Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman

by Stanley J Weyman

  I was lying on my back. About a foot from my eyes were rough beams of wood disclosed by a smoky yellow light, which flickered on the knotholes and rude joists. The light swayed to and fro regularly; and this adding to my pain, I closed my eyes with a moan. Then some one came to me, and I heard voices which sounded a long way off, and promptly fell again into a deep sleep, troubled still, but less painfully, by the same rhythmical shocks, the same dull crashings in my brain.

  When I awoke again I had sense to know what caused this, and where I was — in a berth on board ship. The noise which had so troubled me was that of the waves beating against her forefoot. The beams so close to my face formed the deck, the smoky light came from the ship’s lantern swinging on a hook. I tried to turn. Some one came again, and with gentle hands arranged my pillow and presently began to feed me with a spoon. When I had swallowed a few mouthfuls I gained strength to turn.

  Who was this feeding me? The light was at her back and dazzled me. For a short while I took her for Petronilla, my thoughts going back at one bound to Coton, and skipping all that had happened since I left home. But as I grew stronger I grew clearer, and recalling bit by bit what had happened in the boat, I recognized Mistress Anne. I tried to murmur thanks, but she laid a cool finger on my lips and shook her head, smiling on me. “You must not talk,” she murmured, “you are getting well. Now go to sleep again.”

  I shut my eyes at once as a child might. Another interval of unconsciousness, painless this time, followed, and again I awoke. I was lying on my side now, and without moving could see the whole of the tiny cabin. The lantern still hung and smoked. But the light was steady now, and I heard no splashing without, nor the dull groaning and creaking of the timbers within. There reigned a quiet which seemed bliss to me; and I lay wrapped in it, my thoughts growing clearer and clearer each moment.

  On a sea-chest at the farther end of the cabin were sitting two people engaged in talk. The one, a woman, I recognized immediately. The gray eyes full of command, the handsome features, the reddish-brown hair and gracious figure left me in no doubt, even for a moment, that I looked on Mistress Bertram. The sharer of her seat was a tall, thin man with a thoughtful face and dreamy, rather melancholy eyes. One of her hands rested on his knee, and her lips as she talked were close to his ear. A little aside, sitting on the lowest step of the ladder which led to the deck, her head leaning against the timbers, and a cloak about her, was Mistress Anne.

  I tried to speak, and after more than one effort found my voice. “Where am I?” I whispered. My head ached sadly, and I fancied, though I was too languid to raise my hand to it, that it was bandaged. My mind was so far clear that I remembered Master Clarence and his pursuit and the fight in the boats, and knew that we ought to be on our way to prison. Who, then, was the mild, comely gentleman whose length of limb made the cabin seem smaller than it was? Not a jailer, surely? Yet who else?

  I could compass no more than a whisper, but faint as my voice was they all heard me, and looked up. “Anne!” the elder lady cried sharply, seeming by her tone to direct the other to attend to me. Yet was she herself the first to rise, and come and lay her hand on my brow. “Ah! the fever is gone!” she said, speaking apparently to the gentleman, who kept his seat. “His head is quite cool. He will do well now, I am sure. Do you know me?” she continued, leaning over me.

  I looked up into her eyes, and read only kindness. “Yes,” I muttered. But the effort of looking was so painful that I closed my eyes again with a sigh. Nevertheless, my memory of the events which had gone before my illness grew clearer, and I fumbled feebly for something which should have been at my side. “Where is — where is my sword?” I made shift to whisper.

  She laughed. “Show it to him, Anne,” she said; “what a never-die it is! There, Master Knight Errant, we did not forget to bring it off the field, you see!”

  “But how,” I murmured, “how did you escape?” I saw that there was no question of a prison. Her laugh was gay, her voice full of content.

