Andrew Golding.

by Annie E. Keeling.

INTRODUCTION.

HOW I, LUCIA DACRE, CAME TO WRITE THIS HISTORY, AT THE TIME THAT I WITH MY SISTER WAS LODGED IN A DESERTED HOUSE IN LONDON, WHEN THE GREAT PLAGUE WAS AT ITS HEIGHT; WHICH WAS IN THE MONTHS OF JULY AND AUGUST, ANNO SIXTEEN HUNDRED AND SIXTY-FIVE.

Now that my sister and myself are in such a strange melancholy case, and I enforced to spend many hours daily in idleness, I find the time hang very heavy; for I cannot, like Althea, entertain any longer the hopes that brought us. .h.i.ther. She continues daily to make great exertions in pursuing them, but does not often admit my help; and, being afraid that I may fall into mere desperation, I have bethought me how to amuse some hours daily by setting down the manner of our present troubles and the beginnings that led to them. May I live to write of their happy end! but my fears are very great, and almost forbid me to pray thus.

Having thus resolved how to beguile the heavy time, I began spying about for paper and pens and ink; and finding in a kind of lumber room a great many sheets of coa.r.s.e paper, I st.i.tched them together; then with much trembling I peeped into the study of the late poor master of the house, and there found a bundle of quills and some ink; and, leaving money in his desk to the full value of the things I took, I carried my writing-tools into the great front parlour, and set myself to the work.

Now while I sat considering how to begin, Althea comes softly behind me, and, looking over my shoulder, asks me what I would be at; and when I told her, 'What, child,' says she, 'art going to turn historian? Thy spirits are more settled than mine, if thou canst sit quietly down to such work, with sights like these daily before thine eyes,' pointing with her hand to the window. Now I had pulled the table into a corner well out of sight from the street, wishing not to be discerned; for as yet but one knows of our being hidden in this house, and we would fain keep it a secret still. But rising and following with my eyes her pointing hand, I could behold a sight common enough, but too dismal to be looked on without fresh apprehension each time: in the middle of the street, which is quite grown with gra.s.s, a horse and cart standing, no driver in sight near it, and the cart as we too well knew being that which goes round daily to take away such as die of the Plague, though as it then stood we could not discern if any dead person lay in it.

'It is waiting for our neighbour next door,' says Althea. 'As I stood by an open cas.e.m.e.nt up-stairs I plainly heard the family bemoaning themselves because the master is dead; I heard also how they are devising to get away un.o.bserved in the early morning, and escape to some place of safety in the country. How sayest thou, Lucy? were it not well for thee to go also in their company?'

'Never I, while you stay here,' I answered.

'It repents me often,' she said, 'that I discovered to you my design of coming up hither. I would you were safe at home again.'

'I have no home, but where you are,' said I.

'Poor faithful little heart!' she says, sighing. 'Well, get on with thy history-writing; I must go forth presently, when all is quiet again; and when I return thou shalt show me what thou hast written. Tell the tale orderly, Lucy; begin at the beginning with "Once upon a time there lived two sisters; the elder was a fool, but the younger one loved her"'--and before I could say a word she had slipt away.

I sat awhile, too much disquieted to write, listening against my will for the heavy sounds that told how the dead man next door was being carried forth and laid in the cart; but the thing lumbered away at last, its cracked bell tinkling dolefully; and I found courage to take to my work.

But to begin at the beginning is not so easy, especially for one so unskilful with her pen as I. And who shall say what are the beginnings of the things that befall us? Perhaps they lie far off, long before our little life itself began.

CHAPTER I.

HOW WE WERE VISITED BY TWO OF OUR KINSFOLK, OUR FATHER BEING DEAD; AND HOW THEY BEHAVED THEMSELVES TOWARD US.

Think, however, that the troubles that now lie upon us might not have been ours had not our father died when he did, which was the cause of our being taken into the house of our mother's sister, Mrs. Margaret Golding;--a happy thing we then thought it, that she would receive us, for we were in great straits;--so I will begin my history at that sad period.

