Part 2

But by degrees she observed that the Envoy was a man who had lived in many countries and in many courts, was well versed in the tongues of France and Italy and Spain--in their belles-lettres too, moreover--and had served his apprenticeship to good company in the salons of Versailles, in the audience-room of the Vatican, at the receptions of the Duchess du Maine, and with the banished family at St. Germain. He spoke with a high and sanguine spirit of the troublous times approaching and the beloved Cause whose crisis was at hand, which chimed in with her humor better than the flippancies of Belamour, the airy nothings of Millamont. He was but a soldier of fortune, a poor gentleman who, named to her in the town, would have had never a word, and would have been unnoted amidst the crowding beaux who clustered round to hold her fan and hear how she had been pleasured with the drolleries of _Grief a la Mode_. But down in the western counties she deigned to listen to the Prince's officer, to smile--a smile beautiful when it came on her proud lips, as the play of light on the opals of her jewelled stomacher--nay, even to be amused when he spoke of the women of foreign courts, to be interested when he told, which was but reluctantly, of his own perils, escapes, and adventures, to discourse with him, riding home under the beech avenues from hawking, or standing on the western terrace at curfew to watch the sunset, of many things on which the nobles of the Mall and the gentlemen about St. James's had never been allowed to share her opinions. For Lady Cecil was deeply read (unusually deeply for her day, since fine ladies of her rank and fashion mostly contented themselves with skimming a romance of Scuderi's, or an act of _Aurungzebe_); but she rarely spoke of those things, save perchance now and then to Mr. Addison.

Fulke Ravensworth never flattered her, moreover, and flattery was a honeyed confection of which she had long been cloyed; he even praised boldly before her other women of beauty and grace whom he had seen at Versailles, at Sceaux, and at St. Germain; neither did he defer to her perpetually, but where he differed would combat her sentiments courteously but firmly. Though a soldier and a man of action, he had an admirable skill at the limner's art; could read to her the Divina Commedia, or the comedies of Lope da' Vega, and transfer crabbed Latin and abstruse Greek into elegant English for her pleasures and though a beggared gentleman of most precarious fortunes, he would speak of life and its chances, of the Cause and its perils, with a daring which she found preferable to the lisped languor of the men of the town, who had no better campaigns than laying siege to a prude, cared for no other weapons than their toilettes and snuff-boxes, and sought no other excitement than a _coup d'eclat_ with the lion-tumblers.

On the whole, through these long midsummer days, Lady Cecil found the Envoy from St. Germain a companion that did not suit her ill, sought less the solitude of her bower-room, and listened graciously to him in the long twilight hours, while the evening dews gathered in the cups of the musk-roses, and the star-rays began to quiver on the water-lilies floating on the river below, that murmured along, with endless song, under the beechen-boughs. A certain softness stole over her, relaxing the cold hauteur of which Belamour had so often complained, giving a nameless charm, supplying a nameless something, lacking before, in the beauty of The Castlemaine.

She would stroke, half sadly, the smooth feathers of her tartaret falcon Gabrielle when Fulke Ravensworth brought her the bird from the ostreger's wrist, with its azure velvet hood, and silver bells and jesses. She would wonder, as she glanced through Corneille or Congreve, Philips or Petrarca, what it was, this passion of love, of which they all treated, on which they all turned, no matter how different their strain. And now and then would come over her cheek and brow a faint fitful wavering flush, delicate and changing as the flush from the rose-hued reflexions of western clouds on a statue of Pharos marble, and then she would start and rouse herself, and wonder what she ailed, and grow once more haughty, calm, stately, dazzling, but chill as the Castlemaine diamonds that she wore.

