Mistress Mary

“ MRS MA. 'Tis news, Master Arthur, to see you in such a place:
How doth your wife?
Y. ART. Faith, Mistress Mary, at the point of death,
And long she cannot live; she shall not live
To trouble me in this my second choice.
Enter AMINADAB with a bill and headpiece.
MRS MA. I pray forbear, sir, for here comes my love:
Good sir, for this time leave me; by this kiss
You cannot ask the question at my hands
I will deny you: pray you, get you gone.
Y. ART. Farewell, sweet Mistress Mary! ”

“ The master is dead: the mistress is an old woman, hardened and repulsive, the embodiment of all that is evil, who is counting coppers in a room filled with bush, skulls, sacrifices, and charms. A number of half-starved cowed women and girls covered with dirt and sores are quarrelling over a pipe. The shrill voice and long arms of the mistress settle the matter, and make them fly helter- skelter. They call on Mary to speak, and after many interruptions she subdues and controls them, and leaves them, for the moment, impressed. ”

“ I had my hand on her bridle-rein, ready to do my best should any rudeness be offered her, when suddenly she raised her hand and made a motion, and to my utter astonishment the brawling throng, save for some on the outskirts, which quieted presently, became still. Then Mistress Mary's voice arose, clear and sweet, with a childish note of innocence in it:
"Good people," said she, "fain would I be your Maid Marion, and fain would I be your queen of May, if you would hold with me this Kingdom of Virginia against tyrants and oppressors." ”

“ But while I was thrusting them aside, holding myself before her as firmly as I might, there came a quick clatter of hoofs, and Mistress Mary had dashed alongside on Merry Roger. She scattered the merry revellers right and left, calling out to her sister to go homeward with a laugh. "Fie on thee, Catherine!" she cried out. "If thou art abroad on a May morning dressed like the queen of it, what blame can there be to these good folk for giving thee thy queendom?" ”

“ I saw a strange smile cross the Viscount's face as Mistress Mary spoke these words in that full, sweet voice of hers that was like music in his ears. He did not answer, but put out his uninjured hand, and she came and laid hers upon it. Then they looked into each other's eyes, and I think that all thoughts of the Duke or of coming warfare passed out of the minds of both. I have lived to see something of the power of love in human lives, but I think I never saw such beautiful and perfect love as that which existed between my lord and fair Mistress Mary. ”

“ Mistress Mary spoke with that sweetness of maiden vanity which calls for tender leniency and admiration from a man instead of contempt. And it may easily chance that he may be as filled with vain delight as she, and picture to himself as plainly her appearance in those new fallalls. ”

“ I think that when I brought the evil tidings to Mistress Mary and my lord, I gave her a blow from which she found it hard to recover. I well remember the white face and wild eyes she turned towards me, and the way in which she wrung her slim white hands together, looking first at me and then at my lord, as she cried out,—
"I brought him into this—and the cause is lost! God has not been on our side. And perhaps he will even have to die for it. ”

“ Their mistress was present, and to mortify her, as she declared, ordered her to take a chair and proceed. No sooner had she commenced, as desired, than her subject transported her as it were out of herself. A torrent of sacred eloquence flowed from her heart to her lips. She spoke with a fluency than amazed her hearers, and at the same time, with an unction that penetrated, and a charm that fascinated them. Suddenly she stopped, as if the remainder of the effusion were meant to be reserved for the ear of her Lord alone. ”

“ Mistress Mary cried.
"Hush!" her elder sister said; "that is foolish talking, Madge; my grandmother told me so when I said the same thing to her a year ago. Children do not know what Almighty God intends them to do. And now methinks I see Uncle Labourn making as if he would call us to the house, and there are the horses coming to the door. We must needs obey the summons. Prithee, Mistress Constance, do not forget me." ”

“ Do you object, Mistress Mary?’
‘I don’t know how much rewards are used in these cases,’ answered Mary, ‘but why do you begin with them when the problem presents no insuperable difficulties as yet? Whenever she herself, her awkward hands, her weak will, her inattention, her restlessness, give her some task she likes, some pleasure or occupation for which she has shown decided preference, and thus make happiness follow close upon the heels of effort. We who see more clearly the meaning of life know that this will not always happen, and we can be content to do right for right’s sake. ”

