The Catholic World Volume Iii Part 27

Twine not your garland fair Till I have fallen fast asleep; Then to my silent pillow creep And leave it there--

There in the chapel yard!-- Come with twilight's earliest hush, Just as day's last purple flush Forsakes the sward.

Stop where the white cross stands.

You'll find me in my wedding suit, Lying motionless and mute, With folded hands.

Tenderly to my side: The bridegroom's form you may not see In the dim eve, but he will be Fast by his bride.

Soft with your chaplet move.

And lightly lay it on my head: Be sure you wake not with rude tread My jealous love.

Kiss me, then quick away; And leave us, in unwatched repose, With the lily and the rose Waiting for day!

But hark! the cry of the clamorous horn Breaks the bright stillness of the morn.

From moated wall, from festal hall The banners beckon, the bugles call, Already flames, in the lists unrolled O'er the Dauphin's tent, the Dolphin gold.

A hundred knights in armor glancing.

Hurry afield with pennons dancing, Each with a vow to splinter a lance For Christine, the Lily of Provence.

"Haste!" cried Christine; "Sisters, we tarry late.

Let not the tourney wait For its Queen!"

And, toward the castle gate, They take their silent way along the green.

TO BE CONTINUED

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From The Literary Workman.

JENIFER'S PRAYER.

BY OLIVER CRANE.

IN THREE PARTS.

PART II.

Mary Lorimer returned in safety to Beremouth under Horace Erskine's care, welcomed as may be supposed by the adopted father and her mother. Not that "Mother Mary," as Lady Greystock in the old Claudia Brewer days used to call her, could ever welcome Horace. She had never liked him; she had always felt that there was some unknown wrong about his seeking and his leaving Claudia; she had been glad that a long absence abroad had kept him from them while her darling Mary had been growing up; and it was with a spasm of fear that she heard of his spending that autumn at her sister's. And yet she had consented to his bringing Mary home. Yes, she had consented, for Mr. Brewer in his overflowing hospitality had asked him to come to them--had regretted that they had seen so little of him of late years--and had himself suggested that he should come when Mary returned.

Nine years does a great deal; it may even pay people's debts sometimes. But it had not paid Horace Erskine's debts: on the contrary, it had added to them with all the bewildering peculiarities that belong to calculations of interests and compound interests. He had got to waiting for another man's death. How many have had to become in heart death-dealers in this way! It was known that he would be his uncle's heir, and his uncle added to what he supposed Horace possessed a good sum yearly; making the man rich as he thought, and causing occasionally a slight pa.s.sing regret that Horace was so saving. "He might do so much more if he liked on his good income," the elder Mr. Erskine would say. But he did not know of the many sums for ever paying to keep things quiet till death, the great paymaster, should walk in and demand stern rights of himself, the elder, and pa.s.s on the gold that we all must leave behind to the nephew, the younger one.

But in the nine years that had pa.s.sed since the coward took his revenge on a brave woman by doing that which killed her husband, great things had happened to pretty Minnie Lorimer. The "county people" had been after her--those same old families who had flouted her mother, and prophesied eternal poverty to her poor pet baby--fatherless, too!

a fact that finished the story of their faults with a note of peculiar infamy.

That a man of good family should marry without money, become the father of a lovely child, and _die_--that the mother should go back to that old poverty-stricken home where that stiff-looking maid-servant looked so steadily into the faces of all who stood and asked admittance--that they should pretend to be happy!--altogether, it was really too bad.

Why did not Mrs. Lorimer, widow, go out as a governess? Who was to bring up that unfortunate child on a paltry one hundred a year? Of course {184} she begged for help. Of course they were supported by Mr.

Erskines's charity. A pretty humiliation of Lorimer's friends and relations!