So the summer-time passed, and the autumn came, the corn-lands brown with harvest, the hazel-copses strewn with fallen nuts, the beech-leaves turning into reddened gold. As the wheat ripened but to meet the sickle, as the nuts grew but to fall, as the leaves turned to gold but to wither, so the sanguine hopes, the fond ambitions of men, strengthened and matured only to fade into disappointment and destruction! Four months had sped by since the Prince's messenger had come to Lilliesford--months that had gone swiftly with him as some sweet delicious dream; and the time had come when he had orders to ride north, secretly and swiftly, speak with Mr. Forster and other gentlemen concerned in the meditated rising, and convey despatches and instructions to the Earl of Mar; for Prince James was projecting soon to join his loyal adherents in Scotland, and the critical moment was close at hand, the moment when, to Fulke Ravensworth's high and sanguine courage, victory seemed certain; failure, if no treachery marred, no dissension weakened, impossible; the moment to which he looked for honor, success, distinction, that should give him claim and title to aspire--_where_? Strong man, cool soldier though he was, he shrank from drawing his fancied future out from the golden haze of immature hope, lest he should see it wither upon closer sight. He was but a landless adventurer, with nothing but his sword and his honor, and kings he knew were slow to pay back benefits, or recollect the hands that hewed them free passage to their thrones.

Cecil Castlemaine stood within the window of her bower-room, the red light of the October sun glittering on her gold-broidered skirt and her corsage sewn with opals and emeralds; her hand was pressed lightly on her bosom, as though some pain were throbbing there; it was new this unrest, this weariness, this vague weight that hung upon her; it was the perils of their Cause, she told herself; the risks her father ran: it was weak, childish, unworthy a Castlemaine! Still the pain throbbed there.

Her hound, asleep beside her, raised his head with a low growl as a step intruded on the sanctity of the bower-room, then composed himself again to slumber, satisfied it was no foe. His mistress turned slowly; she knew the horses waited; she had shunned this ceremony of farewell, and never thought any would be bold enough to venture here without permission sought and gained.

"Lady Cecil, I could not go upon my way without one word of parting. Pardon me if I have been too rash to seek it here."

Why was it that his brief frank words ever pleased her better than Belamour's most honeyed phrases, Millamont's suavest periods? She scarcely could have told, save that there were in them an earnestness and truth new and rare to her ear and to her heart.

She pressed her hand closer on the opals--the jewels of calamity--and smiled:

"Assuredly I wish you God speed, Sir Fulke, and safe issue from all perils."

He bowed low; then raised himself to his fullest height, and stood beside her, watching the light play upon the opals:

"That is all you vouchsafe me?"

"_All?_ It is as much as you would claim, sir, is it not? It is more than I would say to many."

"Your pardon--it _is_ more than I should claim if prudence were ever by, if reason always ruled! I have no right to ask for, seek for, even wish for, more; such petitions may only be addressed by men of wealth and of high title; a landless soldier should have no pride to sting, no heart to wound; they are the prerogative of a happier fortune."

Her lips turned white, but she answered haughtily; the crimson light flashing in her jewels, heirlooms priceless and hereditary, like her beauty and her pride:

"This is strange language, sir! I fail to apprehend you."

"You have never thought that I ran a danger deadlier than that which I have ever risked on any field? You have never guessed that I have had the madness, the presumption, the crime--it may be in your eyes--to love you."

The color flushed to her face, crimsoning even her brow, and then fled back. Her first instinct was insulted pride--a beggared gentleman, a landless soldier, spoke to her of love!--of love!--which Belamour had barely had courage to whisper of; which none had dared to sue of her in return. He had ventured to feel this for her! he had ventured to speak of this to her!

The Envoy saw the rising resentment, the pride spoken in every line of her delicate face, and stopped her as she would have spoken.

"Wait! I know all you would reply. You think it infinite daring, presumption that merits highest reproof----"

"Since you divined so justly, it were pity you subjected yourself and me to this most useless, most unexpected interview. Why----"

"_Why?_ Because, perchance, in this life you will see my face no more, and you will think gently, mercifully of my offence (if offence it be to love you more than life, and only less than honor), when you know that I have fallen for the Cause, with your name in my heart, held only the dearer because never on my lips! Sincere love can be no insult to whomsoever proffered; Elizabeth Stuart saw no shame to her in the devotion of William Craven!"

