CHAPTER VI

THE RED CLOAK AND THE BLUE ROSETTE

Meanwhile there was dire dismay at the Manor House when Lady Chauncy entered the Cedar Room and found it empty. She could not for a long time bring herself to believe her own eyes, and when at last she was compelled to do so, she wrung her hands and behaved almost like a frenzied creature. Both she and her husband had believed the room to be the securest place in the house, since the walls were of stone all round. That that one square of stone had been cut out behind the panel with goddess Minerva on it, nobody, in fact, had known for more than a hundred years, when the Lord of the Manor House of that time perished fighting for the White Rose, and the secret of the moving panel had perished with him. That the young Prince could have got out by the window was too terrible to think of. It seemed impossible, moreover, for the lattice was barred, leaving but quite narrow spaces between. Nevertheless, Lady Chauncy caused the moat to be dragged, but happily, of course, to no purpose.

It all seemed like some dreadful conjuring trick. Lady Chauncy did not know whether she was more glad or sorry that her husband had not returned. About a fortnight hence he was to be back, and the King with him, to fetch Charles away from the Manor House. Meanwhile she hesitated to send information to his Majesty of what had happened, because that would be spreading news which the Roundhead party against the King would take advantage of, and try to get the boy into their hands in order to drive a bargain with King Charles. Could it be they, she asked herself in her perplexity, who had spirited him away?

This was the terrible state of things Wynkin found when next afternoon he returned to the Manor. He was the more troubled by the thought that Lady Chauncy might imagine him to have been untrue to his trust after so many years of faithful service.

“But what do you advise, Wynkin?” said her ladyship, impatiently tapping the floor with the point of her silken slipper. “Do say something,” she added, as Wynkin maintained a thoughtful silence.

“Well, then, speaking what I think,” replied Wynkin, “it is that I would advise your ladyship to get a good night’s rest.”

“Rest, forsooth. What next?”

“It is too late to be doing anything to-day.”

“And meanwhile?” cried Lady Chauncy despairingly.

“Meanwhile,” said Wynkin, “there is a good Providence over us all.”

“Perhaps you are right,” said Lady Chauncy, as she rose and went to her sleeping-chamber, but not to sleep.

When, however, the last light was out in the windows of the Manor House Wynkin let himself out by a little postern of the garden wall, and strolled onward by way of the bit of waste ground till he reached the edge of the thicket, walking to and fro under the trees by the dim light of the moon, cogitating deeply over a curious circumstance which he had decided not to inform his mistress of in too great haste, lest her hopes might be raised to no purpose. The one very certain fact was that when he and Dickon came that morning about six o’clock to unload the punt of the sacks, he had found the crimson frieze cloak on the top of them, all crumpled and mud soiled, and touched here and there with marks like tiny finger-marks. In some dim fashion it made Wynkin fancy that he began to see daylight. At all events, he suddenly saw the light of a lantern dodging about before him among the furze clumps—and as already more than a day had gone by since Charles was missing, and such news spreads like wildfire in spite of the utmost precaution, Wynkin was considerably disturbed at sight of the light, which glanced now and again on the figure of a person in a broad slouch-brimmed hat and shrouded in a long black cloak.

“Hullo!” he called, “who goes there?”

“Nobody,” replied a disagreeable squeaky sort of man’s voice. “Anyway, ’tis no concern of yours.”

“We’ll soon settle that question, Master Jack o’ Lantern,” said Wynkin, bounding down over the hillocks towards the figure. Not, however, before the man, dropping the lantern right into the middle of the gorse clump he was hovering over, was pelting off as quick as his heavy cloak would let him.

In a minute Wynkin would have laid him by the heels, but suddenly up rose a tremendous flare, for the lantern had fallen open as it dropped and the light had caught the gorse, and the strange part of it all was that, as the bush broke into one huge flame, it fell disappearing into the ground, as if there was a deep hole beneath. Looking down, that was precisely what Wynkin beheld, a deep hole, bricked round, and in one side a half-open grated door.

Looking regretfully enough after the fast-disappearing figure of Master Jack o’ Lantern, Wynkin caught up the lantern and, setting it straight, he jumped into the hole, where the bush was already smouldering to nothing. He peered through the open grating, and the next moment he passed in. “Where are we, I wonder?” he said to himself, “and—hullo! what’s this?” he went on, as he nearly set foot on something that glittered in the lantern gleam, bright as a star.

It was a blue ribbon rosette, tied with silver cord, of the exact pattern of the rosettes the little Prince was wearing on his shoes. It was all sodden and soiled now with the mud it lay in, and Wynkin picked it up as carefully as if it had been some little wounded bird, and placed it inside his vest next his heart, which beat fast with eager expectation. Then he hastened on, looking right and left all the way he went, threading the windings of the narrow passage, and up the twisting staircases, till at last he could go no farther because the wooden panel barred his progress. “Oh, ho!” again said he to himself, as he set his shoulder against the wood and pushed it with so much more force than it required that it flapped round before he could right himself, and he fell sprawling, lantern and all, along the floor.

“By my faith!” he said, as he picked himself and the lantern up, and stood looking round while he rubbed his shoulder, “it is the Cedar Room!”

And then more clearly than ever Wynkin began to see daylight, but all the same his face was very grave and anxious, for he was vexed with himself that he had not first given chase to Master Jack o’ Lantern, as he called him. “For what could he be wanting skulking round the place like that for? Ill news flies apace, and I doubt not the malcontents are aware already of the child’s escape. Well,” he added more cheerfully,

“‘Hot boiled beans, and very good butter, Ladies and gentlemen, come to supper.’

but for all the flare he made, he warn’t very warm, I fancy. The boy is not in hiding hereabouts, if that red cloak means anything.”