  “That is a long story,” she answered kindly. “Are you well enough to hear it? You think you are? Then take some of this first. You remember that knave Philip striking you on the head with an oar as you got up? No? Well, it was a cowardly stroke, but it stood him in little stead, for we had drifted, in the excitement of the race, under the stern of the ship which you remember seeing a little before. There were English seamen on her; and when they saw three men in the act of boarding two defenseless women, they stepped in, and threatened to send Clarence and his crew to the bottom unless they sheered off.”

  “Ha!” I murmured. “Good!”

  “And so we escaped. I prayed the captain to take us on board his ship, the Framlingham, and he did so. More, putting into Leigh on his way to the Nore, he took off my husband. There he stands, and when you are better he shall thank you.”

  “Nay, he will thank you now,” said the tall man, rising and stepping to my berth with his head bent. He could not stand upright, so low was the deck. “But for you,” he continued, his earnestness showing in his voice and eyes — the latter were almost too tender for a man’s— “my wife would be now lying in prison, her life in jeopardy, and her property as good as gone. She has told me how bravely you rescued her from that cur in Cheapside, and how your presence of mind baffled the watch at the riverside. It is well, young gentleman. It is very well. But these things call for other returns than words. When it lies in her power my wife will make them; if not to-day, to-morrow, and if not to-morrow, the day after.”

  I was very weak, and his words brought the tears to my eyes. “She has saved my life already,” I murmured.

  “You foolish boy!” she cried, smiling down on me, her hand on her husband’s shoulder. “You got your head broken in my defense. It was a great thing, was it not, that I did not leave you to die in the boat? There, make haste and get well. You have talked enough now. Go to sleep, or we shall have the fever back again.”

  “One thing first,” I pleaded. “Tell me whither we are going.”

  “In a few hours we shall be at Dort in Holland,” she answered. “But be content. We will take care of you, and send you back if you will, or you shall still come with us; as you please. Be content. Go to sleep now and get strong. Presently, perhaps, we shall have need of your help again.”

  They went and sat down then on their former seat and talked in whispers, while Mistress Anne shook up my pillows, and laid a fresh cool bandage on my head. I was too weak to speak my gratitude, but I tried to look it and so fell asleep again, her hand in mine, and the wondrous smile of those lustrous eyes the last impression of which I was conscious.

  A long dreamless sleep followed. When I awoke once more the light still hung steady, but the peacefulness of night was gone. We lay in the midst of turmoil. The scampering of feet over the deck above me, the creaking of the windlass, the bumping and clattering of barrels hoisted in or hoisted out, the harsh sound of voices raised in a foreign tongue and in queer keys, sufficed as I grew wide-awake to tell me we were in port.

  But the cabin was empty, and I lay for some time gazing at its dreary interior, and wondering what was to become of me. Presently an uneasy fear crept into my mind. What if my companions had deserted me? Alone, ill, and penniless in a foreign land, what should I do? This fear in my sick state was so terrible that I struggled to get up, and with reeling brain and nerveless hands did get out of my berth. But this feat accomplished I found that I could not stand. Everything swam before my eyes. I could not take a single step, but remained, clinging helplessly to the edge of my berth, despair at my heart. I tried to call out, but my voice rose little above a whisper, and the banging and shrieking, the babel without went on endlessly. Oh, it was cruel! cruel! They had left me!

  I think my senses were leaving me too, when I felt an arm about my waist, and found Mistress Anne by my side guiding me to the chest. I sat down on it, the certainty of my helplessness and the sudden relief of her presence bringing the tears to my eyes. She fanned me, a
nd gave me some restorative, chiding me the while for getting out of my berth.

  “I thought that you had gone and left me,” I muttered. I was as weak as a child.

  She said cheerily: “Did you leave us when we were in trouble? Of course you did not. There, take some more of this. After all, it is well you are up, for in a short time we must move you to the other boat.”

  “The other boat?”

  “Yes, we are at Dort, you know. And we are going by the Waal, a branch of the Rhine, to Arnheim. But the boat is here, close to this one, and, with help, I think you will be able to walk to it.”

  “I am sure I shall if you will give me your arm,” I answered gratefully.

