The White Rose of Langley Part 30

"She shall never be Nym's true wife!" cried the d.u.c.h.ess fierily. "I will not have it! I would sooner follow both her and him to the churchyard! I hate, I hate her!"

"Thou mayest yet do that following, Joan. But I must not tarry. Peace be with thee!"

Peace!--of what sort? We are told, indeed, of one who is like a strong man armed, and who keepeth his goods in peace. And the dead sleep peacefully enough--not only dead bodies, but dead souls.

The Earl and Countess of Kent had been about a week at Langley, when a letter arrived from the King, commanding the attendance of the Earl at Court, as feudal service for one of his estates held on that tenure.

The Countess was not invited to accompany him. The Duke of York seized his opportunity, for his plot was fully ripe, and suggested that she should obtain the royal permission to pay a visit to Windsor, where the hapless heirs of March were imprisoned. Permission to do so was asked and granted, for the King never suspected his cousin of any sinister intention.

The Earl set out first for Westminster. Constance stood at her lattice, and waved a loving farewell to him as he rode away, turning several times to catch another glimpse of her, and to bend his graceful head in yet another farewell. He had not quite recovered from the glamour of his enchantment.

"Farewell!" said the Princess at last, though her husband was far beyond hearing. "Hark, Maude, to the Priory bells--dost hear them? What say they to thee? I hear them say--'He will come--he will come--safely back again!'" And she sang the words in the tone of the chime.

Maude was silent. A dark, sudden presentiment seemed to seize upon her of unknown coming evil, and to her ear also the bells had a voice. But they rang--"He will come--he will come--never any more!"

The bells told the truth--to one of them.

The Duke of York escorted his sister to Windsor. She was accompanied by Bertram and Maude, Eva, and several minor domestics. He left her full directions how to proceed, promising to meet her with a guard of men a few miles beyond Eton, and go with her overland as far as Hereford. The final destination of Constance and her recaptured charges was to be her own home at Cardiff, but a rather roundabout way was to be taken to baffle the probable pursuers. York promised to let Kent know of the escapade through one of his squires on the morning of their departure from Windsor, with orders to join them as quickly as possible by sea from Bideford. At Cardiff the final stand was to be made, in favour of Richard, if living--of March, if he were proved to be dead. The evening of a saint's day, about ten days later, was selected for the attempted rescue; in the hope that the sentinels, having honoured the saint by extra feasting and potations, might be the less disposed to extra vigilance.

The first point to be ascertained was the exact rooms in the Castle occupied by the youthful captives. This was easily found out by Bertram. He and Maude were the sole confidants of their mistress's secret. The second scene of the drama--which might turn either to comedy or tragedy--was to obtain a mould of the lock in wax. This also was done by Bertram, who further achieved the third point--that of procuring false keys from a smith. Constance, whose ideas of truth were elastic and accommodating, had instructed her messenger to say that the keys had been lost, and the new ones were wanted to replace them; but Bertram kept a conscience which declined to be burdened with this falsehood, and accordingly he merely reported that the person who had sent him required duplicates of the keys.

No idea of wrongfulness in aiding the plot ever occurred either to Bertram or Maude. In their eyes King Henry was no king at all, but a rebel, a usurper, and a murderer; and the true King, to whom alone their fealty was due, was (if Richard were dead) the boy unjustly confined in Windsor Castle. To work his freedom, therefore, was not a bad deed, but a good one; nor could it fairly be called treachery to circ.u.mvent a traitor.

The keys were safely secreted in Constance's jewel-box until the night appointed for the rescue came.

It proved to be fair, but cloudy, with a low damp mist filling the vale of the Thames. Bertram took no one into his confidence but his own squire, William Maydeston, whom he posted in the forest, at a sufficient distance from the Castle, in charge of the four horses necessary to mount the party.

The Princess went to bed as usual--about eight o'clock, for she kept late hours for her time--with Maude and Eva in attendance. Both were dismissed; and Eva at least went peacefully to sleep, in happy ignorance of the kind of awakening which was in store for her. At half-past ten, an hour then esteemed in the middle of the night, Maude, according to instructions previously received, softly opened the door of her lady's bedchamber. She found her not only risen, but already fully equipped for her journey, and in a state of feverish excitement. She came out at once, and they joined Bertram, who was waiting in the corridor outside.

The little trio of plotters crept slowly down the stairs, and across the court-yard to the foot of the Beauchamp Tower, within which the children were confined. It was necessary to use the utmost caution, to avoid being heard by the sentinels. Bertram fitted the false key into the great iron lock of the outer door. The door opened, but with such a creak that Maude shuddered in terror lest the sentinels should hear it.

She was rea.s.sured by a peal of laughter which came from beyond the wall.

The sentinels were awake, but were making too much noise themselves to be easily roused to action. Then the party went silently up into the Beauchamp Tower, unlocked the door which they sought, and leaving Bertram outside it to give an alarm if necessary, Constance and Maude entered the first of the two rooms.

