Clare Avery | Page 5

mind, until she evolved a whole story--a long way off the truth. It would have done much less harm to tell her the whole truth at once; for the fact of a mystery being made provoked her curiosity, and her imaginations were far more extreme than the facts.
"Ah, he feeleth the lack of my mistress his wife, I reckon," said Marian pityingly. "She must be soothly a sad miss every whither."
"Thou mayest well say so," assented Barbara. "Dear heart! 'tis nigh upon five good years now, and I have not grown used to the lack of her even yet. Thou seest, moreover, he hath had sorrow upon sorrow. 'Twas but the year afore that Master Walter [a fictitious person] and Mistress Frances did depart [die]; and then, two years gone, Mistress Kate, [a fictitious person]. Ah, well-a-day! we be all mortal."
"Thank we God therefore, good Bab," said Marian quietly. "For we shall see them again the sooner. But if so be, Bab, that aught befel the Master, what should come of yonder rosebud?"
And Marian cast a significant look at Clare, who sat apparently engrossed with a mug full of syllabub.
"Humph! an' I had the reins, I had driven my nag down another road," returned Barbara. "Who but Master Robin [a fictitious person] and Mistress Thekla [a fictitious person] were meetest, trow? But lo! you! what doth Mistress Walter but indite a letter unto the Master, to note that whereas she hath never set eyes on the jewel--and whose fault was that, prithee?--so, an' it liked Him above to do the thing thou wottest, she must needs have the floweret sent thither. And a cruel deal of fair words, how she loved and pined to see her, and more foolery belike. Marry La'kin! ere I had given her her will, I had seen her alongside of King Pharaoh at bottom o' the Red Sea. But the Master, what did he, but write back and say that it should be even as she would. Happy woman be her dole, say I!"
And Barbara set down the milk-jug with a rough determinate air that must have hurt its feelings, had it possessed any.
"Mistress Walter! that is, the Lady--" [Note 3.]
"Ay--she," said Barbara hastily, before the name could follow.
"Well, Bab, after all, methinks 'tis but like she should ask it. And if Master Robin be parson of that very same parish wherein she dwelleth, of a surety ye could never send the little one to him, away from her own mother?"
"Poor little soul! she is well mothered!" said Barbara ironically. "Never to set eyes on the child for six long years; and then, when Mistress Avery, dear heart! writ unto her how sweet and debonnaire [pretty, pleasing] the lily-bud grew, to mewl forth that it was so great a way, and her health so pitiful, that she must needs endure to bereave her of the happiness to come and see the same. Marry La'kin! call yon a mother!"
"But it is a great way, Bab."
"Wherefore went she so far off, then?" returned Barbara quickly enough. "And lo! you! she can journey thence all the way to York or Chester when she would get her the new fashions,--over land, too!--yet cannot she take boat to Bideford, which were less travail by half. An' yonder jewel had been mine, Marian, I would not have left it lie in the case for six years, trow!"
"Maybe not, Bab," answered Marian in her quiet way. "Yet 'tis ill judging of our neighbour. And if the lady's health be in very deed so pitiful--"
"Neighbour! she is no neighbour of mine, dwelling up by Marton Moss!" interrupted Barbara, as satirically as before. "And in regard to her pitiful health--why, Marian, I have dwelt in the same house with her for a year and a half, and I never knew yet her evil health let [hinder] her from a junketing. Good lack! it stood alway in the road when somewhat was in hand the which misliked her. Go to church in the rain,--nay, by 'r Lady!--and 'twas too cold in the winter to help string the apples, and too hot in the summer to help conserve the fruits: to be sure! But let there be an even's revelling at Sir Christopher Marres his house, and she bidden,--why, it might rain enough to drench you, but her cloak was thick then, and her boots were strong enough, and her cough was not to any hurt--bless her!"
The tone of Barbara's exclamation somewhat belied the words.
"Have a care, Bab, lest--" and Marian's glance at Clare explained her meaning.
"Not she!" returned Barbara, looking in her turn at the child, whose attention was apparently concentrated on one of Marian's kittens, which she was stroking on her lap, while the mother cat walked uneasily round and round her chair. "I