ON BOARD THE "FRAMLINGHAM."
I am told by people who have been seasick that the sound of the waves
beating against the hull comes in time to be an intolerable torment.
But bad as this may be, it can be nothing in comparison with the pains
I suffered from the same cause, as I recovered my senses. My brain
seemed to be a cavern into which each moment, with a rhythmical
regularity which added the pangs of anticipation to those of reality,
the sea rushed, booming and thundering, jarring every nerve and
straining the walls to bursting, and making each moment of
consciousness a vivid agony. And this lasted long; how long I cannot
say. But it had subsided somewhat when I first opened my eyes, and
dully, not daring to move my head, looked up.
I was lying on my back. About a foot from my eyes were rough beams of
wood disclosed by a smoky yellow light, which flickered on the
knotholes and rude joists. The light swayed to and fro regularly; and
this adding to my pain, I closed my eyes with a moan. Then some one
came to me, and I heard voices which sounded a long way off, and
promptly fell again into a deep sleep, troubled still, but less
painfully, by the same rhythmical shocks, the same dull crashings in
my brain.
When I awoke again I had sense to know what caused this, and where I
was--in a berth on board ship. The noise which had so troubled me was
that of the waves beating against her forefoot. The beams so close to
my face formed the deck, the smoky light came from the ship's lantern
swinging on a hook. I tried to turn. Some one came again, and with
gentle hands arranged my pillow and presently began to feed me with a
spoon. When I had swallowed a few mouthfuls I gained strength to turn.
Who was this feeding me? The light was at her back and dazzled me.
For a short while I took her for Petronilla, my thoughts going back at
one bound to Coton, and skipping all that had happened since I left
home. But as I grew stronger I grew clearer, and recalling bit by bit
what had happened in the boat, I recognized Mistress Anne. I tried to
murmur thanks, but she laid a cool finger on my lips and shook her
head, smiling on me. "You must not talk," she murmured, "you are
getting well. Now go to sleep again."
I shut my eyes at once as a child might. Another interval of
unconsciousness, painless this time, followed, and again I awoke. I
was lying on my side now, and without moving could see the whole of
the tiny cabin. The lantern still hung and smoked. But the light was
steady now, and I heard no splashing without, nor the dull groaning
and creaking of the timbers within. There reigned a quiet which seemed
bliss to me; and I lay wrapped in it, my thoughts growing clearer and
clearer each moment.
On a sea-chest at the farther end of the cabin were sitting two people
engaged in talk. The one, a woman, I recognized immediately. The gray
eyes full of command, the handsome features, the reddish-brown hair
and gracious figure left me in no doubt, even for a moment, that I
looked on Mistress Bertram. The sharer of her seat was a tall, thin
man with a thoughtful face and dreamy, rather melancholy eyes. One of
her hands rested on his knee, and her lips as she talked were close to
his ear. A little aside, sitting on the lowest step of the ladder
which led to the deck, her head leaning against the timbers, and a
cloak about her, was Mistress Anne.
I tried to speak, and after more than one effort found my voice.
"Where am I?" I whispered. My head ached sadly, and I fancied, though
I was too languid to raise my hand to it, that it was bandaged. My
mind was so far clear that I remembered Master Clarence and his
pursuit and the fight in the boats, and knew that we ought to be on
our way to prison. Who, then, was the mild, comely gentleman whose
length of limb made the cabin seem smaller than it was? Not a jailer,
surely? Yet who else?
I could compass no more than a whisper, but faint as my voice was they
all heard me, and looked up. "Anne!" the elder lady cried sharply,
seeming by her tone to direct the other to attend to me. Yet was she
herself the first to rise, and come and lay her hand on my brow. "Ah!
the fever is gone!" she said, speaking apparently to the gentleman,
who kept his seat. "His head is quite cool. He will do well now, I am
sure. Do you know me?" she continued, leaning over me.
I looked up into her eyes, and read only kindness. "Yes," I muttered.