A white, frightened face was the first thing they saw. In the outer chamber, as the less valuable pair of prisoners, slept the sisters, Anne and Alianora Mortimer, whose ages were fifteen and eleven. Alianora, the younger, slept quietly; but Anne sat up, wide awake, and said in a tremulous voice which she tried in vain to render firm--

"What is it? Are you a spirit?"

Constance was by her side in a moment, and a.s.sured the girl at least of her humanity by taking Anne's face between her hands. She looked on it with deep interest; for this was the face that d.i.c.kon loved. A soft, gentle face it was, which would have been pretty if it had been less thin and wan with prison life, and less tired with suspense and care.

To her--

"The future was all dark, And the past a troubled sea, And Memory sat in her heart, Wailing where Hope should be."

For Anne Mortimer was one of those hapless girls who are not motherless, but what is far worse, unmothered. Her father, who lay in his b.l.o.o.d.y grave in Ireland, she had loved dearly; but her mother was a mere stranger somewhere in the world, who had never cared for her at all. To the younger ones Anne herself had been the virtual mother; they had been tended by her fostering care, but who save G.o.d had ever tended her?

Thus, from the time of her father's death, when she was eight years old, Anne's life had been a flowerless, up-hill road, with nothing to look forward to at the end. Was it any wonder that the face looked worn with care, though only fifteen years had pa.s.sed over it?

The sole breaks to the monotony of this weary life occurred when the Court was at Windsor. Then the poor little prisoners were permitted to come out of durance, and--still under strict surveillance--to join the royal party. These times were delightful to the younger three, but they would have been periods of unmixed pain to Anne, if it had not been for the presence and uniform kindness of one person. She shuddered within herself when the King or his Mentor the Archbishop addressed her, shrinking from both with the instinctive aversion of a song-bird to a serpent; but Richard of Conisborough spoke as no one else spoke to her-- so courteously, so gently, so kindly, that no room was left for fear.

No one had ever spoken so to this girl since her father died. And thus, without the faintest suspicion of his feelings towards her, the lonely maiden's imagination wove its sweet fancies around this hero of her dreams, and she began unconsciously to look forward to the time when she should meet him again. Well for her that it was so! for she was a "pale meek blossom" unsuited for rough blasts, and the only ray of sunshine which was ever to fall across her life lay in the love of Richard of Conisborough.

"Who is it?" Anne repeated, in a rather less frightened tone.

"Hast thou forgot me, Nannette?" said Constance affectionately. "I am the Lady Le Despenser--thine aunt now, the wife of thine uncle of Kent."

"Oh!" responded Anne, with a long-drawn sigh of relief. The tone said, "How delightful!"

"I thought you were a ghost."

"Well, so I am, but within the body," whispered Constance with a little laugh.

"That makes all the difference," said Anne, whose response did not go beyond a faint smile. "Has your Ladyship then won allowance to visit us?"

Her voice expressed some surprise, for certainly the middle of the night was a singular time for a visitor to choose for a call.

"Nay, sweet heart. I come without allowance--hush!--to bear you all away hence. Wake thy sister, and arise both, and busk [dress] you quickly. Where be thy brothers?"

"In the inner cowche," [bedroom].

Constance desired Maude to hasten the girls in dressing, which must be done by the fitful moonlight, as best it could, and went herself into the inner chamber. Both the boys were asleep. They were Edmund, the young Earl, whose age was nearly thirteen, and his little brother Roger, who was not yet eight. Constance laid her hand lightly on the shoulder of the future King.

"Nym!" she said. "Hush! make no bruit."

The boy was sleeping too heavily to be roused at once; but his little brother Roger awoke, and looked up with two very bright, intelligent eyes.

"Are we to be killed?" he wanted to know; but his query was not put in the frightened tone of his sister.

"Not so, little one. Wake thy brother, and rise quickly."

"'Tis no light gear to wake Nym," said little Roger. "You must shake him."

Constance put the advice in practice, but Edmund only gave a grunt and turned over.

"Nym!" said his little brother in a loud whisper. "Nym! wake up."

Edmund growled an inarticulate request to be "let be."

"Then you must pinch him," said little Roger. "Nip him well--be not afeard."

Constance, extremely amused, acted on this recommendation also. Edmund gave another growl.

"Nay, then you must needs slap him!" was the third piece of advice given.

Constance laughingly suggested that the child should do it for her.

Little Roger jumped up, boxed his brother's ears in a decided manner, and finally, burying his small hands in Edmund's light curly hair, gave him a dose of sensation which would have roused a dormouse.

"Is he in this wise every morrow?" asked Constance.

"Master Gaoler bringeth alway a wet mop," said little Roger confidentially. "Wake up, Nym! If thou fallest to sleep again, I must tweak thee by the nose!"

This terrible threat seemed to be nearly as effectual as the mop.

Edmund stretched himself lazily, and in very sleepy accents desired to know what his brother could possibly mean by such wanton cruelty.