  “But you will not think again,” she replied, “that we have deserted you?”

  “No,” I said. “I will trust you always.”

  I wondered why a shadow crossed her face at that. But I had no time to do more than wonder, for Master Bertram, coming down, brought our sitting to an end. She bustled about to wrap me up, and somehow, partly walking, partly carried, I was got on deck. There I sat down on a bale to recover myself, and felt at once much the better for the fresh, keen air, the clear sky and wintry sunshine which welcomed me to a foreign land.

  On the outer side of the vessel stretched a wide expanse of turbid water, five or six times as wide as the Thames at London, and foam-flecked here and there by the up-running tide. On the other side was a wide and spacious quay, paved neatly with round stones, and piled here and there with merchandise; but possessing, by virtue of the lines of leafless elms which bordered it, a quaint air of rusticity in the midst of bustle. The sober bearing of the sturdy landsmen, going quietly about their business, accorded well with the substantial comfort of the rows of tall, steep-roofed houses I saw beyond the quay, and seemed only made more homely by the occasional swagger and uncouth cry of some half-barbarous seaman, wandering aimlessly about. Above the town rose the heavy square tower of a church, a notable landmark where all around, land and water, lay so low, where the horizon seemed so far, and the sky so wide and breezy.

  “So you have made up your mind to come with us,” said Master Bertram, returning to my side — he had left me to make some arrangements. “You understand that if you would prefer to go home I can secure your tendance here by good, kindly people, and provide for your passage back when you feel strong enough to cross. You understand that? And that the choice is entirely your own? So which will you do?”

  I changed color and felt I did. I shrunk, as being well and strong I should not have shrunk, from losing sight of those three faces which I had known for so short a time, yet which alone stood between myself and loneliness. “I would rather come with you,” I stammered. “But I shall be a great burden to you now, I fear.”

  “It is not that,” he replied, with hearty assurance in his voice. “A week’s rest and quiet will restore you to strength, and then the burden will be on the other shoulder. It is for your own sake I give you the choice, because our future is for the time uncertain. Very uncertain,” he repeated, his brow clouding over; “and to become our companion may expose you to fresh dangers. We are refugees from England; that you probably guess. Our plan was to go to France, where are many of our friends, and where we could live safely until better times. You know how that plan was frustrated. Here the Spaniards are masters — Prince Philip’s people; and if we are recognized, we shall be arrested and sent back to England. Still, my wife and I must make the best of it. The hue and cry will not follow us for some days, and there is still a degree of independence in the cities of Holland which may, since I have friends here, protect us for a time. Now you know something of our position, my friend. You can make your choice with your eyes open. Either way we shall not forget you.”

  “I will go on with you, if you please,” I answered at once. “I, too, cannot go home.” And as I said this, Mistress Bertram also came up, and I took her hand in mine — which looked, by the way, so strangely thin I scarcely recognized it — and kissed it. “I will come with you, madam, if you will let me,” I said.

  “Good!” she replied, her eyes sparkling. “I said you would! I do not mind telling you now that I am glad of it. And if ever we return to England, as God grant we may and soon, you shall not regret your decision. Shall he, Richard?”

  “If you say he shall not, my dear,” he responded, smiling at her enthusiasm, “I think I may answer for it he will not.”

  I was struck then, as I had been before, by a certain air of deference which the husband assumed toward the wife. It did not surprise me, for her bearing and manner, as well as such of her actions as I had seen, stamped her as singularly self-reliant and independent for a woman; and to these qualities, as much as to the rather dreamy character of the husband, I was content to set down the peculiarity. I should add that a rare and pretty tenderness constantly displayed on her part toward him robbed it of any semblance of unseemliness.

  They saw that the exertion of talking exhausted me, and so, with an encouraging nod, left me to myself. A few minutes later a couple of English sailors, belonging to the Framlingham, came up, and with gentle strength transported me, under Mistress Anne’s directions, to a queer-looking wide-beamed boat which lay almost alongside. She was more like a huge Thames barge than anything else, for she drew little water, but had a great expanse of sail when all was set. There was a large deck-house, gay with paint and as clean as it could be; and in a compartment at one end of this — which seemed to be assigned to our party — I was soon comfortably settled.

