A sound of heavy steps disturbed her meditations. She stood up from
her map, blinked down the tears that tried to rise, and turned to
face new fortune.
"Here is our enemy," she said to herself, and she forced back the
confident color to her cheeks, the confident light to her eyes. The
door from the park opened, and John Thoroughgood entered the room,
holding by the hand a man in the staid habit of a Puritan soldier,
whose eyes were muffled by a folded scarf of silk. Blindfolded though
he was, the Puritan followed his guide with a steady and resolute
step.
"Halt!" cried Thoroughgood. The stranger stood quietly as if on
parade, while Thoroughgood saluted his mistress.
"Unhood your hawk," Brilliana ordered. Thoroughgood, obedient,
unpicked the knot of the handkerchief, revealing his companion's
face. Brilliana observed with a hostile curiosity a tallish,
well-set, comely man of about thirty years of age, whose smooth,
well-featured face asserted high breeding and a gravity which
deepened into melancholy in the dark expressive eyes and lightened
into lines of humor about the fine, firm mouth. For a moment, with
the removal of the muffle, he seemed dazzled by the change from dark
to light; then, as command of his vision returned, he observed
Brilliana and made her a courteous salutation which she returned
coldly. She made a gesture of dismissal to Thoroughgood, who went
out, and the Lady of Loyalty was left alone with her enemy.
There was a moment's silence as the pair faced each other, the man
quietly discreet, the woman openly scornful. She was under the same
roof with a rebel in arms, and the thought sickened her. She broke
the silence.
"You petitioned to see me." With the sound of her voice she found new
vehemence, new indignation. "Do your rebels offer unconditional
surrender?"
The circumstances of the astonishing question brought for the moment
a slight smile to the grave face of the Parliament man.
"It was scarcely with that thought," he answered, "that I sought for
a parley."
Though the man's smile had been short-lived, Brilliana had seen it
and loathed him for it. Though the man's manner was suave, it seemed
to wear the suavity of success and she loathed him for that, too.
"We waste time," she cried, impatiently, "with any other business
than your swift submission."
Then as she saw him make an amiably protesting gesture she raged at
him with a rising voice.
"Oh, if you knew how hard it is for me to stand in the same room with
a renegade traitor you would, if such as you remember courtesy, be
brief in your errand."
The man showed no consciousness of the insult in her words and in her
manner save than by a courteous inclination of the head and a few
words of quiet speech.
"Much may be pardoned to so brave a lady."
Brilliana struck her hand angrily upon the table once and again.
"For God's sake do not praise me!" she almost screamed, "or I shall
hate myself. Your errand, your errand, your errand!"
The enemy was provokingly imperturbable.
"You have a high spirit," he said, "that must compel admiration from
all. That is why I would persuade you to wisdom. I came hither from
Cambridge by order of Colonel Cromwell."
Brilliana's lips tightened at the sound of the name which the envoy
pronounced with so much reverence.
"The rebel member for Cambridge," she sneered--"the mutinous brewer.
Are you a vassal of the man of beer?"
There was a quiet note of protest in the reply of the envoy.
"Colonel Cromwell is not a brewer, though he would be no worse a man
if he were. I am honored in his friendship, in his service. He is a
great man and a great Englishman."
"And what," Brilliana asked, "has this great man to do with Harby
that he sends you here?"
"He sends me here," the Puritan answered, "to haul down your flag."
"That you shall never do," Brilliana answered, steadily, "while there
is a living soul in Harby."
The Puritan protested with appealing hands.
"You are in the last straits for lack of food, for lack of fuel, for
lack of powder."
Brilliana made a passionate gesture of denial.
"You are as ignorant as insolent," she asserted. "Loyalty House lacks
neither provisions nor munitions of war."
There was a kind of respectful pity in the stranger's face as he
watched the wild, bright girl and hearkened to the vain, brave words.
"Nay, now--" he began, out of the consciousness of his own truer
knowledge, but what he would have said was furiously interrupted by a
volume of strange sounds from the adjoining banqueting-hall. There
was a rattle and clink as of many pewter mugs banged lustily upon an
oaken table; there was a shrill explosion of laughter, the work of
many merry voices; there was the grinding noise of heavy chairs
pushed back across the floor for the greater ease of their occupants;
there was a tapping as of pipe-bowls on the board, and then over all
the mingled din rose a voice, which Brilliana knew for the voice of
Halfman, ringing out a resonant appeal.
"The King's health, friends, to begin with."
All the noises that had died down to allow Halfman a hearing began
again with fresh vigor. It was obvious to the most unsophisticated
listener that here was the fag end of a feast and the moment for the
genial giving of toasts. Many voices swelled a loyal chorus of "The
King, the King!" and had the great doors of the banqueting-hall been
no other than bright glass it would have been scarce easier for the
man and woman in the great hall to realize what was happening, the
revellers rising to their feet, the drinking-vessels lifted high in
air with loyal vociferations, and then the silence, eloquent of
tilted mugs and the running of welcome liquor down the channels of
thirsty throats. This silence was broken by some one calling for a
song, to which call he who had proposed the King's health answered
instantly and with evident satisfaction. His rich if somewhat rough
voice came booming through the partitions, carolling a ballad to
which the Puritan listened with a perfectly unmoved countenance,
while the Lady Brilliana's eager face expressed every signal of the
liveliest delight.
