Part 25 (1/2)
How he was to be drowned by water that fled from him was not clear, but with a muttered malediction he arose and glanced round as if he thought the mortification a trick on the part of the higher powers, since the Earl did not think him a match for the Countess's grandchild, and the Queen had made it known to him that she considered Bess Pierrepoint to have too much of her grandmother's conditions to be likely to be a good wife. There was a laugh too, scarce controlled by some of the less well-mannered of the suite, especially as the Earl, wis.h.i.+ng to punish his presumption, loudly set the example.
There was a pause, as the discomfited secretary came back, and the guide exclaimed, ”Come, my masters, be not daunted! Will none of you come on? Hath none of you faith in your love? Oh, fie!”
”We are married men, good women,” said Richard, hoping to put an end to the scene, ”and thus can laugh at your well.”
”But will not these pretty ladies try it? It speaks as sooth to la.s.s as to lad.”
”I am ready,” said Barbara Mowbray, as Curll gave her his hand to bound lightly down the steps. And to the general amazement, no sooner had ”Gilbert” echoed from her lips than the fountains again burst forth, the water rose, and she had no difficulty in reaching it, while no one could help bursting forth in applause. Her Gilbert fervently kissed the hand she gave him to aid her steps up the slope, and Dame Emmott, in triumphant congratulation, scanned them over and exclaimed, ”Ay, trust the well for knowing true sweetheart and true maid. Come you next, fair mistress?” Poor Mary Seaton shook her head, with a look that the kindly woman understood, and she turned towards Cicely, who had a girl's unthinking impulse of curiosity, and had already put her hand into Humfrey's, when his father exclaimed, ”Nay, nay, the maid is yet too young!” and the Queen added, ”Come back, thou silly little one, these tests be not for babes like thee.”
She was forced to be obedient, but she pouted a little as she was absolutely held fast by Richard Talbot's strong hand. Humfrey was disappointed too; but all was bright with him just then, and as the party turned to make the descent, he said to her, ”It matters not, little Cis! I'm sure of thee with the water or without, and after all, thou couldst but have whispered my name, till my father lets us speak all out!”
They were too much hemmed in by other people for a private word, and a little mischievous banter was going on with Sir Andrew Melville, who was supposed to have a grave elderly courts.h.i.+p with Mistress Kennedy. Humfrey was left in the absolute bliss of ignorance, while the old habit and instinct of joy and gladness in his presence rea.s.serted itself in Cis, so that, as he handed her down the rocks, she answered in the old tone all his inquiries about his mother, and all else that concerned them at home, Diccon meantime risking his limbs by scrambling outside the path, to keep abreast of his brother, and to put in his word whenever he could.
On reaching the smithy, Humfrey had to go round another way to fetch his horse, and could hardly hope to come up with the rest before they reached Buxton. His brother was spared to go with him, but his father was too important a part of the escort to be spared. So Cicely rode near the Queen, and heard no more except the Earl's version of Dr. Jones's explanation of the intermitting spring. They reached home only just in time to prepare for supper, and the two youths appeared almost simultaneously, so that Mistress Talbot, sitting at her needle on the broad terrace in front of the Earl's lodge, beheld to her amazement and delight the figure that, grown and altered as it was, she recognised in an instant. In another second Humfrey had sprung from his horse, rushed up the steps, he knew not how, and the Queen, with tears trembling in her eyes was saying, ”Ah, Melville! see how sons meet their mothers!”
The great clock was striking seven, a preposterously late hour for supper, and etiquette was stronger than sentiment or perplexity. Every one hastened to a.s.sume an evening toilette, for a riding-dress would have been an insult to the Earl, and the bell soon clanged to call them down to their places in the hall. Even Humfrey had brought in his cloak-bag wherewithal to make himself presentable, and soon appeared, a well-knit and active figure, in a plain dark blue jerkin, with white slashes, and long hose knitted by his mother's dainty fingers, and well-preserved shoes with blue rosettes, and a flat blue velvet cap, with an exquisite black and sapphire feather in it fastened by a curious brooch. His hair was so short that its naturally strong curl could hardly be seen, his ruddy sunburnt face could hardly be called handsome, but it was full of frankness and intelligence, and beaming with honest joy, and close to him moved little Diccon, hardly able to repress his ecstasy within company bounds, and letting it find vent in odd little gestures, wriggling with his body, playing tunes on his knee, or making dancing-steps with his feet.
Lord Shrewsbury welcomed his young kinsman as one who had grown from a mere boy into a st.u.r.dy and effective supporter. He made the new-comer sit near him, and asked many questions, so that Humfrey was the chief speaker all supper time, with here and there a note from his father, the only person who had made the same voyage. All heard with eager interest of the voyage, the weeds in the Gulf Stream, the strange birds and fishes, of Walter Raleigh's Virginian colony and its ill success, of the half-starved men whom Sir Richard Grenville had found only too ready to leave Roanoake, of dark-skinned Indians, of chases of Spanish s.h.i.+ps, of the Peak of Teneriffe rising white from the waves, of phosph.o.r.escent seas, of storms, and of shark-catching.
