Meanwhile Angèle had gone through many phases of alternate hope and
despair. She knew that Montgomery the Camisard was dead, and a rumor,
carried by refugees, reached her that De la Forêt had been with him
to the end. To this was presently added the word that De la Forêt had
been beheaded. But one day she learned that the Comtesse de
Montgomery was sheltered by the governor, Sir Hugh Pawlett, her
kinsman, at Mont Orgueil Castle. Thither she went in fear from her
refuge at Rozel, and was admitted to the Comtesse. There she learned
the joyful truth that De la Forêt had not been slain, and was in
hiding on the coast of Normandy.
The long waiting was a sore trial, yet laughter was often upon her
lips henceforth. The peasants, the farmers and fishermen of Jersey,
at first--as they have ever been--little inclined towards strangers,
learned at last to look for her in the fields and upon the shore, and
laughed in response, they knew not why, to the quick smiling of her
eyes. She even learned to speak their unmusical but friendly
Norman-Jersey French. There were at least a half-dozen fishermen who,
for her, would have gone at night straight to the Witches’ Rock in
St. Clement’s Bay--and this was bravery unmatched.
It came to be known along the coast that “ma’m’selle” was waiting for
a lover fleeing from the French coast. This gave her fresh interest
in the eyes of the serfs and sailors and their women folk, who at
first were not inclined towards the Huguenot maiden, partly because
she was French, and partly because she was not a Catholic. But even
these, when they saw that she never talked religiously, that she was
fast learning to speak their own homely patois, and that in the
sickness of their children she was untiring in her kindness, forgave
the austerity of the gloomy-browed old man her father, who spoke to
them distantly, or never spoke at all; and her position was secure.
Then, upon the other hand, the gentry of the manors, seeing the
friendship grow between her and the Comtesse de Montgomery at Mont
Orgueil Castle, made courteous advances towards her father, and
towards herself through him.
She could scarce have counted the number of times she climbed the
great hill like a fortress at the lift of the little Bay of Rozel,
and from the Nez du Guet scanned the sea for a sail and the sky for
fair weather. When her eyes were not thus busy, they were searching
the lee of the hill-side round for yellow lilies, and the valley
below for the campion, the daffodil, and the thousand pretty ferns
growing in profusion there. Every night she looked out to see that
her signal-fire was lit upon the Nez du Guet, and she never went to
bed without taking one last look over the sea, in the restless,
inveterate hope which at once sustained her and devoured her.
But the longest waiting must end. It came on the evening of the very
day that the Seigneur of Rozel went to Angèle’s father and bluntly
told him he was ready to forego all Norman-Jersey prejudice against
the French and the Huguenot religion, and take Angèle to wife without
penny or estate.
In reply to the seigneur, Monsieur Aubert said that he was conscious
of an honor, and referred monsieur to his daughter, who must answer
for herself; but he must tell Monsieur of Rozel that monsieur’s
religion would, in his own sight, be a high bar to the union. To that
the seigneur said that no religion that he had could be a bar to
anything at all, and so long as the young lady could manage her
household, drive a good bargain with the craftsmen and hucksters, and
have the handsomest face and manners in the Channel Islands, he’d ask
no more; and she might pray for him and his salvation without let or
hindrance.
The seigneur found the young lady in a little retreat among the
rocks, called by the natives _La Chaire_. Here she sat sewing upon
some coarse linen for a poor fisherwoman’s babe when the seigneur
came near. She heard the scrunch of his heels upon the gravel, the
clank of his sword upon the rocks, and looked up with a flush, her
needle poised; for none should know of her presence in this place
save her father. When she saw who was her visitor, she rose. After
greeting and compliment, none too finely put, but more generous than
fitted with Jersey parsimony, the gentleman of Rozel came at once to
the point.