Our father, William Dacre, was indeed a gentleman, born to a competent estate, and married into an honest stock and to some fortune, but his fair prospects were all blighted and our mother's money well-nigh wasted before he died. To his great loss, he stood steadily for the king against the Parliament all through the late Rebellion, as he would ever call it; and, our mother's people being very stiff on the other side, and she dying while we were little children, we were sundered from them while our father lived. He took such care of us as he could, striving to breed us up like gentlewomen; sometimes we lived with him in London lodgings, sometimes were left at his manor-house of Milthorpe; but the last two years of his life were very uneasy to him and to us.

For when the young king, Charles the Second, was brought in again, five years agone, our father was drawn up to Court by some I will not name, who tempted him with hopes of preferments and rewards to recompense his loyalty. He wasted his means much through the ill counsel of these false friends, but obtained no fruit of their promises, and at last he died suddenly; whether broken-hearted or not I leave to the judgment of G.o.d, and to the consciences of the men who for their own ends had betrayed him into those vain expectations. At that time Althea was barely nineteen, and I a little past sixteen; we had no brother nor other sister.

We were then at Milthorpe; and thither our father was brought to be buried. That was a black time for us. Though lately we had been kept apart from our father, we loved him dearly, and we knew of no other friend and protector. And when the funeral was over we could not tell which way to turn; for we found our father's land must needs pa.s.s to the next male heir, Mr. John Dacre, our distant cousin. He, I know not how, had contrived to thrive where our father had decayed, and had gotten a good share of favour at the new Court.

My memory offers things past to me as if in separate pictures, this and that accident that befell us showing much more clear and bright than things quite as important which lie between. I remember but dimly all the sad time of our father's death and burial, the grief I myself felt, and all the bustle and stir about us, making those days cloudy to me; but all the more plainly I remember a certain day that followed the funeral, when Althea and I were sitting together in a little parlour where we had been wont to sew,--I weeping on her neck, and she trying to turn my thoughts from my grief with planning how we two should live,--when, the door opening, some one came briskly in who called us by our names.

'What, Althea! what, Lucy! All in the dumps, and not a word to say to your mother's own sister?' and, in great surprise, we looked up on our aunt, whom we had seen but once since our mother died, when we were quite little. She was looking kindly on us; her eyes were quick, black, and sparkling, but had something very tender in them at that moment. I noticed directly how plain she was as to her clothes, wearing a common country-made riding-suit, all of black, and how her shape was a little too plump for her low stature, while her comely face was tanned quite brown with the sun; but methought the kind look she bent on us was even sweeter because of her homely aspect. So I got up and ran to her, holding out both my hands; but she took me into her arms, and kissed me lovingly, saying,--

'Poor lamb! poor fatherless, motherless lamb! thou shalt feel no lack of a mother while I live.'

Then, holding me in one arm, she stretched out the other hand to Althea, who had come up more slowly, and she said,--

'And you too, my fair lady-niece; I have room in my heart for the two of you, if you will come in;' on which the water stood in Althea's eyes, and she took our aunt's hand and kissed it, saying,--

'G.o.d reward you, madam, for your goodness to us desolate orphans! I receive it most thankfully.'

'That's well,' quoth our aunt cordially. And she proceeded to tell us how, when she got the news of our father's death, she made haste to come down to Milthorpe. 'Not that I hoped,' said she, 'to be here in time for the burying; but it was borne in on my mind there should be a friend of our side of the house to stand by you. Is Mr. Dacre here?'

'He came down to the funeral,' said Althea, 'and hath spoken to us on some small business matters; but he has been constantly out of the house, riding about the estate, and so we have seen little of him.'

