Part 18 (1/2)
”Nay, fair Mistress, I am but too well lodged and served. For that honest butler, Pope, who, it seems, was servant once to one of the gentlemen of my household, Jermyn by name, has recognised me, and will not be denied but to kiss my hand in private, and himself to wait upon me in my room. I tell him that a serving man has no need to be served, but he cannot see the sense of that. I truly think he is staunch to the core, else I would be uneasy; for there is a great price upon this head.
Yet others have withstood the temptation to betray the secret, and methinks he will too.”
”Oh, I would not fear for Pope,” answered Jane eagerly, ”he is a good and faithful servant. I am sorry--and yet I am glad that he should know; for now you will be served with the best that this house has to offer!”
”But we must have a care,” laughed Charles, ”there was a fellow sat beside me in the b.u.t.tery this morning, who was giving such an excellent account of the recent battle that I took him for one of Cromwell's soldiers. But when I asked him he said no, he was in the King's regiment; and I thought at first he spoke of Colonel King, but he meant me all the while! So then I asked him what kind of man the King was?
Whereat he replied, with a quick look into my face, that he wasn't anything like me, for all my swarthy skin; that he was half-a-head taller for one thing, and forthwith gave so accurate a description of my dress, and horse, and weapons, that I got frightened at the fellow's keen eyes, and got me away as soon as I could.”
It was nervous work hearing tales like this, albeit Charles would laugh and make light of them. Too obvious a disguise would have provoked more suspicion than the one he was adopting, with soldiers and spies everywhere on the look-out for the fugitive Prince, whom so many already declared to be the King, and upon whose head so great a reward was placed.
”I marvel that each one who knows the secret doth not betray it, and make himself rich for life,” quoth the young man many times, as he recounted his hairbreadth escapes. ”What have we done that person after person, man and woman and gentle maiden”--and he bent his head before Jane with courtly grace--”should risk so much and lose so much in our poor service?”
”You are our King, sire,” answered Jane simply; and that seemed to be answer enough.
Two days later Lord Wilmot came to her and asked speech. He had been hovering about them all the while, and lurking in the neighbourhood of Abbotsleigh watching and planning. Now he came to Jane, and spoke freely.
”Mistress,” he said, ”we still want your help for two more stages of the journey. Your pa.s.s will take us safely as far as Trent House in Gloucesters.h.i.+re, where dwells Colonel Wyndham, whom I have seen; and who will not only adventure life and estate in the King's service, but will gladly lose them both to save him from peril. Once at his house, where there are some excellent hiding-places, we shall be near enough the coast to make, I trust, some speedy arrangement for the transit abroad.
But there are soldiers quartered in these parts, and we shall want your aid for the next stages. Will you give it to us, and be ready to start upon the morrow early?”
”Willingly, most willingly,” answered Jane; ”but bethink you, my lord, what can I say to the people here? My sister is very ill. She was taken last night with a fever, and now lies in a sorrowful state, and constantly desires my presence. There are her husband and several relatives to think of. What will they say if I incontinently depart?
Will not such conduct excite the very suspicion we most desire to avoid?”
Lord Wilmot at once recognised the difficulty of her position, but his quick wit suggested the remedy.
”Mistress Jane,” he said, ”supposing that at supper-time a note should be brought to you purporting to come from your mother, saying that your father is taken worse, and that she earnestly desires your return, would that enable you to leave this house upon the morrow without comment?”
Jane nodded her head. It was a time when men were put to all sorts of strange expedients and stratagems. She had grown up in the thick of them; and knew how gladly all her family would join in the plot that had the King's welfare for its aim and object, though it was thought best to keep the matter as far as possible secret.
Her sister was not in peril of her life, and had other relatives with her. A summons from the aged father would weigh above all else; and when the soft-footed Pope brought her the letter as she sat at supper, and she read its contents half aloud, her flitting colour and fluttering breath seemed to bespeak just that amount of natural emotion a daughter was likely to feel.
”Bid William Jackson be ready to attend me on the morrow at daybreak,”
she said to Pope; and no one sought to stay or hinder.
So the brave young girl rode forth again with Charles in front as her servant. With calm courage she pa.s.sed her little party through the lines of the Parliamentary soldiers whenever it was necessary; with ready and dexterous wit, she answered all questions put to her; and on the evening of the second day from leaving Abbotsleigh, she had the joy of seeing Charles taken into the house of Colonel Wyndham, where it was thought he would lie safely hid till a vessel could be chartered to take him over to France.
”Sweet Mistress, how can I thank you for this good service?” asked Charles, as she saw him on the following morning for a few brief moments, ere she started forth for home once more--her task so bravely accomplished.
”My reward is with me now, knowing your Majesty in present safety,” she answered; ”the rest I shall receive when I hear of your safe arrival in France.”
”Nevertheless, sweet Mistress Jane,” he said, speaking very earnestly, ”if the happy day should come when I return as King to this realm, where I have so many brave and loyal friends, I will not forget those who have aided me in this time of storm and stress and threatened peril!
Farewell; but something tells me that we shall meet again.”
They did meet again. For the following year Jane was taken by her brother to Paris, and quite unexpectedly encountered Charles in some public place. He saw her instantly, and advancing, hat in hand, towards her, exclaimed:
”Welcome, my life!”
And since Charles II. has often been charged with ingrat.i.tude towards his friends, let it be said of him here that he showed a different spirit towards the Lanes upon his restoration to power. He settled upon Jane one thousand pounds for life, and half that amount upon her brother the Colonel; also to the girl he gave a beautiful gold watch, and a portrait of himself set round with pearls, which for generations (until, in fact, they were mysteriously stolen and never heard of again) were handed down as a precious family heirloom.