“ Mistress Mary, when she heard, looked at her lover with one of her radiant glances, and said,—
"Is it not like that sifting of Gideon's little band? All who were faint-hearted were to go to their own homes. In a holy cause we want none but those whose hearts are set upon the noble end, and who know not a thought of faltering and fear. ”

“ He was keeping up a separate establishment for a new mistress. Mary, following the impulse of the moment, went at once to this house, where she found him. The particulars of their interview are not known; but her wretchedness during the night which followed maddened her. His perfidy hurt her more deeply than his indifference. Her cup of sorrow was filled to overflowing, and for the second time she made up her mind to fly from a world which held nothing but misery for her. ”

“ Mistress Mary, I am not sure but that, in self-defence, we ought to become a highly specialised Something. We are now a home, a mother, a nursery, a labour bureau, a divorce court, a registry of appeals, a soup kitchen, an advisory hoard, and a police force. If we take her, what shall we be?’
‘We will see first where she belongs,’ smiled Mary. (Nobody could help smiling at Rhoda.) ‘Somebody has been neglecting his or her duty. If we can make that somebody realise his delinquencies, all the better, for the responsibility will not be ours. ”

“ I strove again to reassure her, and said, as verily I begun to believe, that the old dame's words whether of cursing or blessing were of no moment, but presently Mistress Mary declared herself afraid of riding alone shut within her sedan chair, and would alight, and have one of the slaves lead my horse, and walk with me, taking my arm the remainder of the way. ”

“ He had passed his arm with a kind of reckless excitement round her waist, and now held her tightly towards him, so that her heart beat wildly against his own, though she shrank trembling from the close embrace, and still he repeated, with a voice which sounded to her ear more like hatred than affection:
"Say—promise me, you will marry me in a week, Mary, publicly or in secret, as you will; you are your own mistress, no one can prevent you. Speak, say that one word, Mary, and you shall hear everything as truly as if I stood before the judgment-seat of God." ”

“ They were alone together, each heart knit to all the others by the close bond of a common vocation; and though a heretofore unknown experience, it seemed a natural one when Mistress Mary suddenly bent her head, and said softly:
‘Father in heaven, it is by the vision of Thy relation to us that we can apprehend our relation to these little ones. As we have accepted that high trust, so make us loyal to it. When our feet grow weary and our faith grows dim, help us to follow close after the ever perfect One who taught even as we are trying to teach. ”

“ May even He who is nameless stand from the path of thy desire, and hold back from thy face the boughs of prevention whither thou wouldst go." This said old Margery Key in a strange, chanting-like tone, and withdrew, and a light flashed out in the next house, and the woman who dwelt therein screamed, and Mistress Mary, thrusting forth her head from the chair, called me to come close.
As for Catherine, she was borne along as silently as though she slept, being, I doubt not, still exhausted with her swoon. ”

“ It had not been the custom that Mistress Mary should do anything but stand and allow herself to be dressed like a doll, but before she was ready for breakfast she began to suspect that her life at Misselthwaite Manor would end by teaching her a number of things quite new to her—things such as putting on her own shoes and stockings, and picking up things she let fall. If Martha had been a well-trained fine young lady’s maid she would have been more subservient and respectful and would have known that it was her business to brush hair, and button boots, and pick things up and lay them away. ”

“ There was a charm in the steady dark grey eyes, the delicate mobile features, and the easy grace of her every movement, which my poor pen has no power to describe. Her voice was low and sweet, the sweetest I have ever heard, and the rare laugh was like music. Surely had I been a man, and a comely and gallant one to boot, I should straightway have fallen in love with sweet Mistress Mary Mead. And I ceased to marvel at the stories of Viscount Vere; for even as a child she must have been passing fair, and how could he help loving what was so gracious and so good? ”