But the effort of looking was so painful that I closed my eyes again
with a sigh. Nevertheless, my memory of the events which had gone
before my illness grew clearer, and I fumbled feebly for something
which should have been at my side. "Where is--where is my sword?" I
made shift to whisper.
She laughed. "Show it to him, Anne," she said; "what a never-die it
is! There, Master Knight Errant, we did not forget to bring it off the
field, you see!"
"But how," I murmured, "how did you escape?" I saw that there was no
question of a prison. Her laugh was gay, her voice full of content.
"That is a long story," she answered kindly. "Are you well enough to
hear it? You think you are? Then take some of this first. You remember
that knave Philip striking you on the head with an oar as you got up?
No? Well, it was a cowardly stroke, but it stood him in little stead,
for we had drifted, in the excitement of the race, under the stern of
the ship which you remember seeing a little before. There were English
seamen on her; and when they saw three men in the act of boarding two
defenseless women, they stepped in, and threatened to send Clarence
and his crew to the bottom unless they sheered off."
"Ha!" I murmured. "Good!"
"And so we escaped. I prayed the captain to take us on board his ship,
the _Framlingham_, and he did so. More, putting into Leigh on his way
to the Nore, he took off my husband. There he stands, and when you are
better he shall thank you."
"Nay, he will thank you now," said the tall man, rising and stepping
to my berth with his head bent. He could not stand upright, so low was
the deck. "But for you," he continued, his earnestness showing in his
voice and eyes--the latter were almost too tender for a man's--"my
wife would be now lying in prison, her life in jeopardy, and her
property as good as gone. She has told me how bravely you rescued her
from that cur in Cheapside, and how your presence of mind baffled the
watch at the riverside. It is well, young gentleman. It is very well.
But these things call for other returns than words. When it lies in
her power my wife will make them; if not to-day, to-morrow, and if not
to-morrow, the day after."
I was very weak, and his words brought the tears to my eyes. "She has
saved my life already," I murmured.
"You foolish boy!" she cried, smiling down on me, her hand on her
husband's shoulder. "You got your head broken in my defense. It was a
great thing, was it not, that I did not leave you to die in the boat?
There, make haste and get well. You have talked enough now. Go to
sleep, or we shall have the fever back again."
"One thing first," I pleaded. "Tell me whither we are going."
"In a few hours we shall be at Dort in Holland," she answered. "But be
content. We will take care of you, and send you back if you will, or
you shall still come with us; as you please. Be content. Go to sleep
now and get strong. Presently, perhaps, we shall have need of your
help again."
They went and sat down then on their former seat and talked in
whispers, while Mistress Anne shook up my pillows, and laid a fresh
cool bandage on my head. I was too weak to speak my gratitude, but I
tried to look it and so fell asleep again, her hand in mine, and the
wondrous smile of those lustrous eyes the last impression of which I
was conscious.
A long dreamless sleep followed. When I awoke once more the light
still hung steady, but the peacefulness of night was gone. We lay in
the midst of turmoil. The scampering of feet over the deck above me,
the creaking of the windlass, the bumping and clattering of barrels
hoisted in or hoisted out, the harsh sound of voices raised in a
foreign tongue and in queer keys, sufficed as I grew wide-awake to
tell me we were in port.
But the cabin was empty, and I lay for some time gazing at its dreary
interior, and wondering what was to become of me. Presently an uneasy
fear crept into my mind. What if my companions had deserted me? Alone,
ill, and penniless in a foreign land, what should I do? This fear in
my sick state was so terrible that I struggled to get up, and with
reeling brain and nerveless hands did get out of my berth. But this
feat accomplished I found that I could not stand. Everything swam
before my eyes. I could not take a single step, but remained, clinging
helplessly to the edge of my berth, despair at my heart. I tried to
call out, but my voice rose little above a whisper, and the banging
and shrieking, the babel without went on endlessly. Oh, it was cruel!
cruel! They had left me!
