Followed several happy years for Michel and Angele. The protection
of the Queen herself, the chaplaincy she had given De la Foret, the
friendship with the Governor of the island; and the boisterous tales
Lempriere had told of those days at Greenwich Palace quickened the
sympathy and held the interest of the people at large; while the simple
lives of the two won their way into the hearts of all, even, at last, to
that of De Carteret of St. Ouen’s. It was Angele herself who brought the
two Seigneurs together at her own good table; and it needed all her tact
on that occasion to prevent the ancient foes from drinking all the wine
in her cellar.
There was no parish in Jersey that did not know their goodness, but
mostly in the parishes of St. Martin’s and Rozel were their faithful
labours done. From all parts of the island people came to hear Michel
speak, though that was but seldom; and when he spoke he always wore the
sword the Queen had given him, and used the Book he had studied in her
palace. It was to their home that Buonespoir the pirate--faithful to
his promise to the Queen that he would harry English ships no more came
wounded, after an engagement with a French boat sent to capture him,
carried thither by Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. It was there he
died, after having drunk a bottle of St. Ouen’s muscadella, brought
secretly to him by his unchanging friend, Lempriere, so hastening the
end.
The Comtesse de Montgomery, who lived in a cottage near by, came
constantly to the little house on the hillside by Rozel Bay. She had
never loved her own children more than she did the brown-haired child
with the deep-blue eyes, which was the one pledge of the great happiness
of Michel and Angele.
Soon after this child was born, M. Aubert had been put to rest in St.
Martin’s churchyard, and there his tombstone might be seen so late as
a hundred years ago. So things went softly by for seven years, and then
Madame de Montgomery journeyed to England, on invitation of the Queen
and to better fortune, and Angele and De la Foret were left to their
quiet life in Jersey. Sometimes this quiet was broken by bitter news
from France, of fresh persecution, and fresh struggle on the part of the
Huguenots. Thereafter for hours, sometimes for days, De la Foret would
be lost in sorrowful and restless meditation; and then he fretted
against his peaceful calling and his uneventful life. But the gracious
hand of his wife and the eyes of his child led him back to cheerful ways
again.
Suddenly one day came the fearful news from England that the plague had
broken out, and that thousands were dying. The flight from London
was like the flight of the children of Israel into the desert. The
dead-carts filled with decaying bodies rattled through the foul streets,
to drop their horrid burdens into the great pit at Aldgate; the bells
of London tolled all day and all night for the passing of human souls.
Hundreds of homes, isolated because of a victim of the plague found
therein, became ghastly breeding-places of the disease, and then
silent, disgusting graves. If a man shivered in fear, or staggered from
weakness, or for very hunger turned sick, he was marked as a victim, and
despite his protests was huddled away with the real victims to die the
awful death. From every church, where clergy were left to pray, went up
the cry for salvation from “plague, pestilence, and famine.” Scores of
ships from Holland and from France lay in the Channel, not allowed to
touch the shores of England, nor permitted to return whence they came.
On the very day that news of this reached Jersey, came a messenger from
the Queen of England for Michel de la Foret to hasten to her Court
for that she had need of him, and it was a need which would bring him
honour. Even as the young officer who brought the letter handed it to
De la Foret in the little house on the hill-side above Rozel Bay, he was
taken suddenly ill, and fell at the Camisard’s feet.
De la Foret straightway raised him in his arms. He called to his wife,
but, bidding her not come near, he bore the doomed man away to the
lonely Ecrehos Rocks lying within sight of their own doorway. Suffering
no one to accompany him, he carried the sick man to the boat which had
brought the Queen’s messenger to Rozel Bay. The sailors of the vessel
fled, and alone De la Foret set sail for the Ecrehos.
There upon the black rocks the young man died, and Michel buried him in
the shore-bed of the Maitre Ile. Then, after two days--for he could bear
suspense no longer--he set sail for Jersey. Upon that journey there
is no need to dwell. Any that hath ever loved a woman and a child must
understand. A deep fear held him all the way, and when he stepped on
shore at Rozel Bay he was as one who had come from the grave, haggard
and old.
Hurrying up the hillside to his doorway, he called aloud to his wife, to
his child. Throwing open the door, he burst in. His dead child lay upon
a couch, and near by, sitting in a chair, with the sweat of the dying on
her brow, was Angele. As he dropped on his knee beside her, she smiled
and raised her hand as if to touch him, but the hand dropped and the
head fell forward on his breast. She was gone into a greater peace.
Once more Michel made a journey-alone--to the Ecrehos, and there, under
the ruins of the old Abbey of Val Richer, he buried the twain he had
loved. Not once in all the terrible hours had he shed a tear; not once
had his hand trembled; his face was like stone, and his eyes burned with
an unearthly light.
He did not pray beside the graves; but he knelt and kissed the earth
again and again. He had doffed his robes of peace, and now wore the
garb of a soldier, armed at all points fully. Rising from his knees, he
turned his face towards Jersey.
“Only mine! Only mine!” he said aloud in a dry, bitter voice.
In the whole island, only his loved ones had died of the plague. The
holiness and charity and love of Michel and Angele had ended so!
When once more he set forth upon the Channel, he turned his back on
Jersey and shaped his course towards France, having sent Elizabeth his
last excuses for declining a service which would have given him honour,
fame and regard. He was bent upon a higher duty.
Not long did he wait for the death he craved. Next year, in a Huguenot
sortie from Anvers, he was slain. He died with these words on his lips:
“Maintenant, Angele!”
In due time the island people forgot them both, but the Seigneur of
Rozel caused a stone to be set up on the highest point of land that
faces France, and on the stone were carved the names of Michel and
Angele. Having done much hard service for his country and for England’s
Queen, Lempriere at length hung up his sword and gave his years to
peace. From the Manor of Rozel he was wont to repair constantly to the
little white house, which remained as the two had left it,--his own by
order of the Queen,--and there, as time went on, he spent most of his
days. To the last he roared with laughter if ever the name of Buonespoir
was mentioned in his presence; he swaggered ever before the Royal Court
and De Carteret of St. Ouen’s; and he spoke proudly of his friendship
with the Duke’s Daughter, who had admired the cut of his jerkin at the
Court of Elizabeth. But in the house where Angele had lived he moved
about as though in the presence of a beloved sleeper he would not awake.
Michel and Angele had had their few years of exquisite life and love,
and had gone; Lempriere had longer measure of life and little love, and
who shall say which had more profit of breath and being? The generations
have passed away, and the Angel of Equity hath a smiling pity as she
scans the scales and the weighing of the Past.
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