IN HARBOR AT LAST.
"We must first help ourselves," Sir Anthony answered sharply; rousing
himself with wonderful energy from the prostration into which my story
had thrown him. "I will send after her. She shall be brought back. Ho!
Baldwin! Martin!" he cried loudly. "Send Baldwin hither! Be quick
there!"
Out of the ruck of servants in and about the hall, Baldwin came
rushing presently, wiping his lips as he approached. A single glance
at our faces sobered him. "Send Martin down to the mill!" Sir Anthony
ordered curtly. "Bid him tell my daughter if she be there to come
back. And do you saddle a couple of horses, and be ready to ride with
Master Francis to Watney's farm, and on to Stratford, if it be
necessary. Lose not a minute; my daughter is with Master Ferdinand. My
order is that she return."
The fool had come up only a pace or two behind the steward. "Do you
hear, Martin?" I added eagerly, turning to him. My thoughts, busy with
the misery which might befall her in their hands, maddened me. "You
will bring her back if you find her, mind you."
He did not answer, but his eyes glittered as they met mine, and I knew
that he understood. As he flitted silently across the court and
disappeared under the gateway, I knew that no hound could be more
sure, I knew that he would not leave the trail until he had found
Petronilla, though he had to follow her for many a mile. We might have
to pursue the fugitives to Stratford, but I felt sure that Martin's
lean figure and keen dark face would be there to meet us.
Us? No. Sir Anthony indeed said to me, "You will go of course?"
speaking as if only one answer were possible.
But it was not to be so. "No," I said, "you had better go, sir. Or
Baldwin can be trusted. He can take two or three of the grooms. They
should be armed," I added, in a lower tone.
My uncle looked hard at me, and then gave his assent, no longer
wondering why I did not go. Instead he bade Baldwin do as I had
suggested. In truth my heart was so hot with wrath and indignation
that I dared not follow, lest my father, in his stern, mocking way,
should refuse to let her go, and harm should happen between us. If I
were right in my suspicions, and he had capped his intrigue by
deliberately getting the girl I loved into his hands as a hostage,
either as a surety that I would share with him if I succeeded to the
estates, or as a means of extorting money from his brother, then I
dared not trust myself face to face with him. If I could have mounted
and ridden after my love, I could have borne it better. But the curse
seemed to cling to me still. My worst foe was one against whom I could
not lift my hand.
"But what," my uncle asked, his voice quavering, though his words
seemed intended to combat my fears, "what can he do, lad? She is his
niece."
"What?" I answered, with a shudder. "I do not know, but I fear
everything. If he should elude us and take her abroad with him--heaven
help her, sir! He will use her somehow to gain his ends--or kill her."
Sir Anthony wiped his brow with a trembling hand. "Baldwin will
overtake them," he said.
"Let us hope so," I answered. Alas, how far fell fruition short of
anticipation. This was my time of triumph! "You had better go in,
sir," I said presently, gaining a little mastery over myself. "I see
Sir Philip has returned; from settling his men for the night. He and
Greville will be wondering what has happened."
"And you?" he said.
"I cannot," I answered, shaking my head.
After he had gone I stood a while in the shadow on the far side of the
court, listening to the clatter of knives and dishes, the cheerful hum
of the servants as they called to one another, the hurrying footsteps
of the maids. A dog crept out, and licked my hand as it hung nerveless
by my side. Surely Martin or Baldwin would overtake them. Or if not,
it still was not so easy to take a girl abroad against her will.
But would that be his plan? He must have hiding-places in England to
which he might take her, telling her any wild story of her father's
death or flight, or even perhaps of her own danger if her whereabouts
were known. I had had experience of his daring, his cunning, his
plausibility. Had he not taken in all with whom he had come into
contact, except, by some strange fate, myself. To be sure Anne was not
altogether without feeling or conscience. But she was his--his
entirely, body and soul. Yes, if I could have followed, I could have
borne it better. It was this dreadful inaction which was killing me.
The bustle and voices of the servants, who were in high spirits, so
irritated me at last that I wandered away, going first to the dark,
silent gardens, where I walked up and down in a fever of doubt and
fear, much as I had done on the last evening I had spent at Coton.
Then a fancy seized me, and turning from the fish-pond I walked toward
the house. Crossing the moat I made for the church door and tried it.
It was unlocked. I went in. Here at least in the sacred place I should
find quietness; and unable to help myself in this terrible crisis,
might get help from One to whom my extremity was but an opportunity.
I walked up the aisle and, finding all in darkness, the moon at the
moment being obscured, felt my way as far as Sir Piers' flat monument,
and sat down upon it. I had been there scarcely a minute when a faint
sound, which seemed rather a sigh or an audible shudder than any
articulate word, came out of the darkness in front of me. My great
trouble had seemed to make superstitious fears for the time
impossible, but at this sound I started and trembled; and holding my
breath felt a cold shiver run down my back. Motionless I peered before
me, and yet could see nothing. All was gloom, the only distinguishable
feature being the east window.