Cecil Castlemaine stood in the crimson glory of the autumn sunset, her head erect, her pride unshaken, but her heart stirred strangely and unwontedly. It smote the one with bitter pain, to think a penniless exile should thus dare to speak of what princes and dukes had almost feared to whisper; what had she done--what had she said, to give him license for such liberty? It stirred the other with a tremulous warmth, a vague, sweet pleasure, that were never visitants there before; but that she scouted instantly as weakness, folly, debasement, in the Last of the Castlemaines.

He saw well enough what passed within her, what made her eyes so troubled, yet her brow and lips so proudly set, and he bent nearer towards her, the great love that was in him trembling in his voice:

"Lady Cecil, hear me! If in the coming struggle I win distinction, honor, rank--if victory come to us, and the King we serve remember me in his prosperity as he does now in his adversity--if I can meet you hereafter with tidings of triumph and success, my name made one which England breathes with praise and pride, honors gained such as even you will deem worthy of your line--then--then--will you let me speak of what you refuse to hearken to now--then may I come to you, and seek a gentler answer?"

She looked for a moment upon his face, as it bent towards her in the radiance of the sunset light, the hope that hopes all things glistening in his eyes, the high-souled daring of a gallant and sanguine spirit flushing his forehead, the loud throbs of his heart audible in the stillness around; and her proud eyes grew softer, her lips quivered for an instant.

Then she turned towards him with queenly grace:

"_Yes!_"

It was spoken with stately dignity, though scarce above her breath; but the hue that wavered in her cheek was but the lovelier, for the pride that would not let her eyes droop nor her tears rise, would not let her utter one softer word. That one word cost her much. That single utterance was much from Cecil Castlemaine.

Her handkerchief lay at her feet, a delicate, costly toy of lace, embroidered with her shield and chiffre; he stooped and raised it, and thrust it in his breast to treasure it there.

"If I fail, I send this back in token that I renounce all hope; if I can come to you with honor and with fame, this shall be my gage that I may speak, that you will listen?"

She bowed her noble head, ever held haughtily, as though every crown of Europe had a right to circle it; his hot lips lingered for a moment on her hand; then Cecil Castlemaine stood alone in the window of her bower-room, her hand pressed again upon the opals under which her heart was beating with a dull, weary pain, looking out over the landscape, where the golden leaves were falling fast, and the river, tossing sadly dead branches on its waves, was bemoaning in plaintive language the summer days gone by.

Two months came and went, the beech-boughs, black and sear, creaked in the bleak December winds that sighed through frozen ferns and over the couches of shivering deer, the snow drifted up on the marble terrace, and icedrops clung where the warm rosy petals of the musk-rosebuds had nestled. Across the country came terrible whispers that struck the hearts of men of loyal faith to the White Rose with a bolt of ice-cold terror and despair. Messengers riding in hot haste, open-mouthed peasants gossiping by the village forge, horsemen who tarried for a breathless rest at alehouse-doors, Whig divines who returned thanks for God's most gracious mercy in vouchsafing victory to the strong, all told the tale, all spread the news of the drawn battle of Sheriff-Muir, of the surrender under Preston walls, of the flight of Prince James. The tidings came one by one to Lilliesford, where my Lord Earl was holding himself in readiness to co-operate with the gentlemen of the North to set up the royal standard, broidered by his daughter's hands, in the western counties, and proclaim James III. "sovereign lord and king of the realms of Great Britain and Ireland." The tidings came to Lilliesford, and Cecil Castlemaine clenched her white jewelled hands in passionate anguish that a Stuart should have fled before the traitor of Argyll, instead of dying with his face towards the rebel crew; that men had lived who could choose surrender instead of heroic death; that _she_ had not been there, at Preston, to shame them with a woman's reading of courage and of loyalty, and show them how to fall with a doomed city rather than yield captive to a foe!

Perhaps amidst her grief for her Prince and for his Cause mingled--as the deadliest thought of all--a memory of a bright proud face, that had bent towards her with tender love and touching grace a month before, and that might now be lying pale and cold, turned upwards to the winter stars, on the field of Sheriff-Muir.

