The Lions Whelp 50

The Lions Whelp 50

It was not the first time she had accused Rupert in her heart. She knew

him to be an incomparable swordsman; she knew he regarded duelling as a

mere pastime or accident of life. The killing of Neville would not give

him a moment’s discomfort,—quite otherwise, for he was a trifle jealous

of him in more ways than one; and there were money and information to be

gained by the deed. Politically, the man was his enemy, and to kill him

was only "satisfaction." The story Rupert told her of the duel had

always been an improbable one to her intelligence. She did not believe

it at the time, and the lapse of time had impaired whatever of

likelihood it possessed.

 

"Yes, yes," she said to herself. "Rupert undoubtedly killed Neville,

and gave the jewels and money and papers to Charles Stuart. But how can

I tell this thing? I cannot! If it would restore the man’s

life—perhaps. Oh, that I had never seen him! How many miserable hours

I can mix with his name! The creature was very unworthy of Jane, and I

am glad he is dead. Yes, I am. Thousands of better men are slain, and

forgotten—let him be forgotten also. I will not say a word. Why should

I bring Rupert in question? One never knows where such inquiries set on

foot will stop, especially if that wretch Cromwell takes a hand in the

catechism." But she was unhappy, Jane’s face reproached her; she could

not put away from her consciousness and memory its stillness, its

haunting pallor and unworldlike far-offness.

 

The next day Jane went to Hampton Court. The place made no more

favourable impression on her than it had done at her first visit.

Indeed, its melancholy, monastic atmosphere was even more remarkable.

The forest was bare and desolate, the avenues veiled in mist, the

battlemented towers black with rooks, the silence of the great

quadrangles only emphasised by the slow tread of the soldier on guard.

But Mrs. Cromwell had not lived in the Fen country without learning how

to shut nature’s gloom outside. Jane was cheered the moment she entered

the old palace by the blaze and crackle of the enormous wood-fires.

Posy bowls, full of Michaelmas daisies, bronzed ferns, and late autumn

flowers were on every table; pots of ivy drooped from the mantel, and

the delicious odour of the tiny musk flower permeated every room with

its wild, earthy perfume.

 

She was conducted to an apartment in one of the suites formerly occupied

by Queen Henrietta Maria. It was gaily furnished in the French style,

and though years had dimmed the gilding and the fanciful paintings and

the rich satin draperies, it was full of a reminiscent charm Jane could

not escape. As she dressed herself she thought of the great men and

women who had lived and loved, and joyed and sorrowed under this ancient

roof of Wolsey’s splendid palace. Henry the Eighth and his wives, young

Edward, the bloody Queen Mary, and the high-mettled Elizabeth; the

despicable James, and the tyrant Charles with his handsome favourite,

Buckingham, and his unfortunate advisers, Strafford and Laud. And then

_Oliver Cromwell_! What retributions there were in that name! It

implied, in its very simplicity, changes unqualified and uncompromising,

reaching down to the very root of things.

 

It seemed natural to dress splendidly to thoughts touching so many

royalties, and Jane looked with satisfaction at her toilet. It had

progressed without much care, but the result was fitting and beautiful:

a long gown of pale blue silk, with white lace sleeves and a lace

tippet, and a string of pearls round her throat. Anything more would

have been too much for Jane Swaffham, though when the Ladies Mary and

Frances came to her, she could not help admiring their bows and

bracelets and chains, their hair dressed with gemmed combs and their

hands full of fresh flowers. She thought they looked like princesses,

and they were overflowing with good-natured happiness.

 

Taking Jane by the hand, they led her from room to room, showing her

what had been done and what had been added, and lingering specially in

the magnificent suite which was all their own. It was very strange.

Jane thought of the little chamber with the sloping roof in the house

they occupied in Ely, and she wondered for a moment, if she was

dreaming. On their way to the parlours they passed the door of a room

Jane recollected entering on her previous visit, and she asked what

changes had been made in it?

 

"None," said Mary with a touch of something like annoyance.

 

"None at all," reiterated Frances. "You know Charles Stuart tried to

sleep in it, and he had dreadful dreams, and the night lamp was always

put out, and he said the place was full of horror and suffering. _It

was haunted_," the girl almost whispered. "My father said ’nonsense,’

and he slept in it two nights, and then——"

 

"Father found it too cold," interrupted Mary impatiently. "He never

said more than that. Listen! Some one is coming at full gallop—some

two, I think," and she ran to the window and peered out into the night.

 

"It is the Protector," she said; "and I believe Admiral Blake is with

him. Let us go down-stairs." And they took Jane’s hands and went

together down the great stair-way. Lovelier women had never trod the

dark, splendid descent; and the soft wax-lights in the candelabra gave

to their youthful beauty a strange, dreamlike sense of unreal life and

movement. Mary and Frances were talking softly; Jane was thinking of

that closed room with its evil-prophesying dreams, and its lights put

out by unseen hands, and the mournful, superstitious King in his

captivity fearing the place, and feeling in it as Brutus felt when his

evil genius came to him in his tent and said, "I will meet thee again at

Philippi." Then in a moment there flashed across her mind a woeful

dream she had one night about Cluny. It had come to her in the height of

her hope and happiness, and she had put it resolutely from her. Now she

strove with all her soul to recollect it, but Frances would not be

still, and the dream slipped back below the threshold. She could have

cried. She had been on the point of saying, "Oh, do be quiet!" but the

soul’s illumination had been too short and too impalpable for her to

grasp.

