Part 52 (1/2)

”Even so,” said Richard. ”She knoweth all, but she hath ever been our good and dutiful daughter, for which we are the more thankful that Heaven hath given us none other maid child.”

He knew Master Heatherthwayte was inclined to curiosity about other people's affairs, and therefore turned the discourse on the doings of his sons, hoping to keep him thus employed and avert all further conversation upon Cicely and the cause of the journey. The good man was most interested in Edward, only he exhorted Mr. Talbot to be careful with whom he bestowed the stripling at Cambridge, so that he might shed the pure light of the Gospel, undimmed by Popish obscurities and idolatries.

He began on his objections to the cross in baptism and the ring in marriage, and dilated on them to his own satisfaction over the tankard of ale that was placed for him and his guest, and the apples and nuts wherewith Cicely was surrept.i.tiously feeding Oil-of-Gladness and Dust-and-Ashes; while the old woman bustled about, and at length made her voice heard in the announcement that the chamber was ready, and the young lady was weary with travel, and it was time she was abed, and Oil likewise.

Though not very young children, Oil and Dust, at a sign from their father, knelt by his chair, and uttered their evening prayers aloud, after which he blessed and dismissed them-the boy to a shake-down in his own room, the girl to the ecstasy of a.s.sisting the guest to undress, and admiring the wonders of the very simple toilette apparatus contained in her little cloak bag.

Richard meantime was responding as best he could to the inquiries he knew would be inevitable as soon as he fell in with the Reverend Master Heatherthwayte. He was going to London in the Mastiff on some business connected with the Queen of Scots, he said.

Whereupon Mr. Heatherthwayte quoted something from the Psalms about the wicked being taken in their own pits, and devoutly hoped she would not escape this time. His uncharitableness might be excused by the fact that he viewed it as an immediate possibility that the Prince of Parma might any day enter the Humber, when he would a.s.suredly be burnt alive, and Oil-of-Gladness exposed to the fate of the children of Haarlem.

Then he added, ”I grieved to hear that you and your household were so much exposed to the witchcrafts of that same woman, sir.”

”I hope she hath done them little hurt,” said Richard.

”Is it true,” he added, ”that the woman hath laid claim to the young lady now here as a kinswoman?”

”It is true,” said Richard, ”but how hath it come to your knowledge, my good friend? I deemed it known to none out of our house; not even the Earl and Countess guess that she is no child of ours.”

”Nay, Mr. Talbot, is it well to go on in a deceit?”

”Call it rather a concealment,” said Richard. ”We have doubted it since, but when we began, it was merely that there was none to whom it seemed needful to explain that the babe was not the little daughter we buried here. But how did you learn it? It imports to know.”

”Sir, do you remember your old servant Colet, Gervas's wife? It will be three years next Whitsuntide that hearing a great outcry as of a woman maltreated as I pa.s.sed in the street, I made my way into the house and found Gervas verily beating his wife with a broomstick. After I had rebuked him and caused him to desist, I asked him the cause, and he declared it to be that his wife had been gadding to a stinking Papist fellow, who would be sure to do a mischief to his n.o.ble captain, Mr. Talbot. Thereupon Colet declares that she had done no harm, the gentleman wist all before. She knew him again for the captain's kinsman who was in the house the day that the captain brought home the babe.”

”Cuthbert Langston!”

”Even so, sir. It seems that he had been with this woman, and questioned her closely on all she remembered of the child, learning from her what I never knew before, that there were marks branded on her shoulders and a letter sewn in her clothes. Was it so, sir?”

”Ay, but my wife and I thought that even Colet had never seen them.”

”Nothing can escape a woman, sir. This man drew all from her by a.s.suring her that the maiden belonged to some great folk, and was even akin to the King and Queen of Scots, and that she might have some great reward if she told her story to them. She even sold him some three or four gold and ivory beads which she says she found when sweeping out the room where the child was first undressed.”

”Hath she ever heard more of the fellow?”

”Nay, but Gervas since told me that he had met some of my Lord's men who told him that your daughter was one of the Queen of Scots' ladies, and said he, 'I held my peace; but methought, It hath come of the talebearing of that fellow to whom my wife prated.'”

”Gervas guessed right,” said Richard. ”That Langston did contrive to make known to the Queen of Scots such tokens as led to her owning the maiden as of near kin to her by the mother's side, and to her husband on the father's; but for many reasons she entreated us to allow the damsel still to bear our name, and be treated as our child.”

”I doubt me whether it were well done of you, sir,” said Mr. Heatherthwayte.

”Of that,” said Richard, drawing up into himself, ”no man can judge for another.”

”She hath been with that woman; she will have imbibed her Popish vanities!” exclaimed the poor clergyman, almost ready to start up and separate Oil-of-Gladness at once from the contamination.

”You may be easy on that score,” said Richard drily. ”Her faith is what my good wife taught her, and she hath constantly attended the preachings of the chaplains of Sir Amias Paulett, who be all of your own way of thinking.”

”You a.s.sure me?” said Mr. Heatherthwayte, ”for it is the nature of these folk to act a part, even as did the parent the serpent.”