Altogether, the whole of the great Lansdowne Lorimer connection had p.r.o.nounced that to have that young widow and her daughter belonging to them was a trial very hard to bear. They had not done talking when Mary made that quiet walk to church--no one but her mother and Jenifer being in the secret--and reappeared in the county after a few months'

absence as mistress of Beremouth. Mr. Brewer had counted his money, and had told the world what it amounted to. And this time he never apologized, he only confessed himself a person scarcely deserving of respect, because he had done so little good with the mammon of unrighteousness. But Mary now would tell him how to manage. He did perhaps take a little to the humble line. He hoped the world would forget and forgive his former shortcomings; such conduct would a.s.suredly not now be persevered in; and that resolution was fulfilled without any doubt. The splendors of Beremouth were something to talk about, and the range of duties involved in a large hospitality were admirably performed.

Old Lady Caroline, whose pianoforte survived in Mrs. Morier's house at Marston, considered the matter without using quite as many words as her neighbors. "That man will be giving money to Lorimer's child." She was quite right. He had already invested five thousand pounds for Minnie. Lady Caroline (what an odd pride hers was!) went to Beremouth, and got upon business matter with "Mother Mary."

She would give that child five thousand pounds in her will if Mr.

Brewer would not give her anything. Alas! it was already given. Mr.

Brewer used to count among his faults that, with him, it was too much a word and a blow, especially when a good action was in question, and this curious unusual fault he had decidedly committed in the case of Minnie Lorimer. The money was hers safe enough, invested in the hands of trustees. "Safe enough," said Mr. Brewer exultingly; and then, looking with a saddened air on Lady Caroline, he added, gravely, that it couldn't be helped! "The man's a saint or a fool, I can't tell which," was Lady Caroline's very cute remark. "The most unselfish idiot that ever lived. Does Mary like him, or laugh at him, I wonder?"

But Lady Caroline cultivated Mr. Brewer's acquaintance. Not in an evil way, but because she had been brought up to _use_ the world, and to slave all mankind who would consent to such persecution. Not wickedly, I repeat, but with a fixed intention she cultivated Mr. Brewer, and she got money out of him.

Mr. Brewer still made experiments with ten pounds. He helped Lady Caroline in her many charities, as long as her charities were confined to food and clothing, so much a week to the poor, and getting good nursing for the sick. But once Lady Caroline used that charity purse for purposes of "souping"--it has become an English word, so I do not stop to explain it--and then Mr. Brewer scolded her. n.o.body had ever disputed any point with Lady Caroline. But Mr. Brewer explained, with a most unexpected lucidity, how it would be _right_ for him to make her a Catholic, and yet _wrong_ for her to try her notions of conversion on him.

Lady Caroline kept up the quarrel for two years. She upbraided him for his neglect, on his own principles, of Claudia. She abused him for the different conduct pursued about his son. Mr. Brewer confessed his faults and stood by his rights at the same time. Two whole years Lady Caroline quarrelled, and Mr. Brewer never left the field. And afterward, some time after, when Lady Caroline was in her last illness, she said: "I believe that man Brewer may be right after all."

When she was dead young Mary Lorimer had double the sum that had {185} been originally offered, and Freddy her largest diamond ring.

But another thing had to come out of all this. Mrs. Brewer became a Catholic; and that fact had made her recall her daughter to her side--that fact had made Horace Erskine say, at the inn at Hull, that he dreaded for the girl he, spoke to the influence of the home and the people she was going to--that fact had brought that pa.s.sion of tears to Mary Lorimer's eyes, and had made her feel so angrily that he had taken an advantage of her.

Here, then, we are back again to the time at which we began the story.

Mary got home and was welcomed.

The day after their arrival, if we leave Beremouth and its people, and go into Marston to Mrs. Morier, "old Mrs. Morier" they called her now, we shall see Jenifer walk into the pleasant upstairs drawing-room, where the china glittered on comer-shelves, and large jars stood under the long inlaid table, and say to her mistress: "Eleanor is come, if you please, ma'am."

Mrs. Morier looked up from her knitting. She had been sitting by the window, and the beautiful old lady looked like a picture, as Jenifer often declared, as she turned the face shadowed by fine lace toward her servant with a sweet, gentle air, and smiling said, "And so you want to go to Clayton--and Eleanor is to stay till you come back?"

