Followed several happy years for Michel and Angèle. The protection of
the Queen herself, the chaplaincy she had given De la Forêt, the
friendship with the governor of the island, and the boisterous tales
Lemprière 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 Angèle 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
labors 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
Lemprière, so hastening the end.
The Comtesse de Montgomery, who lived in a cottage near by, came
constantly to the little house on the hill-side 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 Angèle.
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 Angèle and De la Forêt 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
Forêt 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 Forêt to hasten to her court, for that she had need of
him, and need which would bring him honor. Even as the young officer
who brought the letter handed it to De la Forêt 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 Forêt 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 Ecréhos 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 Forêt set sail for the
Ecréhos.
There, upon the black rocks, the young man died, and Michel buried
him in the shore-bed of the Maître Île. 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 hill-side 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 Angèle. 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 Ecréhos, 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 Angèle 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
honor, 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, Angèle!”
* * * * *
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
Angèle. Having done much hard service for his country and for
England’s Queen, Lemprière 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 Angèle had lived he moved about as though in the
presence of a beloved sleeper he would not awake.
* * * * *
Michel and Angèle had had their few years of exquisite life and love,
and had gone; Lemprière 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.