'I shall commit that matter to Mr. Adderley, who is good enough to
accompany him,' said Lord Walwyn, 'and by whose counsel I trust
that he will steer the middle course between the pope and Calvin.'
Mr. Adderley bowed in answer, saying he hoped that he should be
enable to keep his pupil's mind clear between the allurements of
Popery and the errors of the Reformed; but meanwhile Lady
Thistlewood's mind had taken a leap, and she exclaimed,-
'And, son, whatever you do, bring home the chaplet of pearls! I
know they have set their minds upon it. They wanted me to deck
Eustacie with it on that unlucky bridal-day, but I would not hear
of trusting her with it, and now will it rarely become our Lucy on
your real wedding-day.'
'You travel swiftly, daughter,' said Lord Walwyn. 'Nor have we yet
heard the thoughts of one who ever thinks wisely. Sister,' he
added, turning to Cecily St. John, 'hold not you with us in this
matter?'
'I scarce comprehend it, my Lord,' was the gentle reply. 'I knew
not that it was possible to dissolve the tie of wedlock.'
'The Pope's decree will suffice,' said Lord Walwyn.
'Yet, sir,' still said the ex-nun, 'methought you had shown me that
the Holly Father exceeded his power in the annulling of vows.'
'Using mine own lessons against me, sweet sister?' said Lord
Walwyn, smiling; 'yet, remember, the contract was rashly made
between two ignorant babes; and, bred up as they have severally
been, it were surely best for them to be set free from vows made
without their true will or knowledge.'
'And yet,' said Cecily, perplexed, 'when I saw my niece here wedded
to Sir Marmaduke, was it not with the words, 'What God hath joined
let no man put asunder'?'
'Good lack! aunt,' cried Lady Thistlewood, 'you would not have that
poor lad wedded to a pert, saucy, ill-tempered little moppet, bred
up that den of iniquity, Queen Catherine's court, where my poor
Baron never trusted me after he fell in with the religion, and had
heard of King Antony's calling me the Swan of England.'
At that moment there was a loud shriek, half-laugh, half-fright,
coming through the window, and Lady Thistlewood, starting up,
exclaimed, 'The child will be drowned! Box their ears, Berenger,
and bring them in directly.'
Berenger, at her bidding, hurried out of the room into the hall,
and thence down a flight of steps leading into a square walled
garden, with a couple of stone male and female marine divinities
accommodating their fishy extremities as best they might on the
corners of the wall. The square contained a bowling-green of
exquisitely-kept turf, that looked as if cut out of green velvet,
and was edged on its four sides by a raised broad-paved walk, with
a trimming of flower-beds, where the earliest blossoms were showing
themselves. In the centre of each side another paved path
intersected the green lawn, and the meeting of these two diameters
was at a circular stone basin, presided over by another merman,
blowing a conch on the top of a pile of rocks. On the gravelled
margin stood two distressed little damsels of seven and six years
old, remonstrating with all their might against the proceedings of
a roguish-looking boy of fourteen of fifteen, who had perched their
junior--a fat, fair, kitten-like element of mischief, aged about
five--en croupe on the merman, and was about, according to her
delighted request, to make her a bower of water, by extracting the
plug and setting the fountain to play; but as the fountain had been
still all the winter, the plug was hard of extraction, especially
to a young gentleman who stood insecurely, with his feet wide apart
upon pointed and slippery point of rock-work; and Berenger had time
to hurry up, exclaiming, 'Giddy pate! Dolly would Berenger drenched
to the skin.'