Supper over, the audience again gathered round the young traveller, a perfect fountain of various and wonderful information to those who had for the most part never seen a book of travels. He narrated simply and well, without his boyish shy embarra.s.sment and awkwardness, and likewise, as his father alone could judge, without boasting, though, if to no one else, to Diccon and Cis, listening with wide open eyes, he seemed a hero of heroes. In the midst of his narration a message came that the Queen of Scots requested the presence of Mistress Cicely. Humfrey stared in discomfiture, and asked when she would return.
”Not to-night,” faltered the girl, and the mother added, for the benefit of the bystanders, ”For lack of other ladies of the household, much service hath of late fallen to Cicely and myself, and she shares the Queen's chamber.”
Humfrey had to submit to exchange good-nights with Cicely, and she made her way less willingly than usual to the apartments of the Queen, who was being made ready for her bed. ”Here comes our truant,” she exclaimed as the maiden entered. ”I sent to rescue thee from the western seafarer who had clawed thee in his tarry clutch. Thou didst act the sister's part pa.s.sing well. I hear my Lord and all his meine have been sitting, open-mouthed, hearkening to his tales of savages and cannibals.”
”O madam, he told us of such lovely isles,” said Cis. ”The sea, he said, is blue, bluer than we can conceive, with white waves of dazzling surf, breaking on islands fringed with white sh.e.l.ls and coral, and with palms, their tops like the biggest ferns in the brake, and laden with red golden fruit as big as goose eggs. And the birds! O madam, my mother, the birds! They are small, small as our b.u.t.terflies and beetles, and they hang hovering and quivering over a flower so that Humfrey thought they were moths, for he saw nothing but a whizzing and a whirring till he smote the pretty thing dead, and then he said that I should have wept for pity, for it was a little bird with a long bill, and a breast that s.h.i.+nes red in one light, purple in another, and flame-coloured in a third. He has brought home the little skin and feathers of it for me.”
”Thou hast supped full of travellers' tales, my simple child.”
”Yea, madam, but my Lord listened, and made Humfrey sit beside him, and made much of him-my Lord himself! I would fain bring him to you, madam. It is so wondrous to hear him tell of the Red Men with crowns of feathers and belts of beads. Such gentle savages they be, and their chiefs as courteous and stately as any of our princes, and yet those cruel Spaniards make them slaves and force them to dig in mines, so that they die and perish under their hands.”
”And better so than that they should not come to the knowledge of the faith,” said Mary.
”I forgot that your Grace loves the Spaniards,” said Cis, much in the tone in which she might have spoken of a taste in her Grace for spiders, adders, or any other noxious animal.
”One day my child will grow out of her little heretic prejudices, and learn to love her mother's staunch friends, the champions of Holy Church, and the representatives of true knighthood in these degenerate days. Ah, child! couldst thou but see a true Spanish caballero, or again, could I but show thee my n.o.ble cousin of Guise, then wouldst thou know how to rate these gross clownish English mastiffs who now turn thy silly little brain. Ah, that thou couldst once meet a true prince!”
”The well,” murmured Cicely.
”Tush, child,” said the Queen, amused. ”What of that? Thy name is not Cis, is it? 'Tis only the slough that serves thee for the nonce. The good youth will find himself linked to some homely, housewifely Cis in due time, when the Princess Bride is queening it in France or Austria, and will own that the well was wiser than he.”
Poor Cis! If her inmost heart declared Humfrey Talbot to be prince enough for her, she durst not entertain the sentiment, not knowing whether it were unworthy, and while Marie de Courcelles read aloud a French legend of a saint to soothe the Queen to sleep, she lay longing after the more sympathetic mother, and wondering what was pa.s.sing in the hall.
Richard Talbot had communed with his wife's eyes, and made up his mind that Humfrey should know the full truth before the Queen should enjoin his being put off with the story of the parentage she had invented for Bride Hepburn; and while some of the gentlemen followed their habit of sitting late over the wine cup, he craved their leave to have his son to himself a little while, and took him out in the summer twilight on the greensward, going through the guards, for whom he, as the gentleman warder, had the pa.s.sword of the night. In compliment to the expedition of the day it had been made ”True love and the Flowing Well.” It sounded agreeable in Humfrey's ears; he repeated it again, and then added ”Little Cis! she hath come to woman's estate, and she hath caught some of the captive lady's pretty tricks of the head and hands. How long hath she been so thick with her?”
”Since this journey. I have to speak with thee, my son.”
”I wait your pleasure, sir,” said Humfrey, and as his father paused a moment ere communicating his strange tidings, he rendered the matter less easy by saying, ”I guess your purpose. If I may at once wed my little Cis I will send word to Sir John Norreys that I am not for this expedition to the Low Countries, though there is good and manly work to be done there, and I have the offer of a command, but I gave not my word till I knew your will, and whether we might wed at once.”
”Thou hast much to hear, my son.”