St. George's Cross; Or, England Above All

The underlined words, being pronounced with a voice changed to a sharp and sudden tone from the solemn snuffle into which the King had slid in first quoting Ecclesiasticus, were too much for Elliot, who broke into an irrepressible giggle behind the bureau. Mr. La Cloche started at the sound; then, recollecting himself, retired with a bow into which he threw a look of surprise not unmixed with silent reproach.

Still laughing, the page emerged from his ambush, knocking the dust from his doublet with his hand, and eyeing the door as it closed after the retreating Rector.

"I'll wager he thinks thou wert a wench, Tom," cried Charles; "but tell me, how much of the worthy parson's discourse didst thou hear?"

"As much as you desire, Sir, and no more," was the discreet reply. "But it is true that one is come from France who knows Lord Jermyn."

"Jermyn," said the King, half soliloquising, "is a son of a–; and I would as lief run him through the body as I would open an oyster. But that is neither here nor there; such pleasures are not for Kings." He sate thinking for a few minutes, and then, looking up, added, "Go, Tom, and tell Nicholas and the rest that I would see them here."

The page departed, presently returning to introduce four gentlemen, after which, he again left the room and shut the door, which it would be his office to keep against all instrusion while the conference lasted.

One of the visitors appeared to take precedence; a tall, high-featured man, with a stoop and a receding chin. This was Lord Hopton, one of the most respectable of Charles's followers; an honourable, stupid, middle-aged nobleman, who could never marshal his own thoughts and who, necessarily, spoke without persuading others. The other Englishmen were Nicholas, the Secretary of State, and the old Lord Cottington. The fourth gentleman was Sir George Carteret, the Lieutenant-Governor, a bluff sea-faring man, little used to obey, yet anxious, in that presence, to be deferential; with an unmistakable pugnacity varnished over with a gloss of ruse. There being but one arm-chair in the room Charles took his seat upon it, and awaited the advice of his friends who perforce remained standing.

"I have sent for you, my Lords and gentlemen, to confer on the matter brought me by Mr. La Cloche, the Rector of St. Owen, and Chaplain to Sir George Carteret."

Hopton opened the conference, speaking in a dull, precise manner, from the lips only, hardly opening his teeth:—

"May it please you Sir, Mr. La Cloche hath reported to me, as I met him returning from your presence, that while he was imparting to your Highness—I may say, your Majesty—a matter of great moment, there was one hid in the room that played the eavesdropper. Before proceeding farther I would humbly ask...."

"Hold there, my Lord," broke in Charles. "Remember, I pray you, that—howbeit our present power, by the malice of our enemies, be brought to a narrow pass, we are still, by the grace of God your King, of full age, moreover, and no longer to be schooled. As touching what anyone may have heard here, by our consent, we need answer to no man; neither to Mr. La Cloche nor to your Lordship. There is, however, no one but ourselves in this room, as you may clearly see. As to the matter of the priest's discourse, we opine that it is already known to you. It is of that matter that we now seek to know your minds."

The words were not ungracefully uttered; but Hopton found no immediate answer. He only knit his narrow brow and held his peace. Carteret, however, stepped briskly forward; and would perhaps have committed some indiscretion had not Nicholas plucked him by the cloak. "By your leave, Mr. Lieutenant," said the jovial lawyer, "I would say an humble word to his Majesty, with the freedom of an ancient servant." His round face and merry eye were rendered serious by the resolution of a full-lipped yet firm mouth. "Sir!" said he, turning to the young King with a look in which the bonhomie of an indulgent Mentor was blended with genuine respect, "it will, no doubt, seem to your Majesty both meet and proper that we should not leave a meddlesome parson to let you know that our faithful hearts have been sorely exercised by that which is newly come to us out of France. Not to stay on sundry general advertisements and rumours that have reached us—and which seemed to glance at a very exalted personage—I mean, more particularly, what we have received this morning from a very discreet and knowing gentleman (now residing at Paris) of what he hath learned from persons of honour conversant in the secrets of the Court there."

"If it be her Majesty the Queen that you fear to name, Mr. Secretary," interrupted the King, "it is but vain to fence. Do your duty, as you have ever done."

"With your Majesty's leave, I will name no one, save it be one Mr. Cooly, Secretary to the Lord Jermyn, whom your Majesty, doubtless, graciously recollects. Our informant was plainly asked by this gentleman, how the islanders would take it if there should be an overture of giving them up to the French."

"This is but talk," observed the King.

"Nay Sir, there is yet more. This letter, which is come to one of us in cypher, goes on to tell that it hath been heard, from a very good source, that the chief mover herein is to be made Duke and Peer of France, and receive 200,000 pistoles, for which he is to deliver up not Jersey only but Guernsey, Aurigny, and Serk. Nay, further, his Eminence Cardinal Mazarine hath taken up ships for the transport of 2,000 French soldiers, nominally for the service of your Majesty, actually for the service whereof we are now speaking."

"Let them come," said Charles. "We will put ourself at their head and fall upon Guernsey, that nest of Roundheads where Osborne and honest Baldwin Wake have borne so long the brunt of insult and privation."

"Under your favour, Sir," broke in Carteret, "you would be bubbled. I have seen and spoke with a known creature of my Lord Jermyn's; and I know well that the design of the French is—so to speak—to clap your Majesty under the hatches, and to steer the vessel on their own account. Mr. La Cloche shall answer for this," he added in a lower tone.

