Читать книгу Jane Seton; or, The King's Advocate - James Grant - Страница 14

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"Ah! who can e'er forget so fair a being?

Who can forget her half retiring sweets?

God! she is like a milk-white lamb that bleats

For man's protection."

When Jane thought for a moment of how long this great political inquisitor and public prosecutor had been the feudal foe and legal oppressor of her mother's kinsman and her father's house, and that he had but recently (as she had gathered from her brother) meditated or attempted the assassination of her lover,—as he had previously done the chief of the Maclellans,—she felt her whole heart recoil from him as from a serpent, with terror and abhorrence. Nevertheless, finding that Sybil and her cavalier had disappeared among the groups of revellers who dotted the moonlit lawn, she had sufficient tact to veil her inward repugnance and suspicions under an outward politeness, and to incline her head slightly when he bowed and assumed a position for conversing by leaning his handsome and stately figure against the stone arm of the sofa, which was formed of a wyvern with its wings outspread.

He was dazzled by the splendour of her beauty, which the unwonted magnificence of her attire had so much enhanced; and remained silent and embarrassed, till Jane said—

"I did not imagine that so grave a man as Sir Adam Otterburn would have much to amuse him among these gay frivolities."

"Nor have I, madam, for my mind is usually filled with thoughts of deeper and more vital import than the comely fashion of a ruff or mantle, or the curling of a pretty ringlet. I came but to steal a few moments from my unhappy destiny; and I swear by my faith, that to see you dancing with the king was the only tranquil joy I have had for many a day. Ah! madame, you excelled yourself; you outshone them all, as yonder moon outshines the stars around it!"

Lady Jane bowed again, and glanced uneasily at the staircase; there was no appearance of Roland, and knowing intuitively the dangerous topic to which the speaker was inclining, she trembled for what he might say next, for Redhall was not a man to dally much when he had any end in view.

He had seen her dancing with Roland Vipont; he had heard those whispers by which the whole court linked their names together as lovers, yet an incontrollable folly or fatality led him blindly on.

"Notwithstanding that we were such good friends when last we met," said he, in his soft and flute-like voice, while bending his fine dark eyes on the green sward, "you have shunned me so much of late, Lady Jane, that I have had no opportunity of begging your permission to renew that conversation in which I presumed first to say—that—that——"

"What?——"

"That I loved you"—his voice sank to a whisper at the abruptness of the declaration.

"Oh! Sir Adam; thou followest a phantom."

Redhall sighed sadly and bitterly.

"There was a time, dearest madam, when I did not think so," he continued slowly and earnestly—"a time when I almost flattered myself that you loved me in return."

"I!" said Jane, faintly.

"Thou," he replied, impressively, fixing upon her his piercing eyes with an expression which fascinated her. "It was in the garden of my lord the abbot of Holyrood, at his mansion near yonder craigs, some nine or ten months ago, about the vesper time; it was a glorious evening, and a broad yellow harvest-moon was shining in the blue heavens, among golden-coloured clouds; the air was pure, and laden with perfume and with the fragrance of yonder orchards, and these fields covered with the grain of a ripe harvest. Abbot Robert had given a supper to Henrico Godscallo, the ambassador who came to offer as a bride Mary of Austria or Mary of Portugal to King James. Oh! thou canst not have forgotten it. We walked together in the garden, and you did me the honour to lean upon my arm. I bent my head towards you, and your beautiful hair touched my forehead. My heart beat like lightning—every vein trembled! Oh! I have never forgotten that night—that hour—the place—the time! You seemed good and kind, merry and gentle with me. I was on the point of declaring myself then—of saying how I loved you—how I worshipped you; and your charming embarrassment seemed to expect the avowal; when the countess's page—yonder black devil with the rings in his ears—approached, and the spell was broken. My God! the same moment, the same soft influences and adorable opportunity have never come again!"

"My lord advocate, you can plead ably for yourself," replied Jane, coldly.

"My soul is in the cause at issue," said he, looking at her anxiously; "'tis very true, I am very miserable. I am as one in a dream. I love the air she breathes—the ground she treads on." He was speaking to himself. In the very depth of his thoughts he forgot that she was beside him.

