial temperament; joke or jest would moult nofeather in lady Elizabeth's keeping; the latter quiet, sincere, andreverent. The marquis himself, notwithstanding a slight attack of thegout, had hobbled on his stick to a chair set for him on the same lawn.Beside him sat lady Mary, younger than the other two, and speciallydevoted to her father.
Their gentlewomen were also out, flitting in groups that now and thenmingled and changed. Rowland Scudamore joined lady Margaret's people,and in a moment lady Broughton was laughing merrily. But mistressDoughty walked on with straight neck, as if there were nobody butherself in heaven or on the earth, although mortals were merry by herside, and nightingales singing themselves to death over her head. Behindthem came Amanda Serafina, with her eyes on her feet, and the corners ofher pretty mouth drawn down in contempt of nobody in particular. Now andthen Scudamore, when satisfied with his own pretty wit, would throw aglance behind him, and she, somehow or other, would, without change ofmuscle, let him know that she had heard him. This group sauntered intothe orchard.
After them came Dorothy with Dr Bayly, talking of their common friendMr. Matthew Herbert, and following them into the orchard, wandered aboutamong the trees, under the curdled moonlight of the apple-blossoms, amidthe challenges and responses of five or six nightingales, that sang asif their bodies had dwindled under the sublimating influences of music,until, with more than cherubic denudation, their sum of being wasreduced to a soul and a throat.
Moonlight, apple-blossoms, nightingales, with the souls of men and womenfor mirrors and reflectors! The picture is for the musician not thepainter, either him of words or him of colours. It was like a lovelyshow in the land of dreams, even to the living souls that moved in andmade part of it. The earth is older now, colder at the heart, a littlenearer to the fate of cold-hearted things, which is to be slaves andserve without love; but she has still the same moonlight, the sameapple-blossoms, the same nightingales, and we have the same hearts, andso can understand it. But, alas! how differently should we come inamongst the accessories of such a picture! For we men at least are allbut given over to ugliness, and, artistically considered, evenvulgarity, in the matter of dress, wherein they, of all generations ofEnglish men and women, were too easily supreme both as to form andcolour. Hence, while they are an admiration to us, we shall be but alaughter to those that come behind us, and that whether their fashionsbe better than ours or no, for nothing is so ridiculous as ugliness outof date. The glimmer of gold and silver, the glitter of polished steel,the flashing of jewels, and the flowing of plumes, went well. But, socanopied with loveliness, so besung with winged passion, so clothed thateven with the heavenly delicacies enrounding them they blendedharmoniously, their moonlit orchard was an island beat by the waves ofwar, its air would quiver and throb by fits, shaken with the roar ofcannon, and might soon gleam around them with the whirring sweep of thetroopers' broad blades; while all throughout the land, the hateful demonof party spirit tore wide into gashes the wounds first made byconscience in the best, and by prejudice in the good.
The elder ladies had floated away together between the mossy stems,under the canopies of blossoms; Rowland had fallen behind and joined thewaiting Amanda, and the two were now flitting about like moths in themoonshine; Dorothy and Dr. Bayly had halted in an open spot, like amoonlight impluvium, the divine talking eagerly to the maiden, and themaiden looking up at the moon, and heeding the nightingales more thanthe divine.
> 'CAN they be English nightingales?' said Dorothy thoughtfully.
The doctor was bewildered for a moment. He had been talking abouthimself, not the nightingales, but he recovered himself like agentleman.
'Assuredly, mistress Dorothy,' he replied; 'this is the land of theirbirth. Hither they come again when the winter is over.'
'Yes; they take no part in our troubles. They will not sing to comfortour hearts in the cold; but give them warmth enough, and they sing ascareless of battle-fields and dead men as if they were but moonlight andapple-blossoms.'
'Is it not better so?' returned the divine after a moment's thought.'How would it be if everything in nature but re-echoed our moan?'
Dorothy looked at the little man, and was in her turn a moment silent.
'Then,' she said, 'we must see in these birds and blossoms, and thatgreat blossom in the sky, so many prophets of a peaceful time and abetter country, sent to remind us that we pass away and go to them.'