I think my senses were leaving me too, when I felt an arm about my
waist, and found Mistress Anne by my side guiding me to the chest. I
sat down on it, the certainty of my helplessness and the sudden relief
of her presence bringing the tears to my eyes. She fanned me, and gave
me some restorative, chiding me the while for getting out of my berth.
"I thought that you had gone and left me," I muttered. I was as weak
as a child.
She said cheerily: "Did you leave us when we were in trouble? Of
course you did not. There, take some more of this. After all, it is
well you are up, for in a short time we must move you to the other
boat."
"The other boat?"
"Yes, we are at Dort, you know. And we are going by the Waal, a branch
of the Rhine, to Arnheim. But the boat is here, close to this one,
and, with help, I think you will be able to walk to it."
"I am sure I shall if you will give me your arm," I answered
gratefully.
"But you will not think again," she replied, "that we have deserted
you?"
"No," I said. "I will trust you always."
I wondered why a shadow crossed her face at that. But I had no time to
do more than wonder, for Master Bertram, coming down, brought our
sitting to an end. She bustled about to wrap me up, and somehow,
partly walking, partly carried, I was got on deck. There I sat down on
a bale to recover myself, and felt at once much the better for the
fresh, keen air, the clear sky and wintry sunshine which welcomed me
to a foreign land.
On the outer side of the vessel stretched a wide expanse of turbid
water, five or six times as wide as the Thames at London, and
foam-flecked here and there by the up-running tide. On the other side
was a wide and spacious quay, paved neatly with round stones, and
piled here and there with merchandise; but possessing, by virtue of
the lines of leafless elms which bordered it, a quaint air of
rusticity in the midst of bustle. The sober bearing of the sturdy
landsmen, going quietly about their business, accorded well with the
substantial comfort of the rows of tall, steep-roofed houses I saw
beyond the quay, and seemed only made more homely by the occasional
swagger and uncouth cry of some half-barbarous seaman, wandering
aimlessly about. Above the town rose the heavy square tower of a
church, a notable landmark where all around, land and water, lay so
low, where the horizon seemed so far, and the sky so wide and breezy.
"So you have made up your mind to come with us," said Master Bertram,
returning to my side--he had left me to make some arrangements. "You
understand that if you would prefer to go home I can secure your
tendance here by good, kindly people, and provide for your passage
back when you feel strong enough to cross. You understand that? And
that the choice is entirely your own? So which will you do?"
I changed color and felt I did. I shrunk, as being well and strong I
should not have shrunk, from losing sight of those three faces which I
had known for so short a time, yet which alone stood between myself
and loneliness. "I would rather come with you," I stammered. "But I
shall be a great burden to you now, I fear."
"It is not that," he replied, with hearty assurance in his voice. "A
week's rest and quiet will restore you to strength, and then the
burden will be on the other shoulder. It is for your own sake I give
you the choice, because our future is for the time uncertain. Very
uncertain," he repeated, his brow clouding over; "and to become our
companion may expose you to fresh dangers. We are refugees from
England; that you probably guess. Our plan was to go to France, where
are many of our friends, and where we could live safely until better
times. You know how that plan was frustrated. Here the Spaniards are
masters--Prince Philip's people; and if we are recognized, we shall be
arrested and sent back to England. Still, my wife and I must make the
best of it. The hue and cry will not follow us for some days, and
there is still a degree of independence in the cities of Holland which
may, since I have friends here, protect us for a time. Now you know
something of our position, my friend. You can make your choice with
your eyes open. Either way we shall not forget you."
"I will go on with you, if you please," I answered at once. "I, too,
cannot go home." And as I said this, Mistress Bertram also came up,
and I took her hand in mine--which looked, by the way, so strangely
thin I scarcely recognized it--and kissed it. "I will come with you,
madam, if you will let me," I said.
