"Dear madam, it cannot be," I said, "and the truth is to be
concealed not only for your sake, but for that of others."
Then she broke out in another paroxysm of childish wailing that
never was such a wretched state of matters, such a wretched old
woman handicapped from serving one by her love for another. "Harry,
I cannot clear thee unless I convict my own granddaughter
Catherine," she said, piteously, "and if I spared her not, neither
her nor my pride, what of Mary? Catherine hath been like a mother to
the child, and she loves her better than she loves me. 'Twould kill
her, Harry. And, Harry, how can I give Mary to thee, and thou under
this ban? Mary Cavendish cannot wed a convict."
"That she cannot and shall not," I said; "she shall wed a much
worthier man and be happy, and sure 'tis her happiness that is the
question."
But Madam Cavendish stared at me with unreasoning anger, not
understanding, since she was a woman, and unreasoning as a woman
will be in such matters. "If you love not my granddaughter, Harry
Wingfield," she cried out, "'tis not her grandmother will fling her
at your head. I will let you know, sir, that she could have her pick
in the colony if she so chose, and it may be that she might not
choose you, Master Harry Wingfield."
I laughed. "Madam Cavendish," I said, rising and bowing, "were I a
king instead of a convict, then would I lay my crown at Mary
Cavendish's feet; as it is, I can but pave, if I may, her way to
happiness with my heart."
"Then you love her as I thought, Harry?"
"Madam," I said, "I love her to my honour and glory and never to my
discontent, and I pray you to believe with a love that makes no
account of selfish ends, and that I am happier at home with my books
than many a cavalier who shall dance with her at the ball."
"But, Harry," she said, piteously, "I pray thee to go."
I laughed and shook my head, and went away to my own quarters and
sat down to my books, but, at something past midnight, Madam
Cavendish sent for me in all haste. She had gone to bed, and I was
ushered to her bedroom, and when I saw her thin length of age scarce
rounding the coverlids, and her face frilled with white lace, and
her lean neck stretching up from her pillows with the piteous
outreaching of a bird, a great tenderness of compassion for
womanhood, both in youth and beauty and age and need, beyond which I
can express, came over me. It surely seems to me the part of man to
deal gently with them at all times, even when we suffer through
them, for there is about them a mystery of helplessness and
misunderstanding of themselves which should give us an exceeding
patience. And it seems to me that, even in the cases of those women
who are perhaps of greater wit and force of character than many a
man, not one of them but hath her helplessness of sex in her heart,
however concealed by her majesty of carriage. So, when I saw Madam
Cavendish, old and ill at ease in her mind because of me, and
realised all at once how it was with her in spite of that clear head
of hers and imperious way which had swayed to her will all about her
for near eighty years, I went up to her, and, laying a gentle hand
upon her head, laid it back upon the pillow, and touched her poor
forehead, wrinkled with the cares and troubles of so many years, and
felt all the pity in me uppermost. "'Tis near midnight, and you have
not slept, madam," I said. "I pray you not to fret any longer about
that which we can none of us mend, and which is but to be borne as
the will of the Lord."