  Exhausted as I was by the excitement of sitting up and being moved, I knew little of what passed about me for the next two days, and remember less. I slept and ate, and sometimes awoke to wonder where I was. But the meals and the vague attempts at thought made scarcely more impression on my mind than the sleep. Yet all the while I was gaining strength rapidly, my youth and health standing me in good stead. The wound in my head, which had caused great loss of blood, healed all one way, as we say in Warwickshire; and about noon, on the second day after leaving Dort, I was well enough to reach the deck unassisted, and sit in the sunshine on a pile of rugs which Mistress Anne, my constant nurse, had laid for me in a corner sheltered from the wind.

  * * * * *

  Fortunately the weather was mild and warm, and the sunshine fell brightly on the wide river and the wider plain of pasture which stretched away on either side of the horizon, dotted, here and there only, by a windmill, a farmhouse, the steeple of a church, the brown sails of a barge, or at most broken by a low dike or a line of sand-dunes. All was open, free; all was largeness, space, and distance. I gazed astonished.

  The husband and wife, who were pacing the deck forward, came to me. He noticed the wondering looks I cast round. “This is new to you?” he said smiling.

  “Quite — quite new,” I answered. “I never imagined anything so flat, and yet in its way so beautiful.”

  “You do not know Lincolnshire?”

  “No.”

  “Ah, that is my native county,” he answered. “It is much like this. But you are better, and you can talk again. Now I and my wife have been discussing whether we shall tell you more about ourselves. And since there is no time like the present I may say that we have decided to trust you.”

  “All in all or not at all,” Mistress Bertram added brightly.

  I murmured my thanks.

  “Then, first to tell you who we are. For myself I am plain Richard Bertie of Lincolnshire, at your service. My wife is something more than appears from this, or” — with a smile— “from her present not too graceful dress. She is — —”

  “Stop, Richard! This is not sufficiently formal,” my lady cried prettily. “I have the honor to present to you, young gentleman,” she went on, laughing merrily and making a very grand courtesy before me, “Katherine, Duchess of Suffolk.”

  I made shift to get to my feet, and bowed respectfully, but she forced me to sit down again. “Enough of that,” she said lightly, “until we go b
ack to England. Here and for the future we are Master Bertram and his wife. And this young lady, my distant kinswoman, Anne Brandon, must pass as Mistress Anne. You wonder how we came to be straying in the streets alone and unattended when you found us?”

  I did wonder, for the name of the gay and brilliant Duchess of Suffolk was well known even to me, a country lad. Her former husband, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, had been not only the one trusted and constant friend of King Henry the Eighth, but the king’s brother-in-law, his first wife having been Mary, Princess of England and Queen Dowager of France. Late in his splendid and prosperous career the Duke had married Katherine, the heiress of Lord Willoughby de Eresby, and she it was who stood before me, still young and handsome. After her husband’s death she had made England ring with her name, first by a love match with a Lincolnshire squire, and secondly by her fearless and outspoken defense of the reformers. I did wonder indeed how she had come to be wandering in the streets at daybreak, an object of a chance passer’s chivalry and pity.

  “It is simple enough,” she said dryly; “I am rich, I am a Protestant, and I have an enemy. When I do not like a person I speak out. Do I not, Richard?”

  “You do indeed, my dear,” he answered smiling.

  “And once I spoke out to Bishop Gardiner. What! Do you know Stephen Gardiner?”

  For I had started at the name, after which I could scarcely have concealed my knowledge if I would. So I answered simply, “Yes, I have seen him.” I was thinking how wonderful this was. These people had been utter strangers to me until a day or two before, yet now we were all looking out together from the deck of a Dutch boat on the low Dutch landscape, united by one tie, the enmity of the same man.