St. George's Cross Part 3

"The Scots who sold my father!"

"The Scots, Sir, of whom I am one," cried the page, the hot blood of a race of Border-Barons rising to his forehead. "Am I and mine to be confounded with a crew of cuckoldy Presbyterians? I will not listen to any one who says so, King or no King."

And the malapert youth flung out of the room, while his wearied master--not unaccustomed to such outbreaks--lounged into the dining room and called for his supper.

ACT II.

THE MANOR.

If the page was to be blamed for his disrespectful demeanour in abruptly leaving his helpless but indulgent Sovereign, his next step was still less worthy of commendation. But he had the perfervid temper of his race, and he was not twenty-two. Having attended his royal Master in a former visit to Jersey, he had made friends with some of the island gentry, and among others with the family of St. Martin (then resident at Rozel), in which he found a maiden of his own age with whom he soon imagined himself to have fallen in love. Mdlle. de St. Martin was the sister of Michael Lempriere's wife; with her she had since taken up her abode; and the first thing that Elliot had done after the return of the Court to Jersey had been to acquaint himself with this fact. In the present excitement of his feelings he resolved to seek an interview with the girl whose charms he so well remembered. A boat was moored at the foot of the castle rock; and the impetuous young cavalier sprang on board, loosened the painter, and with the aid of a pair of sculls that had been left in the boat rapidly propelled himself to the sh.o.r.e of the bay aided by the flowing tide. While he is engaged in making his way to the northern extremity of the parish of S. Saviour, where the manor of the Lemprieres was situated, we will antic.i.p.ate his progress and describe the scene.

The manor-house stood in its own walled grounds, admission being obtained through a round Norman archway, over which was carved the scutcheon of the family--gules, three eagles displayed, proper--with the date 1580. This opened on a long narrow avenue of tall elms, at the end of which two enormous juniper trees made a second arch, of perennial verdure. Such was the entrance, pa.s.sing under which the visitor found himself in a flower-garden in which summer roses still bloomed, and the bees were still busy. On one side stood the house, a two-storeyed building of stone, pierced with many small latticed windows, and thatched with straw. The main-door bore another scutcheon, of newer stone than the rest of the house, quartering the arms of St. Martin (_azure_, nine billets _or_) over a device of two hearts tied together with a cipher formed by the letters L. and M. This doorway opened into a small hall, in front of which was a stair-case of polished oak. On either side of the hall were low-ceiled parlours wainscotted with dark wood, beams of which supported the ceilings. The floor of the room to the right was paved with stone and carpeted with fresh rushes, a yawning chimney of carved granite, on which a fire of drift-wood was burning with parti-coloured flames, occupied one end of the room, which was occupied by the ladies of the house. At the back were the kitchen and offices, looking out upon a paved court-yard containing a well, and backed by farm buildings.

Madame Lempriere (or "de Maufant") and her sister sate by the fire knitting in the autumn twilight. Both were lovely; beautiful women in the typical style of island beauty, which not even the primness of their somewhat old-fas.h.i.+oned costume could wholly disguise. For their eyes were dark and sparkling, and their cheeks glowed with the rosy bloom of a healthy and innocent womanhood. They were talking in low tones of the troubles of the time and of their absent friends; their language was in the island French.

"It is more than a month," said Rose Lempriere, "since I had tidings of M. de Maufant. Methinks your fiance M. le Gallais might show more alacrity in his coming."

"Helas!" replied Marguerite, "poor Alain will never err on the side of precipitancy. But seest thou not, my sister, the equinox here, and gales are abroad. I did not expect him till the S. Michel; and then there are Captain Bowden and M. the Lieutenant's cruisers to reckon with."

"You do not appear to mind making the crane's foot, my sister," said Rose, with a slight smile. "In my youth lovers were expected to be forward and maidens looked for attention."

"It is not so long since your youth, my all fair."

"But perhaps M. le Gallais is better occupied in another part."

"_Voyons, ma soeur_; it is quite equal, to me. Your M. le Gallais indeed! one would think it was you and M. de Maufant that wanted to marry him. As for me, I do not want to marry at all. Least of all does it import me to marry a man chosen by others. I prefer the ways of England."

"_Di va_!" exclaimed her sister. "A good man is not bad because our friends like him. Marry this good Alain, and love him after."

The damsel replied by a pretty grimace.

"Marguerite!" said Mme. de Maufant, with a little frown, "_on ne badine pas avec l'amour_. Or do you love another perhaps? Ah! _malheureuse_; art thou still thinking of _ce beau guilliard_, how did they call him?

M. Elliot, I think, the King's page? I hear that he is returned with the King; and--oh, Marguerite!----"

"I swear to you Rose, I know nothing of M. Elliot--"

As she spoke a low whistle was heard without.

"It is Alain's signal," cried Rose, all in a flutter. "He brings me news from Michael."

So saying Mme. de Maufant moved with a quick step towards the door opening on the back yard, whence the signal-whistle evidently came.

Marguerite site still on her _tabouret_, her head hidden in her shapely white hands.

On reaching the back-door Rose threw a wimple over her head, and carefully undoing the-chain and bar, admitted le Gallais, weary and travel-stained. Taking both her hands the young man gazed in her face with the honest gaze of a loving brother. Then searching in the lining of his doublet he drew out a letter, or rather a packet tied with string, and gave it to her.