"Good!" she replied, her eyes sparkling. "I said you would! I do not
mind telling you now that I am glad of it. And if ever we return to
England, as God grant we may and soon, you shall not regret your
decision. Shall he, Richard?"
"If you say he shall not, my dear," he responded, smiling at her
enthusiasm, "I think I may answer for it he will not."
I was struck then, as I had been before, by a certain air of deference
which the husband assumed toward the wife. It did not surprise me, for
her bearing and manner, as well as such of her actions as I had seen,
stamped her as singularly self-reliant and independent for a woman;
and to these qualities, as much as to the rather dreamy character of
the husband, I was content to set down the peculiarity. I should add
that a rare and pretty tenderness constantly displayed on her part
toward him robbed it of any semblance of unseemliness.
They saw that the exertion of talking exhausted me, and so, with an
encouraging nod, left me to myself. A few minutes later a couple of
English sailors, belonging to the _Framlingham_, came up, and with
gentle strength transported me, under Mistress Anne's directions, to a
queer-looking wide-beamed boat which lay almost alongside. She was
more like a huge Thames barge than anything else, for she drew little
water, but had a great expanse of sail when all was set. There was a
large deck-house, gay with paint and as clean as it could be; and in a
compartment at one end of this--which seemed to be assigned to our
party--I was soon comfortably settled.
Exhausted as I was by the excitement of sitting up and being moved, I
knew little of what passed about me for the next two days, and
remember less. I slept and ate, and sometimes awoke to wonder where I
was. But the meals and the vague attempts at thought made scarcely
more impression on my mind than the sleep. Yet all the while I was
gaining strength rapidly, my youth and health standing me in good
stead. The wound in my head, which had caused great loss of blood,
healed all one way, as we say in Warwickshire; and about noon, on the
second day after leaving Dort, I was well enough to reach the deck
unassisted, and sit in the sunshine on a pile of rugs which Mistress
Anne, my constant nurse, had laid for me in a corner sheltered from
the wind.
* * * * *
Fortunately the weather was mild and warm, and the sunshine fell
brightly on the wide river and the wider plain of pasture which
stretched away on either side of the horizon, dotted, here and there
only, by a windmill, a farmhouse, the steeple of a church, the brown
sails of a barge, or at most broken by a low dike or a line of
sand-dunes. All was open, free; all was largeness, space, and
distance. I gazed astonished.
The husband and wife, who were pacing the deck forward, came to me. He
noticed the wondering looks I cast round. "This is new to you?" he
said smiling.
"Quite--quite new," I answered. "I never imagined anything so flat,
and yet in its way so beautiful."
"You do not know Lincolnshire?"
"No."
"Ah, that is my native county," he answered. "It is much like this.
But you are better, and you can talk again. Now I and my wife have
been discussing whether we shall tell you more about ourselves. And
since there is no time like the present I may say that we have decided
to trust you."
"All in all or not at all," Mistress Bertram added brightly.
I murmured my thanks.
"Then, first to tell you who we are. For myself I am plain Richard
Bertie of Lincolnshire, at your service. My wife is something more
than appears from this, or"--with a smile--"from her present not too
graceful dress. She is----"
"Stop, Richard! This is not sufficiently formal," my lady cried
prettily. "I have the honor to present to you, young gentleman," she
went on, laughing merrily and making a very grand courtesy before me,
"Katherine, Duchess of Suffolk."
I made shift to get to my feet, and bowed respectfully, but she forced
me to sit down again. "Enough of that," she said lightly, "until we go
back to England. Here and for the future we are Master Bertram and his
wife. And this young lady, my distant kinswoman, Anne Brandon, must
pass as Mistress Anne. You wonder how we came to be straying in the
streets alone and unattended when you found us?"