"My lord, my lord, 'tis the rhapsody, this, of Sir David Lindesay, or some such balladier."

"Nay, nay; oh! do not mock me. It seemeth as if my love for you is not the common love of this cold and utilitarian world; for if ten ages rolled over our heads, I feel sure that my love would be the same; nor time, nor circumstance, not even despair, can overcome it. Oh! lady, believe me, there is no other man loves thee as I do."

Jane thought of Roland, but either the fury or the profundity of the speaker's passion awed her into silence, for she made no reply; and thereby encouraged, he continued—

"Pride and ambition are strong within me; but, believe me, my breast never had a passion so deep, so pure, as my love for thee. There is a silent strength in it that grows out of its very hopelessness. Canst thou conceive this? Every glance, and smile, and word of thine I have treasured up for years, and in solitude I gloat over them, even as a miser would over his gold and silver."

Covered with confusion, and trembling excessively, Jane made an effort to withdraw.

"Beautiful tyrant!" said he, haughtily and firmly, as he stepped before her, "thou knowest thy power, and findest a cruel pleasure in its exercise; thy lips are full of pride as thine eyes are full of light, and with the very smile of a goddess thou repayest the homage of all but me. Yet with all these charms I can conceive that no passion can dwell within thee, for thou art cold and impassible as the marble of that fountain which sparkles in the moonlight—vain as vanity herself, and selfish as Circe. While weaving thy spells thou thinkest not of me, or the fatal power of thy beauty, which is destroying me."

"Holy Mary!" said Jane, in terror at his growing excitement; "did I tell thee to love me? Am I to blame for this unruly frenzy?"

"Oh! my passion is very deep," he continued, clasping his hands, and fixing his dark eyes on the stars. "My God! my God! It besets me—it transfixes and transforms me into the object I love—our existence seems the same."

"What!" cried Jane, laughing, "hast thou transformed thyself into me?"

Redhall did not anticipate having his high-sounding sophistry so acutely criticized; he started as if a viper was beside him, and fixing upon her his eyes, which were fired with a strange mixture of sternness and ardour, he said in his slow calm voice—

"Strong and serene in thy boasted purity and pride, thou laughest at me; and by that laugh," he continued, in a hoarse and bitter voice, "I know that all is over with me; but beware thee, proud woman—for love and illusion may die fast together."

"Sir Adam Otterburn," replied Jane, haughtily, attempting again to retire, "for the last time I tell thee, that death were a thousand times preferable to thy love! Art thou not the sworn foe of my brother?"

"But not thine," replied the advocate, with a lowering brow; "make me not that, I pray thee." His heart glowed alternately with love and fury at her unmoved aspect. His self-importance was wounded by her apathy; and his galled pride was fast kindling a sentiment of hatred in his heart—a hate that grew side by side with his love—if such a state of heart can be conceived. "Thy brother's enemy?" he repeated, with a bitter laugh; "if I were indeed so much his enemy, I might astonish the Lord Arran and his Hamiltons to-night."

"My God!" thought Jane, as her heart sank within her; "he has overheard us, and learned our terrible secret!"

Alarmed by the ghastly expression of his face, which was white as marble, all save the jetty moustaches and the eyebrows that met over his finely-formed nose, Jane glanced anxiously towards the stair which ascended to the hall, and Sir Adam observed it. A smile curled his pale lips, but the fire of the most ferocious jealousy kindled in his dark and deep-set eyes.

"I know for whom thou art looking," said he, grasping her by the arm; "for yonder brainless fop, who thinks of nothing but his ruff and his plume and the glory of being master of the king's ordnance—a wretched worm, whom the heat of our Scottish wars hath nourished into a gilded butterfly, and who dares to cock his bonnet in our faces with the bearing of a landed baron."

"Gramercy!" said Jane, waggishly; "I knew not that a butterfly wore a bonnet."

"Hah!" he muttered, fiercely, "the lover who is once laughed at is lost!"