“My name is none too bad,” said he--“Raoul Lemprière, of the
Lemprières that have been here since Rollo ruled in Normandy. My
estate is none worse than any in the whole islands; I have more
horses and dogs than any gentleman of my acres; and I am more in
favor at court than De Carteret of St. Ouen’s. I am the Queen’s
butler, and I am the first that royal favor granted to set up three
dove-cotes, one by St. Aubin’s, one by St. Helier’s, and one at
Rozel; and--and,” he added, with a lumbering attempt at humor--“and,
on my oath, I’ll set up another dove-cote without my sovereign’s
favor, with your leave alone. By Our Lady, I do love that color in
yon cheek! Just such a color had my mother when she snatched from the
head of my cousin of Carteret’s milkmaid-wife the bonnet of a lady of
quality and bade her get to her heifers. God’s beauty! but ’tis a
color of red primroses in thy cheeks and blue campions in thine eyes.
Come, I warrant I can deepen that color”--he bowed low--“Madame of
Rozel, if it be not too soon!”
The girl listened to this cheerful and loquacious proposal and
courtship all in one, ending with the premature bestowal of a title,
in mingled anger, amusement, disdain, and apprehension. Her heart
fluttered, then stood still, then flew up in her throat, then grew
terribly hot and hurt her, so that she pressed her hand to her bosom
as though that might ease it. By the time he had finished, drawn
himself up, and struck his foot upon the ground in burly emphasis of
his devoted statements, the girl had sufficiently recovered to
answer him composedly, and with a little glint of demure humor in her
eyes. She loved another man; she did not care so much as a spark for
this happy, swearing, swashbuckling gentleman; yet she saw he had
meant to do her honor. He had treated her as courteously as was in
him to do; he chose her out from all the ladies of his acquaintance
to make her an honest offer of his hand--he had said nothing about
his heart; he would, should she marry him, throw her scraps of
good-humor, bearish tenderness, drink to her health among his
fellows, and respect and admire her--even exalt her almost to the
rank of a man in his own eyes; and he had the tolerance of the
open-hearted and open-handed man. All these things were as much a
compliment to her as though she were not a despised Huguenot, an
exiled lady of no fortune. She looked at him a moment with an almost
solemn intensity, so that he shifted his ground uneasily, but at once
smiled encouragingly, to relieve her embarrassment at the unexpected
honor done her. She had remained standing; now, as he made a step
towards her, she sank down upon the seat and waved him back
courteously.
“A moment, Monsieur of Rozel,” she ventured. “Did my father send you
to me?”
He inclined his head and smiled again.
“Did you say to him what you have said to me?” she asked, not quite
without a touch of malice.
“I left out about the color in the cheek,” he answered, with a smirk
at what he took to be the quickness of his wit.
“You kept your paint-pot for me,” she replied, softly.
“And the dove-cote, too,” he rejoined, bowing finely, and almost
carried off his feet by his own brilliance.
She became serious at once--so quickly that he was ill prepared for
it, and could do little but stare and pluck at the tassel of his
sword, embarrassed before this maiden, who changed as quickly as the
currents change under the brow of the Couperon Cliff, behind which
lay his manor-house of Rozel.
“I have visited at your manor, Monsieur of Rozel. I have seen the
state in which you live, your retainers, your men-at-arms, your
farming-folk, and your sailor-men. I know how your Queen receives
you; how your honor is as stable as your fief.”
He drew himself up again proudly. He could understand this speech.
“Your horses and your hounds I have seen,” she added, “your
men-servants and your maid-servants, your fields of corn, your
orchards, and your larder. I have sometimes broken the commandment
and coveted them and envied you.”
“Break the commandment again for the last time,” he cried, delighted
and boisterous. “Let us not waste words, lady. Let’s kiss and have it
over.”
Her eyes flashed. “I coveted them and envied you; but, then, I am but
a vain girl at times, and vanity is easier to me than humbleness.”
“Blood of man, but I cannot understand so various a creature!” he
broke in, again puzzled.
“There is a little chapel in the dell beside your manor, monsieur. If
you will go there, and get upon your knees, and pray till the candles
no more burn and the Popish images crumble in their places, you will
yet never understand myself or any woman.”
