Earl Hubert's Daughter Part 21

"Come in," said the porter, holding the wicket open. "Sir Piers will see thee. I told him, being sent of none, thou wert like to have no token."

The unknown visitor followed the porter in silence through the paved courtyard, up a flight of stone steps, and into a small chamber, hung with blue. Here, at a table covered with parchments, sat one of King Henry's ministers, Sir Piers de Rievaulx, son of the Bishop of Winchester, the worst living foe of Earl Hubert of Kent. He was on the younger side of middle age, and was only not quite so bad a man as the father from whom he inherited his dark gleaming eyes, lithe quick motions, intense prejudices, and profound artfulness of character.

"Christ save you! Come forward," said Sir Piers. "Shut the door, Oliver, and let none enter till I bid it.--Now, who art thou, and what wouldst thou with me?"

"I am Delecresse, son of Abraham of Norwich."

"Ha! A Jew, of course. Thy face matches thy name. Now, thy news?"

"Will my n.o.ble knight be pleased to tell his unworthy servant if he likes the taste of revenge?"

Delecresse despised himself for the words he used. A son of Israel to humble himself thus to one of the Goyim! But it was expedient that the "creeping thing" should be flattered and gratified, in order to induce him to act as a tool.

"Decidedly!" replied Sir Piers, looking fixedly at Delecresse.

"Your Honour hates Sir Hubert of Kent, or I am mistaken?"

"Ha, _pure foy_! Worse than I hate the Devil."

The Devil was very near to both at that moment.

"If I help you to be revenged on him, will you pay me by giving me my revenge on another?"

Delecresse had dropped alike his respectful words and subservient manner, and spoke up now, as man to man.

"'Turn about is fair play,' I suppose," said Sir Piers. "If thou seek not revenge on any friend of mine, I will."

"I seek it on Sir Richard de Clare, the young Earl of Gloucester."

"_He_ is no friend of mine!" said Sir Piers, between his teeth. "His father married the woman I wanted. I should rather enjoy it than otherwise."

"The Lady his mother yet lives."

"What is that to me? She is an old hag. What do I care for her now?"

Delecresse felt staggered for a moment. Bad as he was in one respect, he was capable of personal attachment as well as of hatred; and Sir Piers' delicate notions of love rather astonished him. But Sir Piers was very far from being the only man who was--or is--incapable of entertaining any others. Delecresse soon recovered himself. He was too anxious to get his work done, to quarrel with his tools. It was gratifying, too, to discover that Sir Piers was not a likely man to be troubled by any romantic scruples about breaking the heart of the young Margaret. Delecresse himself had been unpleasantly haunted by those, and had with some difficulty succeeded in crushing them down and turning the key on them. Belasez's pleading looks, and Margaret's bright, pretty face, persisted in recurring to his memory in a very provoking manner. Sir Piers was evidently the man who would help him to forget them.

"Well!--go on," said the Minister, when Delecresse hesitated.

"I have good reason to believe that Sir Richard is on the point of wedding the Damsel Margaret de Burgh; nay, I am not sure if they are not married clandestinely. Could not this be used as a handle to ruin both of them?"

The two pairs of eyes met, and a smile which was anything but angelic broke over the handsome countenance of Sir Piers.

"Not a bad idea for one so young," he remarked. "Is it thine own?"

"My own," answered Delecresse, shortly.

"I could make some use of thee in the Kings service."

"Thank you," said Delecresse, rather drily. "I do not wish to have _more_ to do with the Devil and his angels than I find necessary."

Sir Piers broke into a laugh. "Neat, that! I suppose I am one of the angels? But I am surprised to hear such a sentiment from a Jew."

Nothing is more inconsistent than sin. In his anxiety to gratify his revenge, Delecresse was enduring patiently at the hands of Sir Piers far worse insults than that over which he had so long brooded from Richard de Clare. He kept silence.

"It really is a pity," observed Sir Piers, complacently surveying Delecresse, "that such budding talent as thine should be cast away upon trade. Thou wouldst make far more money in secret service. It would be easy to change thy name. Keep thy descent quiet, and be ready to eat humble-pie for a short time. There is no saying to what thou mightest rise in this world."

"And the other?" Delecresse felt himself an unfledged cherub by the side of Sir Piers.

"Bah!" Sir Piers snapped his fingers. "What do such as we know about that? There is no other world. If there were, the chances are that both of us would find ourselves very uncomfortable there. We had better stay in this as long as we can."

"As you please, Sir Knight. I am not ready to sell my soul for gold."

"Only for revenge, eh? Well, that's not much better. There are a few scruples about thee, my promising lad, which thou wouldst find it necessary to sacrifice in the service. Some soft-hearted mother or sister, I imagine, hath instilled them into thee. Women are always after some mischief. I wish there were none."

What did Delecresse know of the momentary pang of sensation which had p.r.i.c.ked that hard, seared heart, as for one second memory brought before him the loving face of a little child, over whose fair head for thirty years the churchyard daisies had been blooming? Could he hear the tender, pleading voice of the baby sister, begging dear Piers not to hurt her pet kitten, and she would give him all the sweetmeats Aunt Theffania sent her? Such moments do come to the hardest hearts: and they usually leave them harder. Before Delecresse had found an answer, Sir Piers was himself again.

"Thou hast done me a service, boy: and I will take care that thy friend Sir Richard feels the goad as well as my beloved Earl Hubert. Take this piece of gold. Nay, it will not burn thee. 'Tis only earthly metal.

Thou wilt not? As thou list. The saints keep thee! Ah,--I forgot!

Thou dost not believe in the saints. Bah! no more do I. Only words, lad,--all words. Fare thee well."

A few minutes later Delecresse found himself in the street. He was conscious of a very peculiar and highly uncomfortable mixture of feelings, as if one part of his nature were purely angelic, and the other absolutely diabolical. He felt almost as if he had come direct from a personal interview with Satan, and his spirit had been soiled and degraded by the contact. Yet was he any better than Sir Piers, except in lack of experience and opportunity? He leaned over the parapet as he pa.s.sed, and watched the dark river flowing silently below.

"I wish I had not done it!" came in muttered accents from his lips at last. "I do almost, really, wish I had not done it!"

And then, as the reader knows, he went home and snubbed his sister.

Abraham could get nothing out of his son except some scornful plat.i.tudes concerning the "creeping creatures." Not a shred of information would Delecresse give. He was almost rude to his father--a very high crime in the eyes of a Jew: but it was because he was so intensely dissatisfied with himself.

"O my son, light of mine eyes, what hast thou done!" mournfully e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed old Abraham, as he resigned the attempt to influence or reason with Delecresse.

"Done?--made those vile Gentiles wince, I hope!" retorted Licorice. "I hate every man, woman, and child among them. I should like to bake them all in the oven!"

And she shut the door of that culinary locality with a bang. Belasez looked up with saddened eyes, and her mother noticed them.

"Abraham, son of Ursel," she said that night, when she supposed her daughter to be safely asleep in the inner chamber, "when dost thou mean to have this maiden wedded?"

"I do not know, wife. Would next week do?"

Next week was always Abraham's time for doing every thing.

"If thou wilt. The gear has all been ready long ago. There is only the feast to provide."

"Then I suppose I had better speak to Hamon," said Abraham, in the tone of a man who would have been thankful if allowed to let it alone. "It is time, I take it?"

"It is far past the time, husband," said Licorice. "That girl's heart, as I told thee, is gone after the creeping things. Didst thou not see the look in her eyes to-night? Like to like--blood to blood! It made mine boil to behold it."

"Forbid it, G.o.d of our fathers!" fervently e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Abraham.