Earl Hubert's Daughter Part 46

The distance between the two occupants of the form was materially lessened.

"Then thou dost not want to be rid of me?"

"I can work while I am talking," replied Beatrice, in her very coolest manner.

"Why dost thou think I came, Beatrice?"

"Because it pleased thee, I should think."

The needle was drawn from the blue silk, and a needleful of scarlet went in instead, while the end of the blue thread was carefully secured in Beatrice's left hand for future use.

"One, two, three, four,"--Beatrice was half audibly counting her st.i.tches.

"It did please me, Beatrice."

"Five, six--all right, Sir John--seven, eight, nine--"

"Does it please thee?"

"Thirteen, fourteen--it is pleasant to have some one to talk to-- fifteen, sixteen--when I am not counting--seventeen, eighteen, nineteen."

And in went the needle, and the scarlet silk began to flow in and out with rapidity.

"Do I interrupt thee, Beatrice?"

"Thanks, I have done counting for the present."

"Would it interrupt thee very much to be married?"

"Well, I should think it would." Beatrice stopped the scarlet, and rethreaded the blue.

"More than thou wouldst like?"

"That would depend on circ.u.mstances."

"What circ.u.mstances?" inquired the bashful yet persistent suitor.

"Who was to marry me, princ.i.p.ally."

"Suppose I was?"

"Thou canst not, till thou hast asked my father."

There was a gleam in the dark eyes veiled with their long lashes. It might be either resentment or fun.

"May I ask him, Beatrice?"

"Did I not tell thee so at first?"

This curious conversation had taken so long, and had been interrupted by so many pauses, that Bruno appeared before it had progressed further.

He glanced at the pair with some amus.e.m.e.nt in his eyes, not unmixed with sadness, for he had a decided foreboding that he was about to lose his Beatrice. But no more was said that night.

The next morning, Sir John de Averenches made the formal appeal which Bruno was fully expecting.

"I am not good at words, Father," he said, with honest manliness; "and I know the maiden is fair beyond many. You may easily look higher for her; but you will not easily find one that loves her better."

"Truly, my son, that is mine own belief," said Bruno. "But hast thou fully understood that she is of Jewish descent, which many Christian knights would count a blot on their escocheons?"

"Being a Christian, that makes _no_ difference to me."

"Well! She shall decide for herself; but I fancy I know what she will say. It will be hard to part with her."

"Why should you, Father? Will she not still want a confessor?--and could she have a better than you?"

"Thank you, Father!" said Beatrice demurely, when Bruno told her that his consent was given, contingent upon hers. "Then I will begin my wedding-dress."

In this extremely cool manner the fair maiden intimated her intention of becoming a matron. But Bruno, who knew every change of her features and colour, was well aware that she felt a great deal more than she said.

The mask was soon dropped.

The wedding-dress was a marvel of her own lovely embroidery. It was worn about the beginning of winter, and once more Bruno resigned his parish duties, and became, as his son-in-law had wisely suggested, a family confessor.

They heard from Bury that the marriage of Eva de Braose took place about the same time. And the general opinion in the Lincolns.h.i.+re parsonage was rather, as respected Sir William de Cantilupe, one of condolence than of congratulation.

Eighteen years after that summer, a solitary traveller was approaching the city of Tewkesbury. He sat down on a low wall which skirted the road, and wiped his heated brow. He was a tall, fine-looking man, with a dark olive complexion, and cl.u.s.tering ma.s.ses of black hair. There was no one in sight, and the traveller began to talk in an undertone to himself, as solitary men are sometimes wont to do.

"A good two hours before sunset, I suppose," he said, looking towards the sun, which was blazing fiercely. "Pugh! where does that horrid smell come from? Ah, that is the vesper bell, as they call it--the unclean beasts that they are! Well, we at least are pure from every shadow of idolatry.

"Yet are we pure from sin? I do think, now, it was a pity--a mistake-- that visit of mine to Sir Piers de Rievaulx. I might have let that girl live--the girl that Belasez loved. Well! she is one of the creeping things now. She--our Belasez! This is a cross-grained, crooked sort of world. Faugh! that smell again!

"I suppose this is the wall of Tewkesbury Castle. Is my Lord the Earl at home, I wonder? How I did hate that boy!

"What is coming yonder, with those jingling bells? A string of pilgrims to some accursed shrine, most likely. May these heathen idolaters be all confounded, and the chosen people of Adonai be brought home in peace! I could see, I dare say, if I stood on the wall. They may have some vile idol with them, and if I do not get out of the way--"

He had sprung upon the parapet, and stood trying so to twist himself as to catch a glimpse of the religious procession which he supposed to be approaching, when suddenly he slipped and fell backwards. A wild cry for "Help!" rang through the startled air. Where was he going? Down, down, plunging overhead into some soft, evil-odoured, horrible ma.s.s, from which, by grasping an iron bar that projected above, he just managed so far to raise himself as to get his head free. And then the dreadful truth broke upon him, and his cries for help became piercing.

Delecresse had fallen into the open cess-pool of Tewkesbury Castle.

Suddenly he ceased to shriek, and all was still. Not that he needed help any the less, nor that he was less conscious of it, but because he remembered what at first he had forgotten in his terror and disgust, that until sunset it was the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord.

Perhaps, by clinging to the iron bar, he could live till the sun dropped below the horizon. At any rate, Delecresse, sternest of Pharisees to his heart's core, would not profane the Sabbath, even for life.

But now there was a little stir outside, and a voice shouted--

"What ho!--who cried for help?"

"I."

"Who art thou, and where?"