Now, however, he
examined Berenger closely on all the proceedings Paris and at
Montpipeau, and soon understood that the ceremony had been renewed,
ratifying the vows taken in infancy. The old statesman's face
cleared up at once; for, as he explained, he had now no anxieties
as to the validity of the marriage by English law, at least, in
spite of the decree from Rome, which, as he pointed out to his
grandson, was wholly contingent on the absence of subsequent
consent, since the parties had come to an age for free-will. Had
he known of this, the re-marriage, he said, he should certainly
have been less supine. Why had Berenger been silent?
'I was commanded, sir. I fear I have transgressed the command by
mentioning it now. I must pray you to be secret.'
'Secret, foolish lad. Know you not that the rights of your wife
and your children rest upon it?' and as the change in Berenger's
looks showed that he had not comprehended the full importance of
the second ceremony as nullifying the papal sentence, which could
only quash the first on the ground of want of mutual consent, he
proceeded, 'Command, quotha? Who there had any right to command
you, boy?'
'Only one, sir.'
'Come, this no moment for lover's folly. It was not the girl,
then? Then it could no other than the miserable King--was it so?'
'Yes, sir,' said Berenger. 'He bade me as king, and requested me
as the friend who gave her to me. I could do no otherwise, and I
thought it would be but a matter of a few days, and that our
original marriage was the only important one.'
'Have you any parchment to prove it?'
'No, sir. It passed but as a ceremony to satisfy the Queen's
scruples ere she gave my wife to me to take home. I even think the
King was displeased at her requiring it.'
'Was Mr. Sidney a witness?'
'No, sir. None was present, save the King and Queen, her German
countess, and the German priest.'
'The day?'
'Lammas-day.'
'The 1st of August of the year of grace 1572. I will write to
Walsingham to obtain the testimony, if possible, of king or of
priest; but belike they will deny it all. It was part of the
trick. Shame upon it that a king should dig pits for so small a
game as you, my poor lad!'
'Verily, my Lord,' said Berenger, 'I think the King meant us
kindly, and would gladly have sped us well away. Methought he felt
his bondage bitterly, and would fain have dared to be a true king.
Even at the last, he bade me to his garde-robe, and all there
were unhurt.'
'And wherefore obeyed you not?'
'The carouse would have kept me too late for our flight.'
'King's behests may not lightly be disregarded,' said the old
courtier, with a smile. 'However, since he showed such seeming
favour to you, surely you might send a petition to him privately,
through Sir Francis Walsingham, to let the priest testify to your
renewal of contract, engaging not to use it to his detriment in
France.'
'I will do so, sir. Meanwhile,' he added, as one who felt he had
earned a right to be heard in his turn, 'I have your permission to
hasten to bring home my wife?'
Lord Walwyn was startled at this demand from one still so far from
recovered as Berenger. Even this talk, eager as the youth was, had
not been carried on without much difficulty, repetitions, and
altered phrases, when he could not pronounce distinctly enough to
be understood and the effort brought lines of pain into his brow.
He could take little solid food, had hardly any strength for
walking or riding; and, though all his wounds were whole, except
that one unmanageable shot in the mouth, he looked entirely unfit
to venture on a long journey in the very country that had sent him
home a year before scarcely alive. Lord Walwyn had already devised
what he thought a far more practicable arrangement; namely, to send
Mr. Adderley and some of my Lady's women by sea, under the charge
of Master Hobbs, a shipmaster at Weymouth, who traded with Bordeaux
for wine, and could easily put in near La Sablerie, and bring off
the lady and child, and, if she wished it, the pastor to whom such
a debt of gratitude was owing.
Berenger was delighted with the notion of the sea rather than the
land journey; but he pointed out at once that this would remove all
objection to his going in person. He had often been out whole
nights with the fishermen, and knew that a sea-voyage would be
better for his health than anything,--certainly better than pining
and languishing at home, as he had done for months. He could not
bear to think of separation from Eustacie an hour longer than
needful; nay, she had been cruelly entreated enough already; and as
long as he could keep his feet, it was absolutely due to her that
he should not let others, instead of himself, go in search of her.
It would be almost death to him to stay at home.
Lord Walwyn looked at the pallid, wasted face, with all its marks
of suffering and intense eagerness of expression, increased by the
difficulty of utterance and need of subduing agitation. He felt
that the long-misunderstood patience and endurance had earned
something; and he knew, too, that for all his grandson's submission
and respect, the boy, as a husband and father, had rights and
duties that would assert themselves manfully if opposed. It was
true that the sea-voyage obviated many difficulties, and it was
better to consent with a good grace than drive one hitherto so
dutiful to rebellion. He did then consent, and was rewarded by the
lightning flash of joy and gratitude in the bright blue eyes, and
the fervent pressure and kiss of his hand, as Berenger exclaimed,
'Ah! sir, Eustacie will be such a daughter to you. You should have
seen how the Admiral liked her!'
The news of Lord Walwyn's consent raised much commotion in the
family. Dame Annora was sure her poor son would be murdered
outright this time, and that nobody cared because he was only HER
son; and she strove hard to stir up Sir Marmaduke to remonstrate
with her father; but the good knight had never disputed a judgment
of 'my Lord's' in his whole life, and had even received his first
wife from his hands, when forsaken by the gay Annora. So she could
only ride over the Combe, be silenced by her father, as effectually
as if Jupiter had nodded, and bewail and murmur to her mother till
she lashed Lady Walwyn up into finding every possible reason why
Berenger should and must sail. Then she went home, was very sharp
with Lucy, and was reckoned by saucy little Nan to have nineteen
times exclaimed 'Tilley-valley' in the course of one day.
