Free i b8cff8977b3b1bd2 by Unknown

A dabbler in alchemy. A pettifogging lawyer. Is that what you’d have me marry?”
    “Indeed you do him wrong, Bess. He has a brilliant mind, and property in Essex. I thought you liked him.”
    “I like him well enough - “ She tossed the shredded flowers on the ground. “But - oh - I too am restless, Jack, I too yearn for freedom and far places and adventure . . . but I yearn more for something else . . . something that’s in my bones and blood . . .” She held her breath, looking up at him through the dusk. Her long hazel eyes were dark with tears, the white kerchief which bound her hair had loosened and her black curls fell on her shoulders.
    “What is it you want so much, little coz?” he whispered,
    “You don’t know?”
    He shook his head. “But I pray that God will give it to you, and perhaps it is God that you want... I think you’ve never yet found him.”
    After a moment she managed to laugh. “So farewell, Jack. Farewell on your journey to the far Levant.”
    “The Lord be with you, sweet, I’ll pray for your happiness.” He bent and kissed her on the lips, as he had a hundred times, unthinking, but now he felt the lips part beneath his own and warmth as from a draught of strongest mead rushed through his body. He drew back, dismayed, and unbelieving.
    “I’ll write to you, Bess,” he said quickly. “Aye, I’ll write to you, as soon as I’m aboard the ship.” And he walked from the garden.
    She had hoped that he might have tried to see her again before he set off for Gravesend, where his ship, the London of London, would sail, but he did not. She lived then for the letter he had promised, thinking that surely in it there would be some recognition of the moment when their lips had met in a different way. But there was no letter - and I am a fool, thought Elizabeth, standing by London Wall in the snow, nearly seven months later. What greater folly for a woman than to love without requital.
    Love. So it was to be a lean diet of that for her. Those who had truly loved her were dead, long ago. She thought with a forgotten ache of her mother, but she could remember nothing clearly except that once they had stood together at a window and looked at the moon. She thought of Adam, her grandfather; he had not died until five years ago, and always with him there had been a feeling of safety, and cherishing . . . but he had stayed in Suffolk and she had seen him so seldom. What of your father? said conscience. Surely you love your father and family? Her mind slid past them all rapidly, without acquiescence or denial, then checked itself on Martha. Yes, for that little sister there was love.
    Even as she thought of Martha the house door opened and the girl appeared-calling anxiously, “Bess! Bess! Where are you? Are you out there?”
    Elizabeth answered and started down the path, her feet numb with cold. Martha came running towards her, a small grey figure in her workaday homespun gown, her baby-soft brown hair bound tight by the linen kerchief. “Bess - Lady Carlisle’s come herself for the mithridate! At least she’s waiting in her coach, We couldn’t find you. Father’s so upset!”
    “Oh Lud! - I’m sorry,” said Elizabeth. “I but went out for a breath of Christmas air. Don’t look so worried, poppet, the mithridate’s ready.”
    She ran into the hall, retrieved the flask and rushed upstairs to her father’s bedroom to show him the potion. “I followed the prescription precisely, Father, I’m sure it’ll do.” She held out the flask of brownish liquid, “Aye, to be sure - I’m sorry,” she added to Thomas Fones’s burst of querulous reproaches, He sat in his dressing gown huddled in a large court chair by the fire, his nightcap pulled down over his ears. He took the flask in his gouty ringers, sniffed and tasted the potion. “It must do,” he said dolefully. “Hasten, Bess, her ladyship’ll be angered by waiting,”
    “And if she is?” retorted his daughter. “What loss?