CHAPTER XXIII

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PERCIVAL'S PRIVILEGE.

"Life is--to wake not sleep, Rise and not rest, but press From earth's level, where blindly creep Things perfected, more or less, To the heaven's height, far and steep." --ROBERT BROWNING.

Time forbids us to dwell at any length upon the few short weeks spent by Shanno at her new-found mother's side in London, or upon the marked notice and favour shown her by the king and queen, whose great kindness but strengthened the love and devotion she had ever secretly cherished for them--for the king more especially, whose beautiful yet sad countenance and melancholy eyes haunted her with a peculiar fascination. And also she at that time met for the first time the great Archbishop Laud, whose name was already but too sore a source of strife, and with him his learned chaplain, young Master Jeremy Taylor, on whom, for his wisdom and holiness of life, she looked with awe and reverence, and, for his great friendship with Percival Vere, with a certain tenderness of spirit which she could not disguise from herself. Many a time she listened with a beating heart to his warm praises of his friend, sometimes timidly venturing herself to draw him into conversation upon her father's beloved chaplain, and ever finding herself pleasingly rewarded for such boldness by the great affection with which Master Taylor spoke of his friend, dwelling enthusiastically upon the wonderful purity and spotlessness of his life from boyhood, and upon those charms of manner which, combined with a strong will and high moral purpose, as well as with learned parts and wondrous eloquence of speech, had won for him the love and esteem of all his fellows, among whom, said Master Taylor, he had ever, as it were, diffused a purer atmosphere than that breathed by ordinary men, and shown forth a noble ideal of living, which, if they sometimes ridiculed, they could but secretly reverence. And to such talk of him, whose image she ever cherished in her pure girlish heart's inmost shrine, the Earl of Bryn Afon's unknown daughter listened with glowing cheeks and brightly-shining eyes, and Master Taylor, reading in those liquid depths the secret which they unconsciously betrayed, and which he was perhaps the quicker to apprehend because of his own newly-found joy in a good wife's love, rejoiced in the goodness of his heart that so good a gift might likewise be in store for Percival as the love of this wondrously fair maiden, the Lady Bryn Afon's cherished companion, in whose countenance goodness and purity of soul were evenly blended with beauty of feature, and in whose mind, as he wrote to his friend Master Vere, all fair graces were mingled, the striving of each for the mastery adding piquancy to the one harmonious whole.

We can also make but passing mention of the one happy day Primrose spent in her father's company on his return to town with the Black Horseman,--happy indeed, yet her pride and joy in him were mingled with bitter sadness in spite of the thankfulness and pleasure with which she received his great kindnesses towards herself, and saw the evident marks of tender love, existing despite all the strange circumstances of their lives, between himself and her mother.

"Fain would I boast so fair a daughter!" he exclaimed, betwixt a laugh and a sigh, as he bade her farewell on the morning of her departure with Lady Bryn Afon into Wales, he himself being forced to remain in attendance on the king, and being left in the safe charge of his faithful physician, while the chaplain, now at Oxford for some few days, also at his bidding took holiday for some weeks. And Primrose, at his words, had much ado not to burst into tears, and fall at his feet, confessing that she did indeed bear to him that sweet and holy relation. "I pray you take care of my sweet wife," he added gaily. "I am but loth to be again so quickly parted from her, but she droops like some fragile flower during the hot season in town, so that I am fain to banish her to breathe her own native air awhile. And in such fair companionship I have no fear for her happiness."

So they parted, and once more the long journey into Wales was accomplished in safety, and on a bright June evening their attendants conducted them and their dark-eyed maidens to the farm Glyn Melen, and gave them over into the welcoming arms of the honest farmer and his family, and to the warm greeting, so unexpected by Primrose as to take away her breath and all the colour from her cheeks, of the chaplain, Percival Vere.