"Yes, ma'am--it's the anniversary." "Go, then," said the gentle lady.

"And you must not leave me out of your prayers, my good Jenifer; for you may be sure that I respect and value them." "I'll be back in good time," said Jenifer; and the door closed, and Mrs. Morier continued her knitting.

Soon she saw from the window that incomparable Jenifer. Her brown light stuff gown, the black velvet tr.i.m.m.i.n.g looking what Jenifer called _rich_ upon the same. b.u.t.tons as big as pennies all the way down the front--the good black shawl with the handsome border that had been Mr. Brewer's own present to her on the occasion of his wedding; the fine straw bonnet and spotless white ribbon--the crowning glory of the black lace veil--oh, Jenifer was _somebody_, I can tell you, at Marston; and Jenifer looked it.

It was with nothing short of a loving smile that Mrs. Morier watched her servant. Servant indeed, but true, tried, and trusty friend also; and when the woman was out of sight, and Mrs. Morier turned her thoughts to Jenifer's prayer, and what little she knew of it, she sighed--the sigh came from deep down, and the sigh was lengthened, and her whole thoughts seemed to rest upon it--it was breathed out, at last, and when it died away Mrs. Morier sat doing nothing in peaceful contemplation till the door opened, and she whom we have heard called Eleanor came in with inquiries as to the proper time for tea.

I think that this Eleanor was perhaps about eight-and-twenty years of age. She was strikingly beautiful. Perhaps few people have ever seen anything more faultlessly handsome than this young woman's form and face. She looked younger than she was. The perfectly smooth brow and the extraordinary fair complexion made her look young. No one would have thought, when looking at Eleanor, that she had ever _worked_. If the finest and loveliest gentlewoman in the world had chosen to put on a lilac cotton gown, and a white checked muslin ap.r.o.n, and bring up Mrs. Morier's early tea, she would perhaps have looked a little like Eleanor; provided her new employment had not endowed her with a momentary awkwardness. But admiration, when looking at this woman, was a little checked by a sort of atmosphere of pain--or perhaps it was only patience--that surrounded the beautiful face, and showed in every gesture and movement, and rested on the whole being, as it were.

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Eleanor suffered. And it was the pain of the mind and heart, not of the body--no one who had sufficient sensibility to see what I have described could ever doubt that the inner woman, not the outer fleshly form of beauty, suffered; and that the woe, whatever it was, had written _patience_ on that too placid brow.

"And are they all well at Dr. Rankin's?" "Very well, ma'am, I believe.

I saw Lady Greystock in her own rooms an hour before I came away. I said that I was coming here, and she said"--Eleanor smiled--"Lady Greystock said, ma'am, 'My duty to grandmamma Morier--mind you give the message right.'"

"Ah," said Mrs. Morier, "Lady Greystock is wonderfully well." "There is nothing the matter with her, ma'am." "Except that she never goes to Beremouth." What made the faint carnation mount to Eleanor's face?--what made the woman pause to collect herself before she spoke?--"Oh, ma'am, she is right not to try herself. She'll go there one day." "I suppose you like being at Dr. Rankin's?" "Very much. My place of wardrobe-woman is not hard, but it is responsible. It suits me well. And Mrs. Rankin is very good to me. And I am near Lady Greystock." "How fond you are of her!" "There is not anything I would not do for her," said the woman with animation. "I hope, indeed Dr.

Rankin tells me to believe, that I have had a great deal to do with Lady Greystock's cure. She has treated me like a sister; and I can never feel for any one what I feel for her." "Lady Greystock always speaks of you in a truly affectionate way. She says you have known better days." "_Different_ days; I don't say _better_. I have nothing to wish for. Ever since the time that Lady Greystock determined on staying at Blagden, I have been quite happy." "You came just as she came." "Only two months after." "And did you like her from the first?"