Between the topmost pair of carven angels a woman stood for a second
looking down upon the man below. She had come quite suddenly from a
door in the great gallery, and she paused for a moment on the topmost
stair to survey the stranger who had summoned her. The stranger for
his part stared up at the woman in an honest and immediate rapture.
He was not unused to comely women, seen afar or seen at close
quarters, but he felt very sure now that he had never seen a fair
woman before. He prided himself on a most unreverential spirit, but
his instant, most unfamiliar emotion was one of reverence. His
fantastic wit idealized wildly enough. "An angel among angels," he
exulted. "Ecce Rosa Mundi," his rusty scholarship trumpeted. His
brain was a tumult of passionate phrases from passionate play-books,
"Oh, thou art fairer than the evening air," overriding them all like
a fairy swan upon a fairy sea. There never was such a woman since the
world began; there never could be such a woman again till the world
should end. And while his mind whirled with his own ecstasies and the
ecstasies of dead players, the Lady Brilliana came slowly down the
great stairs.
If the light of her on his eyes dazzled him, if the riot in his mind
overprized her excellence, a saner man could scarce have failed to be
delighted with the girl's beauty, a wiser to have denied her visible
promises of merit. If better-balanced minds than the mind of Hercules
Halfman, striving to conjure up the image of their dreams, had looked
upon the face, upon the form, of Brilliana Harby, they might well
have been willing to let imagination rest and be contented with the
living flesh. Twenty sweet years of healthy country life had set
their seal of grace and color upon the child of the union of two
noble, sturdy stocks; all that was best of a brave dead man and a
fair dead woman was mirrored in the pride of her face, the candor of
her eyes, the courage of her mouth. Lost father and lost mother had
made a strange pair; all their excellences were summed and multiplied
in their bright child's being. A dozen gallant gentlemen of Oxford or
Warwickshire would have given their fortunes for the smallest
scissors-clipping of one sable curl, would have perilled their lives
for one kind smile of those blue eyes, would have bartered their
scanty chances of salvation for the first kiss of her fresh lips.
While she descended the stairs Halfman never took his eyes off the
lady. He found himself wishing he were a painter, that he might
perpetuate her graces through a few favored generations who might
behold and adore her dimly as he beheld and adored her clearly, in
her riding-dress of Lincoln green, whose voluminous superfluity she
held gathered to her girdle as she moved. No painter could have
scanned her more closely, noted more minutely the buckle of
brilliants that captured the plume in her hat, the lace about her
throat, the curious work upon her leather gauntlets, the firm foot in
the small, square shoe, the riding-whip with its pommel of gold which
she carried so commandingly. Lovely shadows trooped into his mind,
names that had been naught but names to him till now--Rosalind,
Camiola, Bianca. They had passed before him as so many smooth-faced
youths, carrying awkwardly and awry their woman's wear, and
lamentably uninspiring. Now he saw all these divine ladies take life
incarnate in this divine lady, and he marvelled which of the
loveliest of the rarely named company could have shone on her poet's
eyes so dazzlingly as this creature.
He stared in silence till she had reached the foot of the staircase,
still stared silent as she advanced towards him. There was nothing
disrespectful in his direct glance, but the steadfastness and the
silence stirred her challenge.
"Sir," she said, "when you asked to see me it was not, I hope, in the
thought to stare me out of countenance."
Halfman made her a sweeping salutation and found his voice with an
effort, but his words did not interpret the admiration of his eyes.
"I asked to see you," he answered, respectfully, "because I ride with
tidings that may touch you. I am newly from Cambridge."
Brilliana's eyes widened.
"What do you carry from Cambridge?" she asked; then swiftly added,
"But first, I pray you, be seated."
She pointed to a chair on one side of the great table, and to set him
the example seated herself at another. Halfman bowed and took his
appointed place, resting his hat upon his knees.
"Lady," he said, "there was at Cambridge a certain Parliament man who
plays at being a soldier, and though he should be no more than plain
master, those that would do him pleasure call him Captain or Colonel
Cromwell."
Brilliana frowned a little. "I have heard of the man," she said. "He
talks treason at Westminster; he is the King's enemy."
Halfman leaned a little nearer to her across the table and spoke with
a well-managed air of mystery.
"Captain Cromwell is not only the King's enemy; he is also the enemy
of the Lady Brilliana Harby."
Brilliana shook her dark head proudly, and Halfman thought that her
curls glanced like the arrows of Apollo.
"Any enemy of the King is an enemy to me, but not he, as I think,
more than another."
Halfman tapped the table impressively.
"There you are mistaken, lady," he said. "The man is very especially
and particularly your enemy. He has been very busy of late in
Cambridge raising train-bands, capturing college plate, and the like
naughtinesses, but he has not been so busy as not to hear how the
King's flag flies unchallenged from the walls of Harby."
"And shall fly there so long as I live," Brilliana interrupted,
hotly.
Halfman smiled approval of her heat, yet shook his head dubiously.
"It shall not fly long unchallenged," he continued. "That is my news.
Master Cromwell--may the devil fly away with his soldier's title--is
sending hither a company of sour-faced Puritans to bid you haul down
your flag."
Even as he spoke his heart glowed at the instant effect of his words
upon the woman. She sprang to her feet, with flaming cheeks and
blazing eyes, and struck her white hand upon the table.
"That flag flies," she cried, "for the honor of Harby. Whoever
challenges the honor of Harby will find it a very dragon, with teeth
and claws and a fiery breath."
Halfman sprang to his feet, too, and gave the gallant girl a military
salute. Every fibre of him now tingled with loyalty to the royal
quarrel; he was a King's man through and through, had been so for
sure from his cradle.
"Lady," he almost shouted, "you make a gallant warrior, and I will be
proud to serve you." Seeing the surprise in her eyes, he hurried on:
"Lady, I am an old soldier, an old sailor. I have seen hot service in
hot lands; have helped to take towns and helped to hold towns, and if
it be your pleasure, as it will be your prudence, to avail of my aid,
I will show you how we can maintain this place against an army."
Brilliana rested her hands on the table, and, leaning forward, looked
steadily into Halfman's face. He accepted the scrutiny steadily; he
was all in all her servant. She seemed to read so much.
"If your news be true," she said, "and if you do not overboast your
skill, why, I shall be very glad of your aid and counsel."
"Your hand on that, gallant captain," clamored Halfman, all aflame of
pride and pleasure. And across the oaken table the Lady of Harby and
the adventurer clasped hands in compact.