As she said this the door opened again, and our cousin, the new master of Milthorpe, entered. I had scarce noted his looks, being drowned in my grief at the time when, as Althea said, he had talked with us on business, accounting to us for some moneys, the poor wreck of our fortunes, which had been lodged in his hands; but I now thought what a grand gentleman he looked in his rich mourning suit; and indeed he was of a very graceful appearance, and smiled on us most courtly. He held his plumed hat in his hand, and, bowing low to our aunt,--

'I am much honoured,' said he, 'that Mrs. Golding should grace my poor house with her presence before I have had time to sue for it. Will it please you, ladies, to step into the dining-parlour and sit down with me to a homely refection I have ordered to be spread there? I must return to-day to town; so if Mrs. Golding will bestow half an hour of her time on me to talk over some needful matters, I shall take it as a favour.'

Mrs. Golding bent her head to him, saying, 'At your pleasure, sir;' and we followed to the dining-room, where we found what I should have called a plentiful dinner, but Mr. Dacre kept excusing its meanness at every dish he offered us. This was very grating to Althea, seeming a reflection both on our ways at Milthorpe and on our poor old faithful servants; and Mrs. Golding liked it no better. I saw her turning very red; and at last she said bluntly,--

'The dinner is all very well, and I think Margery cook needs not so many excuses; so will you please leave speaking of meats and drinks, and turn to the needful matters you spoke of instead?'

'I might have chosen,' says Mr. Dacre, 'to talk to you in private first about those things; but perhaps it's as well my fair cousins should hear at once what I have to say. I am a married man, as you know, Mrs.

Golding; and my wife loves the town, and cannot endure to hear of a country life. I have no hope she will ever live at the Manor here. But I will not let it; and I shall want it kept in good order against my coming down, which will be frequent. So if my cousin, Mistress Althea, likes to remain here as housekeeper, she will be very welcome.'

'And what do you think of paying her for her services?' said our aunt.

Mr. Dacre lifted his eyebrows, and looked at her as if much surprised.

'She would have meat and lodging free,' said he, 'and servants to do her bidding. Also, if she can make anything by keeping of a dairy, or of fowls, or selling of fruit from the gardens, or such like devices of country dames, I shall ask no account of her gains; and if her management pleases me, I shall find a broad piece for her from time to time, I doubt not; so she may do very well.'

'And is her sister, Mistress Lucia, to dwell in your house and receive your bounty also?' said Mrs. Golding.

'That made no part of my plans,' said he, smiling and bowing. 'I shall hardly need two housekeepers here.'

'Then it may chance you must look otherwhere for your one housekeeper,'

said Mrs. Golding. 'What sayest, Althea? Wilt be parted from thy sister that thou mayest have the honour of keeping house for so liberal a kinsman and master? or wilt go with Lucy and me to my farm, at West Fazeby, where you two shall be to me as daughters? for I am a childless widow, and will gladly cherish you young things. The choice lies before you, Althea.'

Althea was now red as any rose; and the tears' that had been in her eyes seemed turned to sparks of fire. She rose from the table and made a deep curtsey to Mr. Dacre.

'I am exceeding grateful for your preference of me,' she said; 'but seeing I am only a young maid, and inexpert in the management of a house, I must beg to refuse your princely offer'--she spoke with infinite scorn--'and betake myself instead to the home Mrs. Golding will give me, where I may improve myself, and become fitter in time, both in years and skill, for some such post as you would now prefer me to.' She stopped and panted, being quite out of breath.

Mr. Dacre did but lift his eyebrows again and say, 'As you will, madam,' and then begged she would sit down and finish eating; but she remained standing, and looked pitifully at Mrs. Golding; on which our aunt rose also, and I doing the same,--

'You go to town to-day, I think you said?' questioned Mrs. Golding; 'we will therefore take our leave of you now, not to importune you further.

My nieces and I will endeavour to be gone from here to-morrow, so please you to endure their presence in their father's house until then; for you must think it will ask a few hours for them to remove their apparel and other goods.'

'a.s.suredly, madam; they have full liberty,' said Mr. Dacre, rising and bowing, and, for a wonder, looking a little abashed.

'And I think it were well we lost no time,' continued our aunt.

So we took our leave of him gladly enough, and I think he was full as glad to have us go; and we went back to the little parlour.