Sydney C. Grier

“ But this seeming to me to reflect somewhat upon Madam Heliodora, whose name and reputation I must ever hold sacred, I made haste to tell Mr Martin with some heat all my history, which he had picked up wrong from my first words, and he listened with prodigious attention, nodding and wagging his head at times, but saying little.
“Ah, Ned, Ned!” quoth he at last, “I would we had never sent you to Goa, and yet, as the proverb saith, Bought wit is best. Perhaps ’tis these very trials that are to make a man of you in time.”
“Nay, sir, when am I to be a man if not now?” ”

“ You know, cousin, that though I han’t any real authority over you, yet in the eyes of the world I am your guardian, and that it rests with me to order all things with your servant. Tell me his name, then, if you please, that so I may have some commerce with him.”
“But that I can’t tell you—no, never,” says Dorothy, beginning to twist the edge of her scarf with her fingers.
“An’t this an excess of sensibility, cousin?” said I.
“But how can I?” says she, very red. “Sure you are too hard upon me, Cousin Ned. A plague on all those good people that meddle in my matters! ”

“ At least pity me, for though I have wronged you, yet now I am punished for’t. If I have despised you in my blindness, I have learned to love you when too late, and have been given to know my love in vain. The victory lies with you, cousin, only use it mercifully. ’Tis my desire to show myself not unworthy of loving you, and I would not prove a churl. I hope yet to see you happily wedded to your servant, and settled here at Ellswether, if this should please you, for I purpose returning again to East India.”
“Ned, my dear cousin!” ”

“ Pray pardon my roughness” (for she seemed to be about to say somewhat, but her face was turned away from me and I could not see it, wherefore I did continue) , “but sure you must know that I desire above all things your good, and would fain see you happy with this gentleman, though it were to prove my own perpetual misery.”
“Pray, cousin,” says she, with a sound as of a sob in her voice, “an’t you a little hard towards a person that can scarce have injured you? Sure the poor man’s happiness need not inconvenience you, nor far less cause you perpetual misery.” ”

“ In which I was coming much nearer to the politics of my old acquaintance Substitution Darrell than ever I had at one time thought likely, but we live and learn.
“Alas!” cried Dorothy, the tears running down her face, “that I should live to hear my husband, my dear Sir Harry’s own son, speak thus! Sure ’tis enough to disturb your father in his grave, sir. If God will, can’t He protect us Protestants without any help of ours? and if it ben’t His will to save us, let us suffer, but don’t let us sin in rebelling against the Lord’s anointed.” ”

“ And above all, my dear Ned, let me entreat you never to enter into any controversy with any person in Goa, be he Portugal or Indian, upon any question of religion. He will seek to lead you on until you have uttered something that is to his mind heretical, and then he’ll denounce you to the Inquisition. And once there, Ned, ’twere far better had you been stabbed in the street by some bravo among the common people, for the few that are escaped thence are come forth crippled and helpless, and the many that han’t never escaped have died by the torture or the fire. ”

“ But through all this time I was enabled not only to abstain from all wrangling or quarrelling with my wife, knowing that no talking should ever displace that loyalty that was grown up with her growth, and had been nourished in her mind during her lonely youth, but I also strove in all things to show her an increased honour and affection, to the end she might perceive that ’twas no caprice nor unkindness, but love of right, that moved me. ”

“ And before I had time to think what this might mean, they had cut the cord that bound my hands, and torn off from me that shameful dress, the samarra and carocha, and flung it over the gentleman of Goa that had the ill-luck to be called my godfather, and elbowed and nudged him out of their way. Then he that seemed the chief among them wrapped me in a cloak, for to hide the strange striped habit that I still wore, and said in a hoarse whisper in my ear—
“Stoop, Master Ned; stoop, and we will hide you among us. You are too tall.” ”

“ And though I chid my foolish heart almost hourly, demanding on’t now how I could be so insensible as not to love a creature of such transcendent excellence, and now how could I expect to love her when love and the power thereof was dead within me, yet my resentiments were never a whit diminished in this way, but rather increased, so that I walked abroad daily in a mighty turmoil and confusion of mind, until that chanced which confirmed the fear that had been aroused in my heart by Mr Sternhold’s words on our first meeting. ”

“ Was this gentleman he? Now at first, thinking thus, I was very much tumbled up and down in my mind, finding myself unable to reconcile my hitherto antipathy to Madam Heliodora’s servant, with the kindness that now possessed me on behalf of that Ferringhee, as he called himself, and I thought long upon the matter, coming at last to no decision, save that I must hear from his own lips the truth or falsehood of this phantasy of mine. ”