The effect upon Philip was a vehement insistence on going with his
brother. He was sure no one else would see to Berry half as well;
and as to letting Berry go to be murdered again without him, he
would not hear of it; he must go, he would not stay at home; he
should not study; no, no, he should be ready to hang himself for
vexation, and thinking what they were doing to his brother. And
thus he extorted from his kind-hearted father an avowal that he
should be easier a bout the lad if Phil were there, and that he
might go, provided Berry would have him, and my Lord saw no
objection. The first point was soon settled; and as to the second,
there was no reason at all that Philip should not go where his
brother did. In fact, excepting for Berenger's state of health,
there was hardly any risk about the matter. Master Hobbs, to whom
Philip rode down ecstatically to request him to come and speak to
my Lord, was a stout, honest, experienced seaman, who was perfectly
at home in the Bay of Biscay, and had so strong a feudal feeling
for the house of Walwyn, that he placed himself and his best ship,
the THROSTLE, entirely at his disposal. The THROSTLE was a capital
sailer, and carried arms quite sufficient in English hands to
protect her against Algerine corsairs or Spanish pirates. He only
asked for a week to make her cabin ready for the reception of a
lady, and this time was spent in sending a post to London, to
obtain for Berenger the permit from the Queen, and the passport
from the French Ambassador, without which he could not safely have
gone; and, as a further precaution, letters were requested from
some of the secret agents of the Huguenots to facilitate his
admission into La Sablerie.
In the meantime, poor Mr. Adderley had submitted meekly to the
decree that sentenced him to weeks of misery on board the THROSTLE,
but to his infinite relief, an inspection of the cabins proved the
space so small, that Berenger represented to him grandfather that
the excellent tutor would be only an incumbrance to himself and
every one else, and that with Philip he should need no one.
Indeed, he had made such a start into vigour and alertness during
the last few days that there was far less anxiety about him, though
with several sighs for poor Osbert. Cecily initiated Philip into
her simple rules for her patient's treatment in case of the return
of his more painful symptoms. The notion of sending female
attendants for Eustacie was also abandoned: her husband's presence
rendered them unnecessary, or they might be procured at La
Sablerie; and thus it happened that the only servants whom Berenger
was to take with him were Humfrey Holt and John Smithers, the same
honest fellows whose steadiness had so much conduced to his rescue
at Paris.
Claude de Mericour had in the meantime been treated as an honoured
guest at Combe Walwyn, and was in good esteem with its master. He
would have set forth at once on his journey to Scotland, but that
Lord Walwyn advised him to wait and ascertain the condition of his
relatives there before throwing himself on them. Berenger had,
accordingly, when writing to Sidney by the messenger above
mentioned, begged him to find out from Sir Robert Melville, the
Scottish Envoy, all he could about the family whose designation he
wrote down at a venture from Mericour's lips.
Sidney returned a most affectionate answer, saying that he had
never been able to believe the little shepherdess a traitor and was
charmed that she had proved herself a heroine; he should endeavour
to greet her with all his best powers as a poet, when she should
brighten the English court; but his friend, Master Spenser, alone
was fit to celebrate such constancy. As to M. l'Abbe de Mericour's
friends, Sir Robert Melville had recognized their name at once, and
had pronounced them to be fierce Catholics and Queensmen, so sorely
pressed by the Douglases, that it was believed they would soon fly
the country altogether; and Sidney added, what Lord Walwyn had
already said, that to seek Scotland rather than France as a
resting-place in which to weigh between Calvinism and Catholicism,
was only trebly hot and fanatical. His counsel was that M. de
Mericour should so far conform himself to the English Church as to
obtain admission to one of the universities, and, through his uncle
of Leicester, he could obtain for him an opening at Oxford, where
he might fully study the subject.
There was much to incline Mericour to accept this counsel. He had
had much conversation with Mr. Adderley, and had attended his
ministrations in the chapel, and both satisfied him far better than
what he had seen among the French Calninists; and the peace and
family affection of the two houses were like a new world to him.
But he had not yet made up his mind to that absolute disavowal of
his own branch of the Church, which alone could have rendered him
eligible for any foundation at Oxford. His attainments in classics
would, Mr. Adderley thought, reach such a standard as to gain one
of the very few scholarships open to foreigners; and his noble
blood revolted at becoming a pensioner of Leicester's, or of any
other nobleman.
Lord Walwyn, upon this, made an earnest offer of his hospitality,
and entreated the young man to remain at Hurst Walwyn till the
return of Berenger and Philip, during which time he might study
under the directions of Mr. Adderley, and come to a decision
whether to seek reconciliation with his native Church and his
brother, or to remain in England. In this latter case, he might
perhaps accompany both the youths to Oxford, for, in spite of
Berenger's marriage, his education was still not supposed to be
complete. And when Mericour still demurred with reluctance to
become a burden on the bounty of the noble house, he was reminded
gracefully of the debt of gratitude that the family owed to him for
the relief he had brought to Berenger; and, moreover, Dame Annora
giggled out that, 'if he would teach Nan and Bess to speak and read
French and Italian, it would be worth something to them.' The
others of the family would have hushed up this uncalled-for
proposal; but Mericour caught at it as the most congenial mode of
returning the obligation. Every morning he undertook to walk or
ride over to the Manor, and there gave his lessons to the young
ladies, with whom he was extremely popular. He was a far more
brilliant teacher than Lucy, and ten thousand times preferable to
Mr. Adderley, who had once begun to teach Annora her accidence with
lamentable want of success.