'How can I fetch them, when they are gone? It be no use for him to tell no lies--'
'Now, Gwenny, can you look at me?' I asked, very sternly; for the matter was no joke to me, after a year's unhappiness.
'I don't want to look at 'ee. What should I look at a young man for, although he did offer to kiss me?'
I saw the spite and impudence of this last remark, and so did Lorna, although she could not quite refrain from smiling.
'Now, Gwenny, not to speak of that,' said Lorna, very demurely, 'if you thought it honest to keep the letters, was it honest to keep the money?'
At this the Cornish maiden broke into a rage of honesty: 'A putt the money by for 'ee. 'Ee shall have every farden of it.' And so she flung out of the room.
'And, Gwenny,' said Lorna very softly, following under the door-hangings; 'if it is not honest to keep the money, it is not honest to keep the letters, which would have been worth more than any gold to those who were so kind to you. Your father shall know the whole, Gwenny, unless you tell the truth.'
'Now, a will tell all the truth,' this strange maiden answered, talking to herself at least as much as to her mistress, while she went out of sight and hearing. And then I was so glad at having my own Lorna once again, cleared of all contempt for us, and true to me through all of it, that I would have forgiven Gwenny for treason, or even forgery.
'I trusted her so much,' said Lorna, in her old ill-fortuned way; 'and look how she has deceived me!
That is why I love you, John (setting other things aside), because you never told me falsehood; and you never could, you know.'
'Well, I am not so sure of that. I think I could tell any lie, to have you, darling, all my own.'
'Yes. And perhaps it might be right. To other people besides us two. But you could not do it to me, John.
You never could do it to me, you know.'
Before I quite perceived my way to the bottom of the distinction--although beyond doubt a valid one--Gwenny came back with a leathern bag, and tossed it upon the table. Not a word did she vouchsafe to us; but stood there, looking injured.
'Go, and get your letters, John,' said Lorna very gravely; 'or at least your mother's letters, made of messages to you. As for Gwenny, she shall go before Lord Justice Jeffreys.' I knew that Lorna meant it not;but thought that the girl deserved a frightening; as indeed she did. But we both mistook the courage of this child of Cornwall. She stepped upon a little round thing, in the nature of a stool, such as I never had seen before, and thus delivered her sentiments.
'And you may take me, if you please, before the great Lord Jeffreys. I have done no more than duty, though Idid it crookedly, and told a heap of lies, for your sake. And pretty gratitude I gets.'
'Much gratitude you have shown,' replied Lorna, 'to Master Ridd, for all his kindness and his goodness to you. Who was it that went down, at the peril of his life, and brought your father to you, when you had lost him for months and months? Who was it? Answer me, Gwenny?'
'Girt Jan Ridd,' said the handmaid, very sulkily.
'What made you treat me so, little Gwenny?' I asked, for Lorna would not ask lest the reply should vex me.
'Because 'ee be'est below her so. Her shanna' have a poor farmering chap, not even if her were a Carnishman.
All her land, and all her birth--and who be you, I'd like to know?'
'Gwenny, you may go,' said Lorna, reddening with quiet anger; 'and remember that you come not near me for the next three days. It is the only way to punish her,' she continued to me, when the maid was gone, in a storm of sobbing and weeping. 'Now, for the next three days, she will scarcely touch a morsel of food, and scarcely do a thing but cry. Make up your mind to one thing, John; if you mean to take me, for better for worse, you will have to take Gwenny with me.
'I would take you with fifty Gwennies,' said I, 'although every one of them hated me, which I do not believe this little maid does, in the bottom of her heart.'
'No one can possibly hate you, John,' she answered very softly; and I was better pleased with this, than if she had called me the most noble and glorious man in the kingdom.
After this, we spoke of ourselves and the way people would regard us, supposing that when Lorna came to be her own free mistress (as she must do in the course of time) she were to throw her rank aside, and refuse her title, and caring not a fig for folk who cared less than a fig-stalk for her, should shape her mind to its native bent, and to my perfect happiness. It was not my place to say much, lest I should appear to use an improper and selfish influence. And of course to all men of common sense, and to everybody of middle age (who must know best what is good for youth), the thoughts which my Lorna entertained would be enough to prove her madness.
Not that we could not keep her well, comfortably, and with nice clothes, and plenty of flowers, and fruit, and landscape, and the knowledge of our neighbours' affairs, and their kind interest in our own. Still this would not be as if she were the owner of a county, and a haughty title; and able to lead the first men of the age, by her mind, and face, and money.
Therefore was I quite resolved not to have a word to say, while this young queen of wealth and beauty, and of noblemen's desire, made her mind up how to act for her purest happiness. But to do her justice, this was not the first thing she was thinking of: the test of her judgment was only this, 'How will my love be happiest?'
'Now, John,' she cried; for she was so quick that she always had my thoughts beforehand; 'why will you be backward, as if you cared not for me? Do you dream that I am doubting? My mind has been made up, good John, that you must be my husband, for--well, I will not say how long, lest you should laugh at my folly.