"I knew not that Master Vere was again to be our companion, dear mother," said Primrose, when, Evensong having been said in the impromptu chapel, she and Lady Bryn Afon retired to the latter's chamber for a few moments' chat ere they parted for the night; the young girl's heart secretly glowing with the consciousness of the deep gladness shining in the chaplain's eyes, as he had clasped her hand in bidding her good-night, and shyly conscious too that she had by no means been able to hide the equal gladness in her own. "Your father proposed but a few days since that he should join us here on leaving Oxford," answered her mother, "knowing how well he loves these beautiful mountains, and that overmuch study during the past year has appeared somewhat to tell upon his health. He was a pleasant companion, methinks, last summer. Thought you not so, sweet daughter, with ever a ready wit and store of converse, both learned and lively, wherewith to beguile some few of our quiet hours? I would there were an organ in this humble dwelling, that you might hear him discourse the wonderful music by which he has so won the king's heart, that he already, ere his Ordination, graciously offered him the post of Court Musician. But his heart was so set upon taking Holy Orders, and especially upon waging war in this, his mother's native soil, against the crying sin of intemperance, that he returned his Majesty a courteous refusal of the honour." "He chose a holier calling," said Primrose softly, "and I trow the king bears him no ill-will for his refusal, for I heard him speak of him to my dear father with much affection, calling him by that name 'Sir Galahad,' which Lady Rosamond long ago told me he bore among his companions, and which, methinks, he well deserves. Think you not, dear mother, he might be counted worthy to go in quest of the Holy Grail?" Lady Bryn Afon looked searchingly at her daughter, as she answered with a smile; "Indeed the real Sir Galahad can scarce to my thinking have worn a more holy countenance, or led a more blameless life than our young chaplain, for whom I have a very high regard and esteem. Did you ever note, Primrose, what beauty those long and dark eyelashes add to his face--such lashes as babes and maidens often boast, but which are a rare feature of masculine beauty? There is a pretty story told of this peculiar feature of his countenance." "Prithee tell it me, sweet mother," said Primrose, hiding her face in her long golden tresses, which her mother's fingers had unbound and let fall in glittering showers around the slender form nestling against her knee. "Percival's mother, the beautiful Lady Enid Ap Gryffyth," said Lady Bryn Afon, "was from her early childhood gifted with a singularly pure and religious tone of mind, and in very early girlhood resolved to devote herself wholly to good works, and never to marry, lest, as the Apostle Paul saith, she should be counted as one of those whose care is rather to please their husbands than their Lord, which thought her holy mind and affections could not bear to contemplate. But ere she had been long returned from the convent where she had been educated, it so befell that she was bidden to visit the mother of the sainted Master George Herbert, who had been her own mother's dearest friend during the years of her sojourn at Montgomery Castle, and who, though now a second time married and dwelling in other parts, ever retained a warm affection for the Countess Ap Gryffyth and her beautiful daughter, the latter having been born in the same year as her son George, and having been his infant playmate. This lady was, at the time of the Lady Enid's visit to her, spending some few weeks in Oxford, where she had resided for some years after leaving her Welsh castle, and previous to her second marriage, and where she had many friends, among whom none were more welcome nor more frequent guests in her house than our dear chaplain's father, younger son of the renowned Vere, Earl of Oxford, then a scholar of Christ Church, and reading for Holy Orders. He was, although some few years older than her son George, who was then a student of Trinity College, Cambridge, one of his most attached friends, and withal a man of singular grace and virtue, not to speak of much beauty of countenance, and it was not long ere a deep and true affection sprang up in his heart for the fair and gracious Welsh maiden; and she, against her most earnest convictions, likewise fell deeply in love with him, and at last, unable to resist his pleadings and her own warm affection, together with the great desire of her parents and of her kind friend that she should accept him as her husband, she consented to break her resolution and become his wife, which happy event took place two years later, after he had taken priest's orders, and settled in a curacy not far from that parish, in the county of Wilts, of which he afterwards became rector. But for this breaking of her resolution, fair Enid afterwards, in the midst of the deepest and holiest conjugal bliss, suffered such agonies of soul that she earnestly besought Heaven, praying her husband to do so likewise on her behalf, to grant her some visible sign that her act had been pardoned, or not accounted so displeasing to God as she had feared, owing to the tender age at which she had made her resolution. And in answer to their mutual prayers, there was granted her a vision, in which it was revealed to her that her first-born child should bear a special sign of resemblance in his person to the human form of our Blessed Lord, as a token of God's favour towards himself, and a reward to her, his mother, for her life of purity and devotion, from a child, to His service. And being granted in her dream a vision of our Lord Himself, holding her child in His sacred embrace, she noted in both their countenances the same deep earnest eyes, fringed with long and heavy lashes; and afterwards, when her firstborn son was placed in her own loving arms, and her first eager glance scanned his tiny face, she recognised those same wondrously long and sweeping lashes, shading the yet closed eyes of the unconscious infant, and thanked God humbly for so graciously-bestowed a sign of His favour. And as the babe grew into boyhood, this feature of beautiful likeness to the Christ of her vision grew ever more and more apparent, and she brought him up to regard it as a most sacred mark of the Divine favour, which must ever bind him to loyal and devoted service to God and His church, exhorting him also on her death-bed, not many years since, that as he bore in his outward features this wondrous resemblance to his Lord, so he must ever be ready to bear likewise, if need be, the inward likeness of His sufferings. So she died, as Lady Rosamond, from whom I had this story, tells me, a most holy and peaceful death, being followed from this world not many months later by her most truly loving and devoted husband and chivalrous knight, Lancelot Vere, the two leaving behind them but this one surviving son--out of three children born to them--Percival, our dear young chaplain, who methinks has trod right worthily in the steps of such holy and noble parents, and whose inward life has ever been a true and lowly following of Him of whom he received so wondrous a mark of love and favour." "It is a beautiful story, mother," said Primrose softly, her eyes shining with tears of love and pride. "I thank you for telling it to me. Think you he will not mind my hearing it?" "Nay," said Lady Bryn Afon, "I think not so, and were he so to do, I could bear his chiding! Listen, my sweet daughter. For reasons I thought good, I told him some weeks since of our relationship, so that in any converse you may, during our stay here, hold with him, you may feel at ease and rest, knowing that betwixt us there is no concealment, and that I have, by suffering him thus to share our secret, shown both to yourself and him the great love and trust I bear him and place in him. Perchance, my sweet one, you perceive some hidden current in my thoughts, and marvel that I do not speak more plainly; but wait a little in patience, and enjoy your summer days together, and my secret thoughts may in time be revealed." So, embracing her daughter affectionately, they parted for the night, and Shanno sought her couch, wondering much over her mother's words, and trembling with a secret joy she dared not yet openly contemplate.