This was the song that came across the threshold:
"What creature's this with his short hairs,
His little band and huge long ears,
That this new faith hath founded?
The Puritans were never such,
The saints themselves had ne'er so much,
Oh, such a knave's a Roundhead."
A yell of pleasure followed this verse, and a tuneless chorus
thundered the refrain, "Oh, such a knave's a Roundhead," with the
most evident relish for the sentiments of the song. Brilliana looked
with some impatience at the unruffled face of her adversary, and
when the immediate clamor dwindled she addressed him, sarcastically:
"These revellers," she said, "would not seem to be at the last
extremity. But their festival must not deafen our conference."
She advanced to the door of the banqueting-room and struck against it
with her hand. On the instant silence she opened the door a little
way and spoke through softly, as if gently chiding those within.
"Be merry more gently, friends. Sure, I cannot hear the gentleman
speak. Though," she added, reflectively, as she closed the door and
returned again to the table she had quitted--"though God knows he
talks big enough."
The Puritan clapped his palms together as if in applause, an action
that somewhat amazed her in him, while a kindly humor kindled in his
eyes.
"Bravely staged, bravely played," he admitted, while he shook his
head. "But it will not serve your turn, for it may not deceive me. I
had a message this morning from my Lord Essex. There has been hot
fighting; Heaven has given us the victory; the King's cause is
wellnigh lost at the first push."
Brilliana felt her heart drumming against her stays, but she turned
a defiant face on the news-monger.
"I do not believe you," she answered. "The King's cause will always
win."
The soldier took no notice of her denial; he felt too sure of his
fact to hold other than pity for the leaguered lady. He quietly
added:
"My Lord Essex advises me further that reinforcements are marching to
me well equipped with artillery against which even these gallant
walls are worthless. Be warned, be wise. You cannot hope to hold out
longer. For pity's sake, yield to the Parliament."
Brilliana waved his pleas away with a dainty, impatient flourish.
"You chatter republican vainly. I have store of powder. I will blow
this old hall heaven high when I can no longer hold it for the King."
Her visitor looked at her sadly, made as if to speak, paused, and
then appeared to force himself to reluctant utterance.
"Lady," he said, slowly, "though we be opponents, we share the same
blood. Let a kinsman entreat you to reason."
If the civil-spoken stranger had struck her in the face with his
glove Brilliana could not have been more astonished or angered. She
moved a little nearer to him, interrogation in her shining eyes and
on her angry cheeks.
"Are you mad?" she gasped. "How could such a thing as you be my
kinsman?"
She had taunted him again and again during their brief interview and
he had shown no sign of displeasure. He showed no sign of displeasure
now, answering her with simple dignity.
"Very simply. A lady of your race, your grandsire's sister, married a
poor gentleman of my name and was my father's mother."
Brilliana drew back a little as if she had indeed received a blow.
Involuntarily, she put up her hand to her eyes as if to shut out the
sight of this importunate fellow.
"I have heard something of that tale," she whispered, "but dimly, for
we in Harby do not care to speak of it. When my grandsire's sister
shamed her family by wedding with a Puritan her people blotted her
from their memory. You will not find her picture on the walls of
Harby."
"The loss is Harby's," the soldier answered, "for I believe she was
as fair as she was good. She married an honest gentleman named Cloud,
whose honesty compelled him to profess the faith he believed in. My
name is Evander Cloud."
He waited for a moment as if he expected her to speak, but she
uttered no word, only faced him rigidly with hatred in her gaze.
Seeing her silent, he resumed:
"It was this sad kinship pushed me to a parley wherein, perhaps, I
have something strained my strict duty. But the voice of our common
blood cried out in me to urge you to reason. You have done all that
woman, all that man could do. Yield now, while I can still offer you
terms, and your garrison shall march out with all the honors of war,
drums beating, matches burning, colors flying."
He was very earnest in his appeal, and Brilliana heard him to the end
in silence, with her clinched hands pressed against her bosom. Then
she turned fiercely upon him and her voice was bitter.
"Sir," she cried, "if I hated you before for a detested rebel, think
how I hate you now, if you be, even in so base a way, my kinsman."
She turned away from him, lifting her clasped hands as if in
supplication.
"Oh, Heaven, to think that a disloyal, hypocritical, canting Puritan
could brag to my face that he carries one drop of our loyal blood in
his false heart."
She turned to him again with new fury.
"You are doubly a traitor now, and if you are wise you will keep out
of my power, for my heart aches with its hate of you. Go! Five
minutes left of your truce gives you just time to return to your
rebels. If you overlinger in our lines but one minute you are no
longer an envoy: you are an enemy and a spy and shall swing for it."
She reached out her hand to strike the bell upon the table, while
Evander Cloud, still impassive, paid a salutation to his unwilling
hostess and made a motion to depart. But on the instant both were
chilled into immobility by an amazing interruption. Brilliana's hand
never touched the bell; Evander's hand never found the handle of the
door. For between the beginning and the end of their action came a
sudden rattle of musketry, distant but deafening, followed on the
instant by a whirlwind of furious cries and noise.