The Lady of Blossholme. H. Rider Haggard

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СКАЧАТЬ Stower walked forward, rested one hand upon the oak table and answered—

      “Aye, evil tidings if they be true. Prepare your heart, my sweet.”

      “Quick with them, Emlyn,” gasped Cicely. “Who is dead? Christopher?”

      She shook her head, and Cicely sighed in relief, adding—

      “Who, then? Oh! was that dream true?”

      “Aye, dear; you are an orphan.”

      The girl’s head fell forward. Then she lifted it, and asked—

      “Who told you? Give me all the truth or I shall die.”

      “A friend of mine who has to do with the Abbey yonder; ask not his name.”

      “I know it, Emlyn; Thomas Bolle,” she whispered back.

      “A friend of mine,” repeated the tall, dark woman, “told me that Sir John Foterell, your sire, was murdered last night in the forest by a gang of armed men, of whom he slew two.”

      “From the Abbey?” queried Cicely in the same whisper.

      “Who knows? I think it. They say that the arrow in his throat was such as they make there. Jeffrey Stokes was hunted, but escaped on to some ship that had her anchor up.”

      “I’ll have his life for it, the coward!” exclaimed Cicely.

      “Blame him not yet. He met another friend of mine, and sent a message. It was that he did but obey his master’s last orders, and, as he had seen too much and to linger here was certain death, if he lived, he would return from over-seas with the papers when the times are safer. He prayed that you would not doubt him.”

      “The papers! What papers, Emlyn?”

      She shrugged her broad shoulders.

      “How should I know? Doubtless some that your father was taking to London and did not desire to lose. His iron chest stands open in his chamber.”

      Now poor Cicely remembered that her father had spoken of certain “deeds” which he must take with him, and began to sob.

      “Weep not, darling,” said her foster-mother, smoothing Cicely’s brown hair with her strong hand. “These things are decreed of God, and done with. Now you must look to yourself. Your father is gone, but one remains.”

      Cicely lifted her tear-stained face.

      “Yes, I have you,” she said.

      “Me!” she answered, with a quick smile. “Nay, of what use am I? Your nursing days are over. What did you tell me your father said to you before he rode—about Sir Christopher? Hush! there’s no time to talk; you must away to Cranwell Towers.”

      “Why?” asked Cicely. “He cannot bring my father back to life, and it would be thought strange indeed that at such a time I should visit a man in his own house. Send and tell him the tidings. I bide here to bury my father, and,” she added proudly, “to avenge him.”

      “If so, sweet, you bide here to be buried yourself in yonder Nunnery. Hark, I have not told you all my news. The Abbot Maldon claims the Blossholme lands under some trick of law. It was as to them that your father quarrelled with him the other night; and with the land goes your wardship, as once mine went under this monk’s charter. Before sunset the Abbot rides here with his men-at-arms to take them, and to set you for safe-keeping in the Nunnery, where you will find a husband called Holy Church.”

      “Name of God! is it so?” said Cicely, springing up; “and the most of the men are away! I cannot hold the Hall against that foreign Abbot and his hirelings, and an orphaned heiress is but a chattel to be sold. Oh! now I understand what my father meant. Order horses. I’ll off to Christopher. Yet, stay, Nurse. What will he do with me? It may seem shameless, and will vex him.”

      “I think he will marry you. I think to-night you will be a wife. If not, I’ll know the reason why,” she added viciously.

      “A wife! To-night!” exclaimed the girl, turning crimson to her hair. “And my father but just dead! How can it be?”

      “We’ll talk of that with Harflete. Mayhap, like you, he’ll wish to wait and ask the banns, or to lay the case before a London lawyer. Meanwhile, I have ordered horses and sent a message to the Abbot to say you come to learn the meaning of these rumours, which will keep him still till nightfall; and another to Cranwell Towers, that we may find food and lodging there. Quick, now, and get your cloak and hood. I have the jewels in their case, for Maldon seeks them more even than your lands, and with them all the money I can find. Also I have bid the sewing-girl make a pack of some garments. Come now, come, for that Abbot is hungry and will be stirring. There is no time for talk.”

      Three hours later in the red glow of the sunset Christopher Harflete, watching at his door, saw two women riding towards him across the snow, and knew them while they were yet far off.

      “It is true, then,” he said to Father Roger Necton, the old clergyman of Cranwell, whom he had summoned from the vicarage. “I thought that fool of a messenger must be drunk. What can have chanced, Father?”

      “Death, I think, my son, for sure naught else would bring the Lady Cicely here unaccompanied save by a waiting-woman. The question is—what will happen now?” and he glanced sideways at him.

      “I know well if I can get my way,” answered Christopher, with a merry laugh. “Say now, Father, if it should so be that this lady were willing, could you marry us?”

      “Without a doubt, my son, with the consent of the parents;” and again he looked at him.

      “And if there were no parents?”

      “Then with the consent of the guardian, the bride being under age.”

      “And if no guardian had been declared or admitted?”

      “Then such a marriage duly solemnized, being a sacrament of the Church, would hold fast until the crack of doom unless the Pope annulled it, and, as you know, the Pope is out of favour in this realm on this very matter of marriage. Let me explain the law to you, ecclesiastic and civil——”

      But Christopher was already running towards the gate, so the old parson’s lecture remained undelivered.

      The two met in the snow, Emlyn Stower riding on ahead and leaving them together.

      “What is it, sweetest?” he asked. “What is it?”

      “Oh! Christopher,” she answered, weeping, “my poor father is dead—murdered, or so says Emlyn.”

      “Murdered! By whom?”

      “By the Abbot of Blossholme’s soldiers—so says Emlyn, yonder in the forest last eve. And the Abbot is coming to Shefton to declare me his ward and thrust me into the Nunnery—that was Emlyn’s tale. And so, although it is a strange thing to do, having none to protect me, I have fled to you—because Emlyn said I ought.”

      “She is a wise woman, Emlyn,” broke in Christopher; СКАЧАТЬ