What was that? A soft rustle as of ghostly garments moving in the
aisle was succeeded by another sigh which made me rise from my seat,
my hair stiffening. Then I saw the outline of the east window growing
brighter and brighter, and I knew that the moon was about to shine
clear of the clouds, and longed to turn and fly, yet did not dare to
move.
Suddenly the light fell on the altar steps and disclosed a kneeling
form which seemed to be partly turned toward me as though watching me.
The face I could not see--it was in shadow--and I stood transfixed,
gazing at the figure, half in superstitious terror and half in wonder;
until a voice I had not heard for years, and yet should have known
among a thousand, said softly, "Francis!"
"Who calls me?" I muttered hoarsely, knowing and yet disbelieving,
hoping and yet with a terrible fear at heart.
"It is I, Petronilla!" said the same voice gently. And then the form
rose and glided toward me through the moonlight. "It is I, Petronilla.
Do you not know me?" said my love again; and fell upon my breast.
* * * * *
She had been firmly resolved all the time not to quit her father, and
on the first opportunity had given the slip to her company, while the
horses were being saddled at Watney's farm. Stealing back through the
darkness she had found the house full of uproar, and apparently
occupied by strange troopers. Aghast and not knowing what to do, she
had bethought herself of the church and there taken refuge. On my
first entrance she was horribly alarmed. But as I walked up the
aisle, she recognized--so she has since told me a thousand times with
pride--my footstep, though it had long been a stranger to her ear, and
she had no thought at the moment of seeing me, or hearing the joyful
news I brought.
And so my story is told. For what passed then between Petronilla and
me lies between my wife and myself. And it is an old, old story, and
one which our children have no need to learn, for they have told it,
many of them for themselves, and their children are growing up to tell
it. I think in some odd corner of the house there may still be found a
very ancient swallow's nest, which young girls bring out and look at
tenderly; but for my sword-knot I fear it has been worn out these
thirty years. What matter, even though it was velvet of Genoa? He that
has the substance, lacks not the shadow.
I never saw my father again, nor learned accurately what passed at
Watney's farm after Petronilla was missed by her two companions. But
one man, whom I could ill spare, was also missing on that night, whose
fate is still something of a mystery. That was Martin Luther. I have
always believed that he fell in a desperate encounter with my father,
but no traces of the struggle, or his body were ever found. The track
between Watney's farm and Stratford, however, runs for a certain
distance by the river; and at some point on this road I think Martin
must have come up with the refugees, and failing either to find
Petronilla with them, or to get any satisfactory account of her, must
have flung himself on my father and been foiled and killed. The exact
truth I have said was never known, though Baldwin and I talked over it
again and again; and there were even some who said that a servant much
resembling Martin Luther was seen with my father in the Low Countries
not a month before his death. I put no credence in this, however,
having good reason to think that the poor fool--who was wiser in his
sane moments than most men--would never have left my service while the
breath remained in his body.
I have heard it said that blood washes out shame. My father was killed
in a skirmish in the Netherlands shortly before the peace of Chateau
Cambresis, and about three months after the events here related. I
have no doubt that he died as a brave man should; for he had that
virtue. He held no communication with me or with any at Coton End
later than that which I have here described; but would appear to have
entered the service of Cardinal Granvelle, the governor of the
Netherlands, for after his death word came to the Duchess of Suffolk
that Mistress Anne Cludde had entered a nunnery at Bruges under the
Cardinal's auspices. Doubtless she is long since dead.
And so are many others of whom I have spoken--Sir Anthony, the
Duchess, Master Bertie, and Master Lindstrom. For forty years have
passed since these things happened--years of peaceful, happy life,
which have gone by more swiftly, as it seems to me in the retrospect,
than the four years of my wanderings. The Lindstroms sought refuge in
England in the second year of the Queen, and settled in Lowestoft
under the Duchess of Suffolk's protection, and did well and flourished
as became them; nor indeed did they find, I trust, others ungrateful,
though I experienced some difficulty in inducing Sir Anthony to treat
the Dutch burgher as on an equality with himself. Lord Willoughby de
Eresby, the Peregrine to whom I stood godfather in St. Willibrod's
church at Wesel, is now a middle-aged man and my very good friend, the
affection which his mother felt for me having descended to him in full
measure. She was indeed such a woman as Her Majesty; large-hearted and
free-tongued, of masculine courage and a wonderful tenderness. And of
her husband what can I say save that he was a brave Christian--and in
peaceful times--a studious gentleman.
But it is not only in vacant seats and gray hairs that I trace the
progress of forty years. They have done for England almost all that
men hoped they might do in the first dawn of the reign. We have seen
great foes defeated, and strong friends gained. We have seen the
coinage amended, trade doubled, the Exchequer filled, the roads made
good, the poor provided for in a Christian manner, the Church grown
strong; all this in these years. We have seen Holland rise and Spain
decline, and well may say in the words of the old text, which my
grandfather set up over the hall door at Coton, "_Frustra, nisi
Dominus_."
THE END.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Story of Francis Cludde, by Stanley J. Weyman