'Nay, my dear mistress Dorothy!' returned the all but obsequious doctor;'such thoughts do not well befit your age, or rather, I would say, youryouth. Life is before you, and life is good. These evil times will goby, the king shall have his own again, the fanatics will be scourged asthey deserve, and the church will rise like the phoenix from the ashesof her purification.'
'But how many will lie out in the fields all the year long, yet neversee blossoms or hear nightingales more!' said Dorothy.
'Such will have died martyrs,' rejoined the doctor.
'On both sides?' suggested Dorothy.
Again for a moment the good man stood checked. He had not even thoughtof the dead on the other side.
'That cannot be,' he said. And Dorothy looked up again at the moon.
But she listened no more to the songs of the nightingales, and they leftthe orchard together in silence.
'Come, Rowland, we must not be found here alone,' said Amanda, who sawthem go. 'But tell me one thing first: is mistress Dorothy Vaughanindeed your cousin?'
'She is indeed. Her mother and mine were cousins german--sisters'children.'
'I thought it could not be a near cousinship. You are not alike at all.Hear me, Rowland, but let it die in your ear--I love not mistressDorothy.'
'And the reason, lovely hater? "Is not the maiden fair to see?" as theold song says. I do not mean that she is fair as some are fair, but shewill pass; she offends not.'
'She is fair enough--not beautiful, not even pleasing; but, to be just,the demure look she puts on may bear the fault of that. Rowland, I wouldnot speak evil of any one, but your cousin is a hypocrite. She is falseat heart, and she hates me. Trust me, she but bides her time to let meknow it--and you too, my Rowland.'
'I am sure you mistake her, Amanda,' said Scudamore. 'Her looks are butmodest, and her words but shy, for she came hither from a lonely house.I believe she is honest and good.'
'Seest thou not then how that she makes friends with none but herbetters? Already hath she wound herself around my lady's heart,forsooth! and now she pays her court to the puffing chaplain! Hast thounever observed, my Rowland, how oft she crosses the bridge to the yellowtower? What seeks she there? Old Kaltoff, the Dutchman, it can hardlybe. I know she thinks to curry with my lord by pretending to love locksand screws and pistols and such like. "But why should she haunt theplace when my lord is not there?" you will ask. Her pretence will holdthe better for it, no doubt, and Caspar will report concerning her. Andif she pleases my lord well, who knows but he may give her a pair ofwatches to hang at her ears, or a box that Paracelsus himself could notopen without the secret as well as the key? I have heard of both such.They say my lord hath twenty cartloads of quite as wonderful things inthat vault he calls his workshop. Hast thou never marked the hugecabinet of black inlaid with silver, that stands by the wall--fitterindeed for my lady's chamber than such a foul place?'
'I have seen it,' answered Scudamore.
'I warrant me it hath store of gewgaws fit for a duchess.'
'Like enough,' assented Rowland.
'If mistress Dorothy were to find the way through my lord's favour intothat cabinet--truly it were nothing to thee or me, Rowland.'
'Assuredly not. It would be my lord's own business.'
'Once upon a time I was sent to carry my young lady Raven thither--tosee my lord earn his bread, as said my lady: and what should my lord butgive her no less than a ball of silver which, thrown into a vessel ofwater at any moment would plainly tell by how much it rose above thetop, the very hour and minute of the day or night, as well and truly asthe castle-clock itself. Tell me not, Rowland, that the damsel hath nodesign in it. Her looks betoken a better wisdom. Doth she not, I askyour honesty, far more resemble a nose-pinched puritan than a loyalmaiden?'
Thus amongst the apple-blossoms talked Amanda Serafina.
'Prithee, be not too severe with my cousin, Amanda,' pleaded Scudamore.'She is much too sober to please my fancy, but wherefore should I forthat hate her? And if she hath something the look of a long-facedfanatic, thou must think, she hath but now, as it were, lost hermother.'
'But now! And I never knew mine! Ah, Rowland, how lonely is the world!'
'Lovely Amanda!' said Rowland.
So they passed from the orchard and parted, fearful of being missed.
How should such a pair do, but after its kind? Life was dull withoutlove-making, so they made it. And the more they made, the more theywanted to make, until casual encounters would no longer serve theirturn.