The days that followed were bright with a radiance, for which the summer sunshine, glorious though it was, could claim but little credit.

The readings and harp-playings by the brook-side, the rambles on the mountain, the sweet twilight talks in the warm late evenings, in the copse, or in some shady nook on the hillside, all bore some subtle charm, felt none the less because of Lady Bryn Afon's presence, and indeed felt by herself, in her love and sympathy, hardly less keenly than by the two young lovers themselves. For lovers they could no longer, in their secret hearts, deny themselves to be, and Primrose could not fail to note, though no word of love had as yet been interchanged between them, that the veil of reserve so often worn by Percival, and falling like a sudden wall between them during the previous summer, now never shadowed their pleasant intercourse, nor suddenly broke off the sweet interchange of those confidences into which they were wont to drift during any few happy moments in which they found themselves alone. Yet she noted likewise that the chaplain's face bore signs of struggle and conflict waged with his own soul during the past year--conflict, the reason of which she could not know, though she might dimly guess at its cause in her own most secret ponderings; but surely leaving the mark of its severity upon the pure and noble countenance, of which she daily made loving study, and which, in its mingled power and sweetness, strength and holiness, exerted a voiceless influence over her own soul, uplifting it in greater love to that Holy Being whose human semblance it was permitted in its measure to wear.