“There’s no question of Popish images between us,” he answered,
vainly trying for foothold. “Pray as you please, and I’ll see no harm
comes to the Mistress of Rozel.”
He was out of his bearings and impatient. Religion to him was a dull
recreation invented chiefly for women.
She became plain enough now. “’Tis no images nor religion that stands
between us,” she answered, “though they might well do so. It is that
I do not love you, Monsieur of Rozel.”
His face, which had slowly clouded, suddenly cleared.
“Love! Love!” He laughed good-humoredly. “Love comes, I’m told, with
marriage. But we can do well enough without fugling on that pipe.
Come, come, dost think I’m not a proper man and a gentleman? Dost
think I’ll not use thee well and ‘fend thee, Huguenot though thou
art, ’gainst trouble or fret or any man’s persecutions--be he my lord
bishop, my lord chancellor, or King of France, or any other?”
She came a step closer to him, even as though she would lay a hand
upon his arm. “I believe that you would do all that in you lay,” she
answered, steadily. “Yours is a rough wooing, but it is honest--”
“Rough! Rough!” he protested, for he thought he had behaved like some
Adonis. Was it not ten years only since he had been at court?
“Be assured, monsieur, that I know how to prize the man who speaks
after the light given him. I know that you are a brave and valorous
gentleman. I must thank you most truly and heartily, but, monsieur,
you and yours are not for me. Seek elsewhere, among your own people,
in your own religion and language and position, the Mistress of
Rozel.”
He was dumfounded. Now he comprehended the plain fact that he had
been declined.
“You send me packing!” he blurted out, getting red in the face.
“Ah, no! Say that is my misfortune that I cannot give myself the
great honor,” she said, in her tone a little disdainful dryness, a
little pity, a little feeling that here was a good friend lost.
“It’s not because of the French soldier that was with Montgomery at
Domfront?--I’ve heard that story. But he’s gone to heaven, and ’tis
vain crying for last year’s breath,” he said, with proud philosophy.
“He is not dead. And if he were,” she added, “do you think, monsieur,
that we should find it easier to cross the gulf between us?”
“Tut! tut! that bugbear love!” he said, shortly. “And so you’d lose a
good friend for a dead lover? I’ faith, I’d befriend thee well if
thou wert my wife, ma’m’selle.”
“It is hard for those who need friends to lose them,” she answered,
sadly.
The sorrow of her position crept in upon her and filled her eyes
with tears. She turned them to the sea--instinctively towards that
point on the shore where she thought it likely Michel might be--as
though by looking she might find comfort and support in this hard
hour.
Even as she gazed into the soft afternoon light she could see, far
over, a little sail standing out towards the Ecréhos. Not once in six
months might the coast of France be seen so clearly. One might almost
have noted people walking on the beach. This was no good token, for
when that coast may be seen with great distinctness a storm follows
hard after. The girl knew this, and, though she could not know that
this was Michel de la Forêt’s boat, the possibility fixed itself in
her mind. She quickly scanned the horizon. Yes, there in the
northwest was gathering a dark-blue haze, hanging like small, filmy
curtains in the sky.
The Seigneur of Rozel presently broke the silence so awkward for him.
He had seen the tears in her eyes, and, though he could not guess the
cause, he vaguely thought it might be due to his announcement that
she had lost a friend. He was magnanimous at once, and he meant what
he said, and would stand by it through thick and thin.
“Well, well, I’ll be thy everlasting friend if not thy husband,” he
said, with ornate generosity. “Cheer thy heart, lady.”
With a sudden impulse she seized his hand and kissed it, and,
turning, ran swiftly down the rocks towards her home.
He stood and looked after her, then, dumfounded, at the hand she had
kissed.
“Blood of my heart!” he said, and shook his head in utter amazement.
Then he turned and looked out upon the Channel. He saw the little
boat Angèle had descried making from France. Glancing at the sky,
“What fools come there!” he said, anxiously.
They were Michel de la Forêt and Buonespoir the pirate, in a
black-bellied cutter with red sails.