"He is well," he said, "but his heart suffers."

"I know it, I know it," sobbed the wife, "but come in, Alain; come in and take some repose."

With which she led him into the room, and up to the hearth where sate the wilful beauty.

"Marguerite," she said, "do you not see Alain le Gallais?"

"I am delighted to see M. le Capitaine," was the girl's reply, as she rose and made an obeisance, immediately resuming her seat.

Poor Alain! the cold of the autumn evening outside was nothing in comparison with the chill that fell upon him by that blazing hearth.

Weary as he was, and--as soon appeared--wounded also, his nerve, shaken by fatigue, gave way before this reception. With giddy brain and wan face he sank into the nearest seat.

"What hast thou, my friend, speak, for the love of G.o.d," said the lady of Maufant, while her sister's reluctant eye glanced at him, through unshed tears with yet more tender inquiry.

"A scratch, no more," said Alain, tightening the scarf on his left arm, which showed stains of new blood. "I am but now landed in Boulay Bay, and a militia-sentry discharged his matchlock at me as I ran down the lane under the battery. They are indifferent marksmen, my good compatriots, and their pieces make small impression compared with Cromwell's snaphaunces."

Rose tenderly unbound the bandage, found a mere flesh-wound, to which she applied some lint steeped in styptic, and restored the ligature in a manner more effective.

"_Remets-toi Alain, reprends ton haleine, et dis-nous ce que c'est_,"

said she, after paying these quasi-maternal attentions to the fugitive.

"And first tell me, how bears himself my Michael, and what greeting sends he to his home?"

But before Alain could answer there came a knocking at the gate: and the scared ladies had barely time to dismiss Le Gallais by a side door almost hidden in the wainscot before Elliot entered, hat in hand, and looking shy and breathless in the leaping light of the hearth.

"Pardon me, fair ladies," he stammered, "have you any welcome for an old friend."

The two women leaned against each other, even more embarra.s.sed than, for a moment, was their visitor. They seemed to remember the voice, yet could not speak to much purpose for the beating of their scared pulses.

But it is not easy for female self-love to be deceived. The boy had not changed so much in turning into man but that the face of an old love could resume its familiarity.

"'Tis Mr. Elliot," presently said Marguerite, addressing her sister in English. "Mr. Chevalier, the Centenier, told you of his return but yesterday when we went to the market at S. Helier. I admire to see him here so soon."

Rose advanced, with the restored self-possession of a lady on her own hearth, and gave the visitor her hand. "Welcome back to Jersey, Mr.

Elliot. Time hath dealt kindly with you: you are almost grown to man's estate."

The young Scot flushed, somewhat angrily, at this equivocal compliment.

"What Time hath done with me I cannot tell," said he, with less than his wonted ease, "save that nothing Time can do can avail to quench old feelings. This is the first liberty that I have had since we landed. I have used it to lay myself at your feet."

The ladies resumed their seats, motioning Tom to the place between them, just vacated by Le Gallais: and the talk soon ran into easier grooves.

"I have that to say," continued the page, "that may shake your spirits, fair ladies. What I have listened to this day it may cost me my ears to have heard. But," with an air of important resolution, "cost what it may, I will not nor cannot keep it from you."

"A groat for your tidings," replied Rose, "we poor women hear none in this remote corner. But is it a secret? Women may keep one," she added, looking at the panel that had closed on Le Gallais, "but walls have ears: and so have you, as yet such as they are, which I would not have you sacrifice in our cause. If therefore your news be dangerous, think not of our curiosity, and give the matter no vent."

Elliot was a scamp, no doubt, yet he could not but be moved by this thoughtful speech of a woman who could decline a secret. But he had come too far, laden with a burden that he would fain lay down. So long as he kept to himself what he had heard in the King's chamber he might be doing his duty to Charles. But Charles had insulted him and his nation.

Marguerite de St. Martin was his first love, the welfare of herself and her sister was at stake; he had trudged, four miles and more through the mire of steep and devious lanes to tell them; was he to leave them unwarned? Love and Duty fought their old battle, and with the old result--Love conquered and the secret was told. He had not, it is true, heard the full purport of the Secretary's grave words or of Charles'

light replies: but what he had caught, tallying with the Chaplain's disclosures of an earlier hour, had led him to conclude that there was a villainous plot on foot, of which the King did not seem to approve, and which therefore might be made known to those interested without real breach of faith. What he knew he told, and eked it out with what he could but conjecture.

The conference lasted long. While it was confined to the designs of the French, on which the short gusts of the Lieutenant-Governor's stormy impatience had thrown a transient gleam of lurid light, the ladies were all attention. When the page began to talk of the King's loyal resolves and of what great things he would do, they gave less heed. It seemed to them that Charles Stuart was all too young, too much bound to his mother, to be trusted in an affair wherein her favourite took an interest. Tom pleaded his master's cause with the zeal of one who felt himself to have done that master some wrong; but he pleaded in vain.

Little did the Jersey ladies care who might bear rule in the British islands; their chief care was for what would affect Jersey, and--above all men and things of Jersey--their dear Michael, now in exile.