Part 16 (1/2)
”Nay, hinder me not, good aunt. We must all adventure ourselves somewhat in this dire distress and peril. Sure, if Providence kept me safe in yon pest house yesterday, I need not fear to return to the city upon an errand of mercy such as may save my brother's life!”
CHAPTER XIII. HAPPY MEETINGS.
”Reuben found! Reuben alive! O Joseph, Joseph, Joseph!” and Dorcas burst into tears of joy and relief, and sobbed aloud upon her brother's neck.
Joseph had brought his news straight to Dorcas, knowing that she at least would be certainly found within Lady Scrope's house. He was secretly afraid to go home first, lest the fatal red cross upon the door should tell its tale of woe, or lest the whole house itself should be shut up and desolate, like the majority of the houses he had pa.s.sed in the forlorn city that morning. He felt, however, an almost superst.i.tious confidence that Lady Scrope's house would defy the infection. He was decidedly of the opinion that that redoubtable dame was a witch, and that she had charms which kept the plague at bay. He therefore first sought out the sister with whom he felt certain he could obtain speech; and she had drawn him into a little parlour hard by the street door, in great astonishment at seeing him there, and fearful at first (as folks had grown to be of late) that he was the bearer of evil tidings.
The joy and relief were therefore so great that she could not restrain her tears, and between laughing, crying, and repeating in astonished s.n.a.t.c.hes the words of explanation which fell from Joseph's lips, she made such an unwonted commotion in the ordinarily silent house, that soon the tap of a stick could have been heard by ears less preoccupied coming down the stairs and along the pa.s.sage, and the door was pushed open to admit the little upright figure of the mistress of the house.
”Hoity toity! art thou bereft of thy senses, child? What in fortune's name means all this?
”Boy, who art thou? and what dost thou here? A brother, forsooth!
Come with some news, perchance? Well, well, well; how goes it in the city? Are any left alive? They say at the rate we are going now, it will take but a month more to destroy the city even as Sodom was destroyed!”
”O madam,” cried Dorcas das.h.i.+ng away her tears, and turning an eager face towards the witch-like old woman, who in her silk gown, hooped and looped up, her fine lace cap and mittens, and her ebony stick with its ivory head, looked the impersonation of a fairy G.o.dmother, ”this is my brother Joseph, and he comes with welcome tidings. My brother Reuben is not dead, albeit he has in truth been smitten by the plague. Joseph found him yesterday in the pest house just beyond Clerkenwell; and he is in a fair way to recover, if his mind can but be set at rest.
”Oh what news this will be for our parents!--for the girls!--for Gertrude! Oh how we have mourned and wept together; and now we shall rejoice with full hearts!”
”Has Mistress Gertrude mourned for him too?” asked Joseph eagerly.
”Marry that is good hearing, for I have wondered all this while whether I should obtain the grace from her for which I have come.”
”And what is that, young man?” asked Lady Scrope, tapping her cane upon the ground as much as to say that in her own house she was not going to take a secondary place, and that conversation was to be addressed to her. Joseph turned to her at once and answered:
”Verily, good madam, my aunt has sent me hither to fetch Mistress Gertrude forthwith to his side. She says that he calls ceaselessly upon her, and that unless he can see her beside him he may yet die of the disappointment and trouble, albeit the plague is stayed in his case, and it is but the fever of weakness that is upon him. She thinks it will not hurt her to come, if so be that it is as we hope, and that she has in her heart for him the same love as he has for her.”
”Oh, she has! she has!” cried Dorcas, fired with sudden illumination of mind about many things that perplexed her before.
”Her heart is just breaking for him!
”Prithee, good madam, let me go and call her. They say that she is of little use in the house now, being weak and weeping, and too sad at heart to work as heretofore. They can well spare her on such an errand, and methinks it will save her life as well as his. Let me but go and tell her the news.”
”Go, child, go. Lovers be the biggest fools in all this world of fools! And if the women be the bigger fools, 'tis but because they were meant to be fitting companions for the men!
”Go to, child!--bring her here, and let us see what she says to this mad errand of this mad boy.
”And you, young sir, whilst your sister is gone, tell me all you saw and heard in the pest house! Marry, I like your spirit in going thither! It is the one place I long to see myself; only I am too old to go gadding hither and thither after fine sights!”
Joseph was quite willing to indulge the old lady's morbid curiosity as to the sights he had seen yesterday and today, as he had journeyed back into the city in the guise of a market lad. The things were terrible enough to satisfy even Lady Scrope, who seemed to rejoice in an uncanny fas.h.i.+on over the awful devastation going on all round.
”I'm not a saint myself,” she said with unwonted gravity, ”and I never set up for one, but many has been the time when I have warned those about me that G.o.d would not stand aside for ever looking on at these abominations. The means were ready to His hand, and He has taken them and used them as a scourge. And He will scourge this wicked city yet again, if men will not amend their evil practices.”
Next minute Gertrude and Dorcas came running in together, and Gertrude almost flung herself into Joseph's arms in her eager grat.i.tude to him for his news, and her desire to hear everything he could tell her.
Such a clamour of voices then arose as fairly drowned any remark that Lady Scrope tried from time to time to throw in. Her old face took a suddenly softened look as she watched the little scene, and heard the words that pa.s.sed amongst the young people. Presently she went tapping away on her high-heeled shoes, and was absent for some ten or fifteen minutes. When she came back she held in her hands a small iron-bound box, which seemed to be very heavy for its size.
”Well,” she asked in her clear, sharp tones, ”and what is going to be done next?”
”O madam, I am going to him. I can do naught else,” answered Gertrude, whose face was like an April morning, all smiles and tears blended together. ”I cannot let him lie wanting me and wearying for me.”
”Humph! I thought you had shown yourself a girl of spirit, and had sent him about his business when he came a-wooing, eh?”