A year rolled by. Twelve months had fled since the gilded carriage of the Castlemaines, with the lordly blazonment upon its panels, its princely retinue and stately pomp, had come down into the western counties. The bones were crumbling white in the coffins in the Tower, and the skulls over Temple-bar had bleached white in winter snows and spring-tide suns; Kenmuir had gone to a sleep that knew no wakening, and Derwentwater had laid his fair young head down for a thankless cause; the heather bloomed over the mounds of dead on the plains of Sheriff-Muir, and the yellow gorse blossomed under the city walls of Preston.

Another summer had dawned, bright and laughing, over England; none the less fair for human lives laid down, for human hopes crushed out; daisies powdering the turf sodden with human blood, birds carolling their song over graves of heaped-up dead. The musk-roses tossed their delicate heads again amidst the marble pilasters, and the hawthorn-boughs shook their fragrant buds into the river at Lilliesford, the purple hills lay wrapped in sunny mist, and hyacinth-bells mingled with the tangled grass and fern under the woodland shades, where the red deer nestled happily. Herons plumed their silvery wings down by the water-side, swallows circled in sultry air above the great bell-tower, and wood-pigeons cooed with soft love-notes among the leafy branches. Yet the Countess of Castlemaine, last of her race, sole owner of the lands that spread around her, stood on the rose-terrace, finding no joy in the sunlight about her, no melody in the song of the birds.

She was the last of her name; her father, broken-hearted at the news from Dumblain and Preston, had died the very day after his lodgment in the Tower. There was no heir male of his line, and the title had passed to his daughter; there had been thoughts of confiscation and attainder, but others, unknown to her, solicited what she scorned to ask for herself, and the greed of the hungry "Hanoverian pack" spared the lands and the revenues of Lilliesford. In haughty pride, in lonely mourning, the fairest beauty of the Court and Town withdrew again to the solitude of her western counties, and tarried there, dwelling amidst her women and her almost regal household, in the sacred solitude of grief, wherein none might intrude. Proud Cecil Castlemaine was yet prouder than of yore; alone, sorrowing for her ruined Cause and exiled King, she would hold converse with none of those who had had a hand in drawing down the disastrous fate she mourned, and only her staghound could have seen the weariness upon her face when she bent down to him, or Gabrielle the falcon felt her hand tremble when it stroked her folded wings. She stood on the terrace, looking over her spreading lands, not the water-lilies on the river below whiter than her lips, pressed painfully together. Perhaps she repented of certain words, spoken to one whom now she would never again behold--perhaps she thought of that delicate toy that was to have been brought back in victory and hope, that now might lie stained and stiffened with blood next a lifeless heart, for never a word in the twelve months gone by had there come to Lilliesford as tidings of Fulke Ravensworth.

Her pride was dear to her, dearer than aught else; she had spoken as was her right to speak, she had done what became a Castlemaine; it would have been weakness to have acted otherwise; what was he--a landless soldier--that he should have dared as he had dared? Yet the sables she wore were not solely for the dead Earl, not solely for the lost Stuarts the hot mist that would blind the eyes of Cecil Castlemaine, as hours swelled to days, and days to months, and she--the flattered beauty of the Court and Town--stayed in self-chosen solitude in her halls of Lilliesford, still unwedded and unwon.

The noon-hours chimed from the bell-tower, and the sunny beauty of the morning but weighed with heavier sadness on her heart; the song of the birds, the busy hum of the gnats, the joyous ring of the silver bell round her pet fawn's neck, as it darted from her side under the drooping boughs--none touched an answering chord of gladness in her. She stood looking over her stretching woodlands in deep thought, so deep that she heard no step over the lawn beneath, nor saw the frightened rush of the deer, as a boy, crouching among the tangled ferns, sprang up from his hiding-place under the beechen branches, and stood on the terrace before her, craving her pardon in childish, yet fearless tones. She turned, bending on him that glance which had made the over-bold glance of princes fall abashed. The boy was but a little tatterdemalion to have ventured thus abruptly into the presence of the Countess of Castlemaine; still it was with some touch of a page's grace that he bowed before her.