"By your leave again, Sir George," put in the beaming Secretary, "we lawyers are to speak by our calling. It is not indeed, Sir, that my Lord Jermyn hath made direct overtures to us. And 'tis to be thought that in this last respect the messenger spoke but according to his own understanding."

"I would cut every throat in the island," cried Carteret, with savage interruption....

"Sir George Cartwright's zeal hath eaten him up," said Nicholas with a twinkle of his merry eye. "Let it suffice that the concurrent information of divers persons (and they strangers to one another), together with the Lord Jermyn's total neglect of the island in regard of the provisions that he hath not sent as promised nor repaid sums of money lent to your service by the people, have led us to sign a paper of association for which we shall crave your gracious approval. We doubt not you will agree with us that the delivery of the islands to the French is not consistent with the duty and fidelity of Englishmen, and would be an irreparable loss to the nation besides being an indelible dishonour to the Crown."

As Charles took the paper handed him for perusal by Nicholas, a flush arose upon his swarthy countenance.

"Enough said, my Lords and gentlemen! We need not that any should instruct us as to our duty."

"We trust not," cried Carteret, bluffly. "If the French come here we shall give them a sour welcome; and as to my Lord the Governor, he will find," and he slipped in his eagerness into his native tongue, "that he has made le marché de la peau de l'ours qui ne seroit pas encore tué."

Presently the little Council broke up. The King, after glancing at the paper of association, consented that Lord Hopton—in whose diplomatic abilities he perhaps did not feel much confidence—should proceed at once to the Hague, and lay the case before the States General of Holland as the power most interested—after England—in sifting and, if need were, opposing the designs of France. Meanwhile the articles of the association were not to be divulged; the whole affair being kept a profound secret and mystery of State.

Somewhat relieved, the associates then retired from the presence of the yawning King, and passed down the little corridor. Here they found Elliot keeping watch, and pacing innocently to and fro. And the graceless page bowed their Honours down the stairs, without betraying by his manner anything to suggest—which was, nevertheless, the simple truth—that he had been attentively listening to as much of their recent conversation as could be gathered through the imperfect channel afforded by the key-hole of the door. Carteret cursed La Cloche's officious meddling all the way to his own quarters, and on arriving there sent a sergeant to the unfortunate clergyman, who deported him to France by the next boat that sailed.

On returning to the room, Elliot found Charles walking up and down the narrow floor of his room in evident excitement.

"Tom," said the King, as the page entered, "what is to do here? It seems that I am not to be master even in this little island of Hop o' my Thumb. They lord it over me even as they did when I was here before, as Prince of Wales in partibus."

"Why then," answered the audacious youth, "I would even show them a clean pair of heels, and take refuge with the Scots."

"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 shore 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 anticipate 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, passing 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-fashioned 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 fiancé 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 God," 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, réprends 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 embarrassed 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.

It had long grown dusk, and Tom knew that he was absent without leave. His visit must be cut short. If he glanced significantly at Marguerite as he bent over Rose's hand, if he hoped that Marguerite would follow him to the door and allow an integration of former toys, he was only building on a precocious knowledge of the sex. "I will but lock the door after Mr. Elliot," said she to Rose, in patois, "be tranquil, my sister, he is but an infant."

The dismissal of the infant appeared a work of time. In the meanwhile Rose opened the wainscot door, and called softly up the narrow stair to which it led. Alain heard her, and came down, looking anxiously round the parlour as he came inside.

"Is Marguerite gone out," he asked, "with yonder polisson of the Court?"

"Thou knowest her, my friend," answered Madame de Maufant, kindly; "ever since her mother's death she has been a daughter to me. But a sister is not a mother at the end of the account; and our little one will not be kept a prisoner. She has learned English ideas in her girlhood, passed as you know with our London kinsfolk. Once she is married her husband will find her faithful, in life and to the death."

"Such freedoms are not according to our island ways."

"Be not stupid, my good Alain. Mr. Elliot is an old friend; though her dealings with him—or with others—be never so little to thy taste, I advertise thee to seek no cause of quarrel upon them; unless thou wouldst lose her altogether."

"I do not understand how a girl that is promised can do such things. Moreover, his coming here at all is what Michael would not find well."

"He has done us a very friendly act in coming here, and has told us of a matter which it may cost him dear to have revealed. For the rest, we can take very good care of ourselves."

Alain was not a man of the world. With something of a poet's nature, he was born to be the slave of women. Passionately attached to the mother who had brought him up—and who was lately dead—and wholly unacquainted with the coarser aspects of feminine character, he had a romantic ideal of womanhood. The ladies in whose company he might chance to find himself were usually quick enough to discover this; and seeing him at their feet were always trampling upon him, reserving their wiles and fascinations for men who were more artful or less chivalrous. The case was by no means singular in those days, and is believed to be occasionally reproduced even in more recent times.

He was now thoroughly annoyed; and Rose's reasoning, far from composing his mind, had rendered it only the more anxious. Therefore, when Marguerite returned into the parlour, with a somewhat heightened colour, Alain affected to take no notice of her, and sate gazing moodily at the fire.

"I have been plucking these roses," said the girl, offering Alain a bunch of flowers wet with early dew.