Part 11 (1/2)

”Thou!--presented in the Court!” cried Blanche.

For of all the five, girls, Lysken was much the most unlikely ever to attain that eminence.

”Even so,” she said, unmoved.

”Hast thou had promise thereof?”

”I have had promise thereof,” repeated Lysken, in a tone which was lost upon Blanche, but Clare thought she began to understand her.

”Who hath promised thee?” asked Blanche, intensely interested.

”The King!” replied Lysken, with deep feeling. ”And I shall be the King's daughter!”

”Lysken Barnevelt!” cried Blanche, dropping many of her flowers in her excitement, ”art thou gone clean wood [mad], or what meanest thou?”

Lysken looked up with a smile full of meaning.

”'Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy,--to the only wise G.o.d our Saviour, be glory and majesty.'--Do but think,-- faultless! and, before His glory!”

Lysken's eyes were alight in a manner very rare with her. She was less shy with her friends at Enville Court than with most people.

”So that is what thou wert thinking on!” said Blanche, in a most deprecatory manner.

Lysken did not reply; but Clare whispered to her, ”I would we might all be presented there, Lysken.”

While the young ladies were thus engaged in debate, and Rachel was listening to the complaints of old Lot's wife from the village, and gravely considering whether the said Lot's rheumatism would be the better for a basin of viper broth,--Sir Thomas Enville, who was strolling in the garden, perceived two riders coming up to the house.

They were evidently a gentleman and his attendant serving-man, and as soon as they approached near enough for recognition, Sir Thomas hurried quickly to meet them. The Lord Strange, heir of Lathom and Knowsley, must not be kept waiting.

Only about thirty years had pa.s.sed over the head of Ferdinand Stanley, Lord Strange, yet his handsome features wore an expression of the deepest melancholy. People who were given to signs and auguries said that it presaged an early and violent death. And when, eight years later, after only one year's tenancy of the earldom of Derby, he died of a rapid, terrible, and mysterious disease, strange to all the physicians who saw him, the augurs, though a little disappointed that he was not beheaded, found their consolation in the conviction that he had been undoubtedly bewitched. His father, Earl Henry, seems to have been a cool, crafty time-server, who had helped to do the Duke of Somerset to death, more than thirty years before, and one of whose few good actions was his intercession with Bishop Bonner in favour of his kinsman, the martyr Roger Holland. His mother was the great heiress Margaret Clifford, who had inherited, before she was fifteen years of age, one-third of the estates of Duke Charles of Suffolk, the wealthiest man in England.

”'Save you, my good Lord!” was Sir Thomas's greeting. ”You be right heartily welcome unto my poor house.”

”I have seen poorer,” replied Lord Strange with a smile.

”Pray your Lords.h.i.+p, go within.”

After a few more amenities, in the rather ponderous style of the sixteenth century, Sir Thomas ceremoniously conducted his guest to Lady Enville's boudoir. She sat, resplendent in blue satin slashed with yellow, turning over some ribbons which Barbara Polwhele was displaying for her inspection. The ribbons were at once dismissed when the n.o.ble visitor appeared, and Barbara was desired to ”do the thing she wot of in the little chamber.”

The little chamber was a large, light closet, opening out of the boudoir, with a window looking on the garden; and the doorway between the rooms was filled by a green curtain. Barbara's work was to make up into shoulder-knots certain lengths of ribbon already put aside for that purpose. While the speakers, therefore, were to her invisible, their conversation was as audible as if she had been in the boudoir.

”And what news abroad, my good Lord?” asked Sir Thomas, when the usual formal civilities were over.

”Very ill news,” said Lord Strange, sadly.

”Pray your Lords.h.i.+p, what so? We hear none here, lying so far from the Queen's highway.”

”What heard you the last?”

”Well, methinks it were some strange matter touching the Scottish Queen, as though she should be set to trial on charge of some matter of knowledge of Babington's treason.”

Sir Thomas's latest news, therefore, was about seven months old. There were no daily papers and Reuter's telegrams in his day.