The grasp of his strong hand compressed her slender arm like a vice; there was an oath trembling on his lips, and fury flashing in his eye, for love and hatred, as they struggled in his heart, made him both selfish and savage.

"Oh Mother of Mercy!" murmured Jane; "away ruffian! or I will shriek that thou art a vampire!"

At that moment the shadow of a tall figure, armed with a prodigious sword, was thrown by the moon along the velvet sward; and Redhall was prostrated by a blow on the ear, dealt by a ponderous and unsparing hand. Jane turned with terror, and saw her brother, the earl, spring back and disappear under the cloister arches of the abbey; while, at the same moment, Roland Vipont leaped down stairs from the hall, taking four steps at once.

"A thousand pardons, dearest Jane, and a thousand more," he exclaimed, drawing her arm through his, and leading her away; "but this tiresome argument concerning old Mollance Meg and the Devil of Bois le Duc (plague take them both!) occupied more time than I had the least idea of; and my lord the bishop of Limoges hath lost on the matter a hundred silver livres, which the king means to give the Franciscans to-morrow. But thou art not angry with me?"

"Angry? oh, no! I know thou art sufficiently punished, minutes being ages when absent from me."

"Ah, thou art right, for my sojourn in Paris was a very eternity."

"Then let us join the dancers, and be merry while we may," said she, with a gaiety which was scarcely assumed, for she was but too happy to hurry him into the hall, without observing the lord advocate, who, stunned by the effects of the blow, lay for a second or two unseen, and somewhat ignominiously, upon a parterre of rose-bushes, from whence he arose with fury in his heart, and his sword in his hand, but to find himself alone—a fortunate circumstance, as he would infallibly have slain the first man near him. He adjusted his ruff and doublet, brushed a speck or two from his trunk breeches, and shaking his clenched hand, said hoarsely, under his moustaches—

"Either Roland Vipont or the Earl of Ashkirk dishonoured me by that blow. Be it so—I have them all in my grasp! Revenge is a joy for gods and demons, and, by the Holy Rood, I will be avenged, and fearfully, too!"

By this time the ball was nearly over, for the good people of those days had not yet conceived the idea of turning day into night; and as the king and court were to depart on a grand hawking expedition on the morrow, and, as usual, had to be all up with the lark and the eagle, the bell-clock of the neighbouring abbey church had barely tolled twelve when the dancing concluded, and the guests began to retire in rapid succession, each paying their adieux to the king and queen as they departed, and paying them with a solemnity and parade such as one may see nowhere now, save in Old Castile.

"Take courage, my sweet flower, Jane, for now is your most fortunate time to prefer to Magdalene your request that Ashkirk may be pardoned. She will never, by refusal, send away her principal guest ungraciously," said Roland, as, hurrying through the festooned arras from the refreshment-room, where they had been tarrying for a time, they joined the stream of departing revellers who promenaded round the hall, and approached their royal host and hostess somewhat like a glittering procession. James and Magdalene were standing at the head of the hall, just as when the entertainment began. His bonnet was in his right hand, his left rested on his sword, and was hidden by his short mantle; the queen leant on his arm, and he bowed low to each of the nobles, and lower still to their brocaded ladies. The Scottish and French ladies of honour were grouped a little behind, all beautiful, young, nobly born, and brilliantly attired.

"If she procures me this boon," said Jane, "I will say nine prayers for her at the altar of St. Magdalene to-morrow, when we go to St. Giles's. Of course you go with us to hear father St. Bernard's oration on the patron saint of the city?"

"Wherever you go I shall go; but the hour?"

"One o'clock; but you will come at noon and see me?"

"Plague on it, I have a meeting."

"A meeting?" said Jane, anxiously.

"Oh, a duty, dearest—an indispensable duty to perform," said Roland, remembering his brief challenge to Kincavil.

"What duty is this, of which I hear now for the first time?"

"To see those fifty-six pieces of cannon which King Francis hath sent to King James; they are to be landed from Sir Robert Barton's ships, and conveyed to the Gun-house to-morrow. A most important duty, Jane; they are all beautiful brass culverins, royal and demi; 'twould do your heart good to see them!"