I did wonder, for the name of the gay and brilliant Duchess of
Suffolk was well known even to me, a country lad. Her former husband,
Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, had been not only the one trusted
and constant friend of King Henry the Eighth, but the king's
brother-in-law, his first wife having been Mary, Princess of England
and Queen Dowager of France. Late in his splendid and prosperous
career the Duke had married Katherine, the heiress of Lord Willoughby
de Eresby, and she it was who stood before me, still young and
handsome. After her husband's death she had made England ring with her
name, first by a love match with a Lincolnshire squire, and secondly
by her fearless and outspoken defense of the reformers. I did wonder
indeed how she had come to be wandering in the streets at daybreak, an
object of a chance passer's chivalry and pity.
"It is simple enough," she said dryly; "I am rich, I am a Protestant,
and I have an enemy. When I do not like a person I speak out. Do I
not, Richard?"
"You do indeed, my dear," he answered smiling.
"And once I spoke out to Bishop Gardiner. What! Do you know Stephen
Gardiner?"
For I had started at the name, after which I could scarcely have
concealed my knowledge if I would. So I answered simply, "Yes, I have
seen him." I was thinking how wonderful this was. These people had
been utter strangers to me until a day or two before, yet now we were
all looking out together from the deck of a Dutch boat on the low
Dutch landscape, united by one tie, the enmity of the same man.
"He is a man to be dreaded," the Duchess continued, her eyes resting
on her baby, which lay asleep on my bundle of rugs--and I guessed what
fear it was had tamed her pride to flight. "His power in England is
absolute. We learned that it was his purpose to arrest me, and
determined to leave England. But our very household was full of spies,
and though we chose a time when Clarence, our steward, whom we had
long suspected of being Gardiner's chief tool, was away, Philip, his
deputy, gained a clew to our design, and watched us. We gave him the
slip with difficulty, leaving our luggage, but he dogged and overtook
us, and the rest you know."
I bowed. As I gazed at her, my admiration, I know, shone in my eyes.
She looked, as she stood on the deck, an exile and fugitive, so gay,
so bright, so indomitable, that in herself she was at once a warranty
and an omen of better times. The breeze had heightened her color and
loosened here and there a tress of her auburn hair. No wonder Master
Bertie looked proudly on his Duchess.
Suddenly a thing I had clean forgotten flashed into my mind, and I
thrust my hand into my pocket. The action was so abrupt that it
attracted their attention, and when I pulled out a packet--two
packets--there were three pairs of eyes upon me. The seal dangled from
one missive. "What have you there?" the Duchess asked briskly, for she
was a woman, and curious. "Do you carry the deeds of your property
about with you?"
"No," I said, not unwilling to make a small sensation. "This touches
your Grace."
"Hush!" she cried, raising one imperious finger. "Transgressing
already? From this time forth I am Mistress Bertram, remember. But
come," she went on, eying the packet with the seal inquisitively, "how
does it touch me?"
I put it silently into her hands, and she opened it and read a few
lines, her husband peeping over her shoulder. As she read her brow
darkened, her eyes grew hard. Master Bertie's face changed with hers,
and they both peeped suddenly at me over the edge of the parchment,
suspicion and hostility in their glances. "How came you by this, young
sir?" he said slowly, after a long pause. "Have we escaped Peter to
fall into the hands of Paul?"
"No, no!" I cried hurriedly. I saw that I had made a greater sensation
than I had bargained for. I hastened to tell them how I had met with
Gardiner's servant at Stony Stratford, and how I had become possessed
of his credentials. They laughed of course--indeed they laughed so
loudly that the placid Dutchmen, standing aft with their hands in
their breeches-pockets, stared open-mouthed at us, and the kindred
cattle on the bank looked mildly up from the knee-deep grass.
"And what was the other packet?" the Duchess asked presently. "Is that
it in your hand?"
"Yes," I answered, holding it up with some reluctance. "It seems to be
a letter addressed to Mistress Clarence."
"Clarence!" she cried. "Clarence!" arresting the hand she was
extending. "What! Here is our friend again then. What is in it? You
have opened it?"
"No."