“ What if the lady of whom you speak don’t care to wed you?”
“Oh, but that is understood, sir,” says I.
“Well, Ned,” says he, “go, and may you enjoy all the good fortune you look for. ’Tis well you can disengage yourself from the pursuit of wealth thus early, in the stead of toiling on for the mere sake of toiling, as ’tis with others, and with me amongst ’em. How shall I do without you, lad?”
“Nay, sir,” says I, “come home with me, and sure we will show the world a modern example of that friendship which they say is now passed away.” ”

“ You do yourself wrong, Mr Carlyon, by these barbarous notions. Come, think over my proposition. I will give you fifteen days for’t. Until then we will say nothing, but I hope to find you then less blind to your own advantage. You must perceive how highly I esteem you, by my daughter’s admitting you so continually to her saloon. Is it possible that after a sojourn of some weeks at St Thomas, you can look forward to return with contentment to your life at Surat? There is, as I understand, no ladies there whose company you may enjoy as you have done that of my family. ”

“ Thus far I, in grievous fear lest while I was away in the Indies my little cousin should be took away from my father at Ellswether, and delivered unto some of her noble kin for to bring up.
“Tut, tut, Sir Spitfire!” saith my lord, but not unkindly; “go tilt with windmills. As for my name, I don’t doubt Mr Spender will be pleased to tell it you when I am gone. But you need have no fear that I mean to claim little Mrs Brandon from Sir Harry. What should I do with a modest, well-brought-up young damsel? ’Twould be worse than Daniel in the den of lions. No, that an’t what I meant.” ”

“ Anne Amanda Heliodora, daughter and only child to his lordship the most noble Gasper Deodatus, Marquis of Tourvel, and Madam Mary Margaret of Cheverenches, his wife, was born in the early part of the year 1645-46, and though thus no longer in the first bloom of her youth, preserved such an admirable beauty as might well make envious many younger dames. In stature, she was above the common height of women, but so just and excellent a proportion was observable in every several part of her frame as made her figure to seem absolutely perfect. ”

“ But truly you are grown from a boy into a man since last I saw you.”
“Nay, sir,” says I, “by my own feelings I might be grown from a man into the Wandering Jew.”
“Ned,” says Mr Martin, looking me straight in the face, “you have been in trouble, and that other than the Inquisition’s. What is’t, lad? Is it wine, or women, or dice? for ’tis these three are the common curses of our young gentlemen here as in England.” ”

“ For, says I to myself, how can I say calmly to such a woman as this, that I have wasted the best part of my life in a passion for that which belonged to another, and that all love is dead in my heart, and yet ask her to share with me my dignity and wealth, out of consideration for an ancient contract that I myself was the first to set aside? ”

“ Yet I did not in the smallest degree desire to retreat from the honour that was offered me, for the blood leaped in my veins at the very thought that my arm might defend Madam Heliodora, and I became aware that I almost longed for a bloody assault to be made upon the town, that so I might die in ensuring her safety. And I am sure that my face spake for me, and conveyed what my stammering tongue could not utter, for his lordship laughed pleasantly, saying—
“It is well. You accept of the trust—an’t it so? ”

“ But this was when I had ended my reading, and Dorothy was wiping away her tears.
“ ’Tis all one as though we was children again,” she said, as though excusing herself. “We have sat here so often just as now, and you have read Argalus and Parthenia by the firelight.”
“I have wished more than once, cousin,” says I, “that we might be Polyxandra and Cleombrocles again, with all our troubles but a phantasy.” ”

“ I beg that you won’t question me touching the time that passed after that day when Sir Harry called me into the parlour, and showing me your letter wrote from St Thomas, bid me think no more of you.”
“Alas, wretch that I am!” I cried, “to have entreated so hardly such a woman as you, and such a father as I had. Sure I deserved that he should lay his curse upon me for ever.”
“Nay, Ned, my dear Ned,” says she, laying her hand upon my arm the while I covered my face and groaned in my grief. “Sir Harry never did that. ”

“ I had been better pleased to have settled it all to your liking without troubling you thereabout, but all your friends do show ’emselves so prodigious tender of your punctilio that they will none of ’em tell me that which ’tis needful for me to know. I ask your pardon beforehand, cousin, if I offend you in this straightforward dealing, in spite of all my precaution.”
“Pray tell me your meaning, cousin Ned,” says she, as though perplexed.
“I am told, cousin,” said I, “that there’s a certain gentleman addressing you, in whose suit your heart is deeply engaged. ”

“ When I had said this, I was alarmed at my own presumption, but my lady only laughed.
“I fear you will be constrained to tarry until you can find some younger partner, sir,” saith she. “As for me, I am too old to dance.”
“Your pardon, madam,” says I, quickly, “but sure you are pleased to jest. I make so bold as to think that we should be an excellent good match. I myself am twenty-six years old, as your ladyship hath perhaps forgot.” ”