“ CHAP. XX. Mistress Mary continues the story of the young Gentleman; relates how a Cheat (with two more) pretending to be a Countrey man, performed a very profitable but most comical exploit on a Shop keeper; she is interrupted by the Arrival of her comrades; Meriton Lattroon enters into a Pleasant Dialogue with her; his Indian wife falls in love with Mistress Mary and Mistress Dorothy, disguis’d in mans apparel: and a pleasant Adventure there upon. ”

“ Mary stopped for a moment to listen; and when she went on, her face was paler, though not less determined-looking than before.
“Sir Richard is a bastard—a bastard—a bastard! My Lady is not nearly so good as she should be; and I'm her husband in the lock-up! Down with the Lisgards—down with them; and down they shall come!”
These were the words, but interspersed with the most hideous imprecations, with which Mistress Forest's ears were greeted as she approached the little round house. ”

“ To the ball you go, madam, and in that sky-coloured gown, and no more words. Things have come to a pretty pass." So saying, she rose and, leaning heavily on her stick, with her black maid propping her, she went out. Then turned Mistress Mary imperiously to us and demanded to know the meaning of it all. "Whence came these goods?" said she to Catherine.
"On the Golden Horn, sweetheart; 'tis the list you gave this morning," replied Catherine, without a change in the fair resolve of her face.
"Pish!" cried Mary Cavendish. "The list I gave this morning was my Lady Culpeper's, and you know it. ”

“ There is never now nor at any other time any question of marriage betwixt Mistress Mary Cavendish and her convict tutor, and if he perchance had been not colour-blind and had learned to appraise her at her rare worth, the more had he been set against such. And all that he can do for thee, lad, he will do. ”

“ A young minister standing by, blushed to the temples, and said, "O brother! how could you say what was not the fact." "Not the fact!" replied the old gentleman; "if she had not a large hole in each of her stockings, I should like to know how she gets them on."
"CAREFUL, NOW!" "How is it, Mary, that whenever I enter the kitchen I always find a man there?" enquired a mistress.
"I don't know, ma'am, indeed, unless it be them there soft shoes ye wears, that don't make no noise," replied Mary. ”

“ But a man makes many a mistake as to women, and one of the most frequent is that the hearts of them are like wax, to be moulded into this and that shape. That morning, when I met Mistress Mary at the breakfast table, she was pale and distraught, and not only did not speak to me nor look at me, but when I ventured to speak in praise of Sir Humphrey's gallant looks at the ball, she turned upon me so fiercely with encomiums of my Lord Estes, whom I knew to be not worthy of her, that I held my tongue. ”

“ However, Mistress Mary had some property in her own right, she being the daughter of a second wife, who had died possessed of a small plantation called Laurel Creek, which was a mile distant from Drake Hill, farther inland, having no ship dock and employing this. Mistress Mary might have sent some of her own tobacco crop to England wherewith to purchase finery for herself. ”

“ How is your mistress?”
“She is well, and would, I think, be happy, if it were not for the strange disease of Mr Austin, who secludes himself entirely, and will not even go outside of the park gates. He has become more overbearing and haughty than ever, and several of the servants have quitted within the last few months.”
“I have no wish to meet him, dear Mary, after what passed when I was here before? I will not put up with insolence from any man, even in his own house,” replied our hero. ”

“ But the most curious sight of all, and that which occasioned the two maids the most merriment, though of a covert and even tender and pitying sort, was Mary's black serving-wench Sukey, a half-grown girl, who had been bidden to attend her mistress upon this morning frolic. She was seated at a distance, square in the wet greenness, and was plunging both hands into the May dew and scrubbing her face with a fierce zeal, as if her heart was in that pretty folly, as no doubt it was. ”

“ I had very small doubts myself that Mistress Mary would be at her window again to-night, half repenting her of her refusal to send a message, and on the look-out for more news of her lover; therefore as soon as the house was quiet I showed the Viscount how the transit to the balcony might be made, and myself stood in another balcony commanding all the windows, just out of ear-shot, but in full view of the lovers, and ready to give them any assistance by warning or counsel. ”