"You have not? Then quick, open it!" she exclaimed. "This too touches
us, I will bet a penny. Let us see at once what it contains. Clarence
indeed! Perhaps we may have him on the hip yet, the arch-traitor!"
But I held the pocket-book back, though my cheeks reddened and I knew
I must seem foolish. They made certain that this letter was a
communication to some spy, probably to Clarence himself under cover of
a feminine address. Perhaps it was, but it bore a woman's name and it
was sealed; and foolish though I might be, I would not betray the
woman's secret.
"No, madam," I said confused, awkward, stammering, yet withholding it
with a secret obstinacy; "pardon me if I do not obey you--if I do not
let this be opened. It may be what you say," I added with an effort;
"but it may also contain an honest secret, and that a woman's."
"What do you say?" cried the Duchess; "here are scruples!" At that her
husband smiled, and I looked in despair from him to Mistress Anne.
Would she sympathize with my feelings? I found that she had turned her
back on us, and was gazing over the side. "Do you really mean,"
continued the Duchess, tapping her foot sharply on the deck, "that you
are not going to open that, you foolish boy?"
"I do--with your Grace's leave," I answered.
"Or without my Grace's leave! That is what you mean," she retorted
pettishly, a red spot in each cheek. "When people will not do what I
ask, it is always, Grace! Grace! Grace! But I know them now."
I dared not smile; and I would not look up, lest my heart should fail
me and I should give her her way.
"You foolish boy!" she again said, and sniffed. Then with a toss of
her head she went away, her husband following her obediently.
I feared that she was grievously offended, and I got up restlessly and
went across the deck to the rail on which Mistress Anne was leaning,
meaning to say something which should gain for me her sympathy,
perhaps her advice. But the words died on my lips, for as I approached
she turned her face abruptly toward me, and it was so white, so
haggard, so drawn, that I uttered a cry of alarm. "You are ill!" I
exclaimed. "Let me call the Duchess!"
She gripped my sleeve almost fiercely, "Hush!" she muttered. "Do
nothing of the kind. I am not well. It is the water. But it will pass
off, if you do not notice it. I hate to be noticed," she added, with
an angry shrug.
I was full of pity for her and reproached myself sorely. "What a
selfish brute I have been!" I said. "You have watched by me night
after night, and nursed me day after day, and I have scarcely thanked
you. And now you are ill yourself. It is my fault!"
She looked at me, a wan smile on her face. "A little, perhaps," she
answered faintly. "But it is chiefly the water. I shall be better
presently. About that letter--did you not come to speak to me about
it?"
"Never mind it now," I said anxiously. "Will you not lie down on the
rugs awhile? Let me give you my place," I pleaded.
"No, no!" she cried impatiently; and seeing I vexed her by my
importunity, I desisted. "The letter," she went on; "you will open it
by and by?"
"No," I said slowly, considering, to tell the truth, the strength of
my resolution, "I think I shall not."
"You will! you will!" she repeated, with a kind of scorn. "The Duchess
will ask you again, and you will give it to her. Of course you will!"
Her tone was strangely querulous, and her eyes continually flashed
keen, biting glances at me. But I thought only that she was ill and
excited, and I fancied it was best to humor her. "Well, perhaps I
shall," I said soothingly. "Possibly. It is hard to refuse her
anything. And yet I hope I may not. The girl--it may be a girl's
secret."
"Well?" she asked, interrupting me abruptly, her voice harsh and
unmusical. "What of her?" She laid her hand on her bosom as though to
still some secret pain. I looked at her, anxious and wondering, but
she had again averted her face. "What of her?" she repeated.
"Only that--I would not willingly hurt her!" I blurted out.
She did not answer. She stood a moment, then to my surprise she turned
away without a word, and merely commanding me by a gesture of the hand
not to follow, walked slowly away. I watched her cross the deck and
pass through the doorway into the deck-house. She did not once turn
her face, and my only fear was that she was ill; more seriously ill,
perhaps, than she had acknowledged.