“ There has come to me in my past life an irreparable loss, so great as nothing imaginable can avail to compensate me therefor, and after this I don’t care to live longer. Mademoiselle de Tourvel will unfold my meaning to you if you ask her; but I pray you, ask no more of me.”
The viscount looked down into my face, and saw, as I fancy, my history wrote there plain, for he took away his eyes, and “May God help you, sir,” says he.
“You perceive by this, sir,” says I, “that ’tis your duty to live for her ladyship, and mine to enable you so to do. ”

“ The civility of the officers, the reverend presence of the Lords Inquisidors, the decency with which the audience was conducted, the pleasantry of Father Theodorus, all conspired to make me feel that I was but in some piece of trouble a little greater than ordinary, wherefrom I must speedily be released through the representations of my friends. And even now, remembering that I had seen naught of the savage cruelty I had looked for, I considered that perhaps this antique tribunal was changing with the times, and becoming more merciful, wherefore I had been subjected to no manner of torture. ”

“ Let me rather, says I, try to discover what manner of life, and shared with what person, she should esteem most to her taste, and endeavour to secure it for her, and then live out the remainder of my lonely existence happy in her happiness. But the more I reasoned thus with myself, the more I felt that that ideal or phantasm of wedded life that had presented itself to me at Surat was the only thing that could promise me earthly happiness, and that, without Dorothy were mine, this ideal could never be. ”

“ And if you shall be surprised that my father allowed me, his only son, to undertake such a distant and dangerous manner of life as that I have followed, I would have you remember that Sir Harry, as was but natural in a gentleman of his family and breeding, cared more for the honour and name of the house than for him that might one day bear it, and that he sent me forth in quest of wealth for to redeem the estates, as any father in Rome might have sent forth his son in quest of warlike honour. ”

“ Now, as I sat there, there come up Mr Spender, none the better for the wine that he had of a rascally fellow, half Spaniard and half Moor, that kept a tavern under pretence of an inn. And you must know that ’twas now the 29th day of May, Royal Oak Day as we call it, so long had I tarried in London before the ship sailed. In remembrance, then, of the most miraculous happy escape, as on that day, of his majesty King Charles the Second, I was arrayed in a brave habit, with my cousin Dorothy’s badge on the forefront thereof, for to testify to all men that loyalty whereof our house is proud. ”

“ Thus, then, did I bid farewell to that most rich and pleasant town of Surat, and to my fellow-servants of the Company there, that had showed themselves, with scarce any exception, as genteel and agreeable persons as any man need desire for his fellows. And I am right glad now that I departed from East India before this famous city lost her pre-eminence in our trade, the which was given over to that low and sultry island of Bombaim, to the great scandal of all in the Factory. ”

“ Welcome home, sir; glad I am to be the first to greet your honour in this place.”
“Sure ’tis a happy omen, sir,” says I, “that the first person to greet me should be so tried and faithful a friend as yourself. Pray, how do Mrs Sternhold and your daughters find ’emselves? I trust they are all three in good health?”
“The best of health, sir, I thank you,” said Mr Sternhold, for he it was. “My daughter Sisley is married to Frank Packworth, that your honour was wont to fight with at the Grammar School, but is now my partner, and a very worthy man. ”

“ And to this I replied that wedding clothes wan’t no concernment at all to me, but only Dorothy alone, and that if she would marry me at once, I would carry her to London, and there buy her whatever she might desire. But at this they cast up their hands in horror that my Lord Brandon’s daughter should be wedded without any convenient preparation, and did beseech me almost with tears to suffer all to be duly done. ”

“ Nay, madam,” for her mother was showing herself desirous to arrest her in her discourse, “prythee let me speak. ’Tis but just that Mr Carlyon should hear the truth. There an’t none at the Hall will tell it him, and ’tis well he should know how Mrs Dorothy’s friends regard him. Pray, sir, do you think that Mrs Brandon is your property, like your horse or your blackamoor, that having once cast her aside, you may gain her again at your conveniency?” ”

“ Riddle me no riddles, Ned. Many stumble at a straw and leap over a blocke, and I fear lest your honour have brought you perilous near to dishonour. But tell me your tale, and let me hear of your hairbreadth ’scapes and most disastrous chances, and I’ll help you in so far as my conscience will suffer me. Who is the female you speak of, and how hath she brought you into trouble? ”

“ Dorothy kissed my father, though with a pout, made me a curtsey, and ran away, I shutting the door after her.
“You are now arrived at your eighteenth year, Ned?” says my father.
“Yes, sir,” says I. “I was born in the year that my Lord Fairfax took Oxford city, as I have heard you say.”
“True,” saith Sir Harry, “and you are come to this age without being bred to any trade or calling. Not that ’tis your fault, lad, but mine. ’Tis no news to you, my son, that we abide here truly only on sufferance of Sternhold, and that ’tis all I can do to keep up the house as we live at present. ”