"Ah, if James and the queen should refuse me this!—we are close to them now."

"Refuse you? they will refuse nothing that is asked in a voice so soft and so gentle."

As they drew near the royal group, Jane felt her heart almost failing her; she clung to Roland's arm, and watched the expression in the face of Magdalene. She seemed now very pale; her eyes were humid and downcast; gentleness and languor pervaded her beautiful features; she was overcome with lassitude and sinking with fatigue—the weakness incident to that hereditary disease which fast and surely was preying upon her fragile form. The proud nobles, to whom the king spoke occasionally as he bade them adieu, received his courtly attentions as a tribute due to their patriotic and lofty ancestry, and their proud bearing seemed to say, plainly, "I am George Earl of Errol, Constable of Scotland," or "I am William Earl of Montrose, and come of that Graeme whom King David knighted when the Stuarts were but thanes of Kyle and Strathgryfe;" for it was an age when the king was only a great baron, and every baron or laird was a king and a kaiser to boot.

As they approached, Roland could perceive that cold glances welcomed Jane Seton from the ladies of honour, who were all enemies of her house, and whose fathers and brothers enjoyed many fiefs of the Douglas lands and fortresses, defacing the crowned heart on their battlements and substituting the three cinque-foils of Hamilton; but, to crown all and increase the poor girl's perturbation, she perceived Redhall standing near the king, seeming, with his dark figure and pallid visage, like her evil genius, cold, impassible, and dignified as if the startling episode we have just related had never taken place.

"Ah ma bonne!" they heard Magdalene say to Mademoiselle de Brissac, "how tired I am, and excessively sick of all this parade!"

"Now be of good heart, my sweet Jane," said Roland, pressing her arm, "and prefer your request firmly; for Madame de Montreuil has explained to the queen all that we wish."

When she drew near the beautiful young girl that leaned on James's arm, instead of bowing and passing on, Jane sunk on one knee, and said—

"I beseech your grace to crave my brother's pardon from our sovereign lord."

"I know that he cannot refuse me anything," said the young queen, with girlish simplicity, as she looked up lovingly and trustingly in the king's face, while stretching out her hand to Jane. The latter pressed to her beautiful lips that fair little hand which was dimpled like that of a child, and the king was about to speak (and benignly, too, for every feature of his fine face said so), when Magdalene, overcome by her recent illness, by the close atmosphere of the hall, which was perfumed to excess, and by the glitter of innumerable wax-lights, uttered a faint cry, and fell backwards into the arms of Mademoiselle de Brissac.

Consternation and concern were visible in every face; the queen was borne away senseless, and James hastily followed her almost inanimate figure; the crowd behind pressed on, and Roland and Jane were carried before it. Redhall smiled, and said to the abbot of Kinloss, in James's hearing—

"Did I not tell you, my lord, how rash it was to have the Lady Seton here?"

"Agnus Dei! yea, verily, for her mother deals in salves and philtres; and there was sorcery at work just now, Sir Adam, or my name is not Robin Reid."

These words made a deep impression on the few who were meant to hear them, but chiefly on the king, who darted an angry glance after Jane Seton, and turned on his heel.

At the palace gate the discomfited pair met Marion Logan, Alison Hume, and Sybil Douglas, who were all muffled in their hoods and mantles, and surrounded by an escort of serving-men, armed with steel caps and bucklers, swords, and wheel-lock dagues, and who bore lighted links. A few cavaliers with whom they had danced (Roland among them, of course) accompanied them, and in this order they hurried home on foot, for wheeled vehicles were as yet unknown in the kingdom.

Terrified by the practical jokes of the king's jester and the din of his bladder and bells, Sabrino had long since fled the precincts of the court, and taken refuge in his usual sleeping-place (a small alcove near the door of the countess's apartment), which he shared in common with a large black stag-hound.

"Come early to-morrow, dear Roland, and we will talk over the adventures of the last few hours," whispered Jane, as she bade adieu to her lover; "alas! father St. Bernard warned me against going to-night; but I have gone, and what has been the result?"