"Lady, I crave your pardon, but my master bade me watch for you, though I watched till midnight."

"Your master?"

A flush, warm as that on the leaves of the musk-roses, rose to her face for an instant, then faded as suddenly. The boy did not notice her words, but went on in an eager whisper, glancing anxiously round, as a hare would glance fearing the hunters.

"And told me when I saw you not to speak his name, but only to give you this as his gage, that though all else is lost he has not forgot _his_ honor nor _your_ will."

Cecil Castlemaine spoke no word, but she stretched out her hand and took it--her own costly toy of cambric and lace, with her broidered shield and coronet.

"Your master! Then--he lives?"

"Lady, he bade me say no more. You have his message; I must tell no further."

She laid her hand upon his shoulder, a light, snow-white hand, yet one that held him now in a clasp of steel.

"Child! answer me at your peril! Tell me of him whom you call your master. Tell me all--quick--quick!"

"You are his friend?"

"His friend? My Heaven! Speak on!"

"He bade me tell no more on peril of his heaviest anger; but if you _are_ his friend, I sure may speak what you should know without me. It is a poor friend, lady, who has need to ask whether another be dead or living!"

The scarlet blood flamed in the Countess's blanched face, she signed him on with impetuous command; she was unused to disobedience, and the child's words cut her to the quick.

"Sir Fulke sails for the French coast to-morrow night," the boy went on, in tremulous haste. "He was left for dead--our men ran one way, and Argyll's men the other--on the field of Sheriff-Muir; and sure if he had not been strong indeed, he would have died that awful night, untended, on the bleak moor, with the winds roaring round him, and his life ebbing away. He was not one of those who _fled_; you know that of him if you know aught. We got him away before dawn, Donald and I, and hid him in a shieling; he was in the fever then, and knew nothing that was done to him, only he kept that bit of lace in his hand for weeks and weeks, and would not let us stir it from his grasp. What magic there was in it we wondered often, but 'twas a magic, mayhap, that got him well at last; it was an even chance but that he'd died, God bless him! though we did what best we could. We've been wandering in the Highlands all the year, hiding here and tarrying there. Sir Fulke sets no count upon his life. Sure I think he thanks us little for getting him through the fever of the wounds, but he could not have borne to be pinioned, you know, lady, like a thief, and hung up by the brutes of Whigs, as a butcher hangs sheep in the shambles! The worst of the danger's over--they've had their fill of the slaughter; but we sail to-morrow night for the French coast--England's no place for my master."

Cecil Castlemaine let go her hold upon the boy, and her hand closed convulsively upon the dainty handkerchief--her gage sent so faithfully back to her!

The child looked upon her face; perchance, in his master's delirium, he had caught some knowledge of the story that hung to that broidered toy.

"If you _are_ his friend, madame, doubtless you have some last word to send him?"

Cecil Castlemaine, whom nothing moved, whom nothing softened, bowed her head at the simple question, her heart wrestling sorely, her lips set together in unswerving pride, a mist before her haughty eyes, the broidered shield upon her handkerchief--the shield of her stately and unyielding race--pressed close against her breast.

"You have no word for him, lady?"

Her lips parted; she signed him away. Was this child to see her yielding to such weakness? Had she, Countess of Castlemaine, no better pride, no better strength, no better power of resolve, than this?

The boy lingered.

"I will tell Sir Fulke then, lady, that the ruined have no friends?"

Whiter and prouder still grew the delicate beauty of her face; she raised her stately head, haughtily as she had used to glance over a glittering Court, where each voice murmured praise of her loveliness and reproach of her coldness; and placed the fragile toy of lace back in the boy's hands.

"Go, seek your master, and give him this in gage that their calamity makes friends more dear to us than their success. Go, he will know its meaning!"

* * * * *