"You seem greatly devoted to my father," said Primrose, one day when they had been speaking much together of him, and of that sad weakness which it was Percival's life-aim to combat wherever he found it. "And since he has the misfortune to be addicted to so sad a failing, it seems to me wonderful that in the goodness of God you of all men should have been chosen by him to be his friend and chaplain." "I love your father for his own sake," said Percival, "having learned to do so in my boyhood's days, when, during sundry visits to Sir Ivor's town residence in my vacations, I have frequently met him. But I have moreover a special reason for devotion to the House of Bryn Afon, which, methinks, you know not, and of which I will tell you, an you permit me. You know I am, on my mother's side, the last direct descendant of the luckless Ap Gryffyth, the last King of Wales, whose name was betrayed by a Bryn Afon to Edward I., and whose head, as the chronicler hath it, was hung up, after his body had been slain in battle, upon the gates of the city of Carnarvon." "I knew you were the last Ap Gryffyth," exclaimed Primrose, "but I never knew indeed that it had been a Bryn Afon who betrayed the unfortunate king! Was it so indeed? Methought my father's family had ever been renowned as bearing special loyalty to their sovereign?" "So it was," he answered. "Lord Bryn Afon was his sovereign's dearest friend, but in a moment of weakness--the cause of which I must not reveal, since I should thereby betray the family secret, which you are not yet to learn--he betrayed him into the hands of the English; for which act he afterwards suffered the most grievous remorse, and not only so, but, I grieve to say, that when he crawled in despair and wretchedness to Ap Gryffyth's feet, to sue his pardon, as the unfortunate king was being seized upon the battlefield, Ap Gryffyth spurned him with his foot, and in the bitterness of having proved his bosom friend faithless, invoked upon his head a curse so awful, that all who heard it trembled, and the miserable earl fell senseless on the ground. That curse, uttered by my ancestor, sweet Mistress Primrose, is the one which, in deadly fulfilment of his words, has been visited upon the Bryn Afons from generation to generation from that time until now, no heir to the doomed house having ever escaped the terrible effects of those awful imprecations. Do you wonder then, that I, knowing as I do the curse to be no imaginary woe, but a fearful reality, have resolved to devote my life to its removal, or, at the least, its mitigation, by every means in my power?" "It is a noble resolve!" said Primrose, her eyes kindling with enthusiasm, "and surely it is a sacrifice few could demand of you, since the fault lay on the side of my poor father's unhappy family, and that his miserable ancestor drew upon himself, by his own disgraceful deed of betrayal, the awful punishment!"

"That is true," said Percival, "yet it had been nobler in Ap Gryffyth to forgive him, after the example of his Master, who, hanging on the bitter cross, cursed not, but prayed for the forgiveness of His murderers! And for a family, once noble and honoured above almost any other in Wales, to suffer so grievous a punishment for one act of sin and weakness, is to me so terrible a thought, that I would give my life to unsay the words of my unfortunate ancestor, and remove the blight which has so long cursed yours! Call it not virtue, I pray you! It is but such charity as the meanest might desire to show towards a fallen foe." "And I may not know the curse even now?" said Primrose meditatively. "Nay, sweet mistress, do not seek to know it," he answered earnestly. "If, by the mercy of God, your mother's sacrifice for you may have availed to set you free therefrom, and if I too may play the part in restoring your father's name to honour, which she has graciously bidden me not despair of playing, but of which I dare not at this present moment let myself speak, I conjure you to let the secret dwell in her heart and mine only, and to rest content in suffering us to bear its burden, knowing there is in this world no burden so heavy, that for your sweet sake we would not esteem it but as a feather's weight for lightness!"

And for the first time raising her hand to his lips, he left her and repaired to his study, while she, unable to still the tumultuous feelings of love and of pride in his goodness which filled her breast, wandered to and fro by the riverside till the evening shadows had almost deepened into night.

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