 

The next moment they were in a brilliantly lighted room. Mr. and Mrs.

Claypole, and Mr. and Mrs. Richard Cromwell, and Doctor John Owen, and

Mr. Milton, and Doctor Verity were grouped around her Highness the

Protector’s handsome wife. And she was taking their homage as naturally

as she had been used to take attention in her simple home in Ely, being

more troubled about the proper serving of dinner than about her own

dignity. She sat at the Protector’s right hand, and Jane Swaffham sat

at his left.

 

"The great men must scatter themselves, Jane," he said; "my daughter

Dorothy Cromwell wants to be near Mr. Milton, and Lady Claypole will

have none but Doctor Owen, and one way or another, you will have to be

content with my company," and he laid her hand under his hand, and

smiled down into her face with a fatherly affection.

 

He was in an unusually happy mood, and Doctor Owen remarking it, Admiral

Blake said, "They had been mobbed—mobbed by women—and the Protector had

the best of it, and that was a thing to pleasure any man." Then Mrs.

Cromwell laughed and said,

 

"Your Highness must tell us all now, or we shall be very discontented.

Where were you, to meet a mob of women?"

 

"We were in London streets, somewhere near the waterside. Blake was

with me, and Blake is going to Portsmouth to take command of an

expedition."

 

"Where to?" asked Mrs. Claypole.

 

"Well, Elizabeth, that is precisely the question this mob of women

wanted me to answer. You are as bad as they were. But they had some

excuse."

 

"Pray what excuse, sir, that I have not?"

 

"They were the wives of the sailor men going with our Admiral on his

expedition. And they got all round me, they did indeed; and one

handsome woman with a little lad in her arms—she told me to look well at

him because he was called Oliver after me—took hold of my bridle, and

said, ’You won’t trample me down, General, for the lad’s sake; and ’tis

but natural for us to want to know where you are sending our husbands.

Come, General, tell us wives and mothers where the ships are going to?’

And there was Robert Blake laughing and thinking it fine sport, but I

stood up in my stirrups and called out as loud as I could, ’Women, can

you be quiet for one minute?’ They said, ’Aye, to be sure we can, if

you’ll speak out, General.’ Then I said to them, ’You want to know

where the ships and your men are going. Listen to me! The Ambassadors

of France and Spain would, each of them, give a million pounds to know

that. Do you understand, women?’ And for a moment there was a dead

silence, then a shout of comprehension and laughter, and the woman at my

bridle lifted the boy Oliver to me, and I took him in my arms and kissed

the rosy little brat, and then another shout, and the mother said,

’General, you be right welcome to my share of the secret;’ ’and mine!’

’and mine!’ ’and mine!’ they all shouted, and the voices of those women

went to my heart and brain like wine, they did that. They made me glad;

I believe I shouted with them."

 

"I haven’t a doubt of it," said Doctor Verity. "Well, Robert, did they

have nothing to say to you?" he asked, turning to Admiral Blake.

 

"They asked me to treat my men well; and I said, ’I’ll treat them like

myself. I’ll give them plenty of meat and drink, and plenty of fighting

and prize money;’ and so to their good will we passed all through the

city, and, as I live, ’twas the pleasantest ’progress’ any mortal men

could desire."

 

Then Doctor Verity began to talk of the American Colonies, and their

wonderful growth. "John Maidstone is here," he said; "and with him that

godly minister, the Rev. Mr. Hooker. We have had much conversation

to-day, and surely God made the New World to comfort the woes of the old

one."

 

"You have expressed exactly, sir, the prophetic lines of the pagan poet,

Horace," answered Mr. Milton. And Cromwell looked at him and said,

"Repeat them for us, John; I doubt not but they are worthy, if it be so

that you remember them." Then Milton, in a clear and stately manner,

recited the six lines from Horace’s "Patriotic Lament" to which he had

referred—

 

"’Merciful gift of a relenting God,

Home of the homeless, preordained for you,

Last vestige of the age of gold,

Last refuge of the good and bold;

From stars malign, from plague and tempests free,

Far ’mid the Western waves, a secret Sanctuary.’"

 

And as Cromwell listened his face grew luminous; he seemed to look

through his eyeballs, rather than with them, and when Milton ceased

there was silence until he spoke.

 

"I see," he said, "a great people, a vast empire, from the loins of all

nations it shall spring. And there shall be no king there. But the

desire of all hearts shall be towards it, and it shall be a covert for

the oppressed, and bread and wine and meat for those ready to perish."

Then, sighing, he seemed to realise the near and the present, and he

added, "’Twas but yesterday I wrote to that good man, the Rev. John

Cotton of Boston. I have told him that I am truly ready to serve him

and the rest of the brethren, and the churches with him. And Doctor

Verity, I wish much to have some talk with Mr. Hooker. I have a purpose

to ask him to be my chaplain, if he be so minded, for his sermons first

taught me that I had a soul to save, and that I must transact that

business directly with God, and not through any church or clergy." And

when Cromwell made this statement, he little realised that Hooker,

founding a democracy in America, and he himself fighting for a free

Parliament and a constitutionally limited executive in England, were

"both of them of the same spirit and purpose"; and that the Hartford

minister and the Huntingdon gentleman were preeminently the leaders in

that great movement of the seventeenth century which made the United States, and is now transforming England.