"Nay, fair Mistress, I am but too well lodged and served. For that honest butler, Pope, who, it seems, was servant once to one of the gentlemen of my household, Jermyn by name, has recognised me, and will not be denied but to kiss my hand in private, and himself to wait upon me in my room. I tell him that a serving man has no need to be served, but he cannot see the sense of that. I truly think he is staunch to the core, else I would be uneasy; for there is a great price upon this head.
Yet others have withstood the temptation to betray the secret, and methinks he will too."
"Oh, I would not fear for Pope," answered Jane eagerly, "he is a good and faithful servant. I am sorry--and yet I am glad that he should know; for now you will be served with the best that this house has to offer!"
"But we must have a care," laughed Charles, "there was a fellow sat beside me in the b.u.t.tery this morning, who was giving such an excellent account of the recent battle that I took him for one of Cromwell"s soldiers. But when I asked him he said no, he was in the King"s regiment; and I thought at first he spoke of Colonel King, but he meant me all the while! So then I asked him what kind of man the King was?
Whereat he replied, with a quick look into my face, that he wasn"t anything like me, for all my swarthy skin; that he was half-a-head taller for one thing, and forthwith gave so accurate a description of my dress, and horse, and weapons, that I got frightened at the fellow"s keen eyes, and got me away as soon as I could."
It was nervous work hearing tales like this, albeit Charles would laugh and make light of them. Too obvious a disguise would have provoked more suspicion than the one he was adopting, with soldiers and spies everywhere on the look-out for the fugitive Prince, whom so many already declared to be the King, and upon whose head so great a reward was placed.
"I marvel that each one who knows the secret doth not betray it, and make himself rich for life," quoth the young man many times, as he recounted his hairbreadth escapes. "What have we done that person after person, man and woman and gentle maiden"--and he bent his head before Jane with courtly grace--"should risk so much and lose so much in our poor service?"
"You are our King, sire," answered Jane simply; and that seemed to be answer enough.
Two days later Lord Wilmot came to her and asked speech. He had been hovering about them all the while, and lurking in the neighbourhood of Abbotsleigh watching and planning. Now he came to Jane, and spoke freely.
"Mistress," he said, "we still want your help for two more stages of the journey. Your pa.s.s will take us safely as far as Trent House in Gloucestershire, where dwells Colonel Wyndham, whom I have seen; and who will not only adventure life and estate in the King"s service, but will gladly lose them both to save him from peril. Once at his house, where there are some excellent hiding-places, we shall be near enough the coast to make, I trust, some speedy arrangement for the transit abroad.
But there are soldiers quartered in these parts, and we shall want your aid for the next stages. Will you give it to us, and be ready to start upon the morrow early?"
"Willingly, most willingly," answered Jane; "but bethink you, my lord, what can I say to the people here? My sister is very ill. She was taken last night with a fever, and now lies in a sorrowful state, and constantly desires my presence. There are her husband and several relatives to think of. What will they say if I incontinently depart?
Will not such conduct excite the very suspicion we most desire to avoid?"
Lord Wilmot at once recognised the difficulty of her position, but his quick wit suggested the remedy.
"Mistress Jane," he said, "supposing that at supper-time a note should be brought to you purporting to come from your mother, saying that your father is taken worse, and that she earnestly desires your return, would that enable you to leave this house upon the morrow without comment?"
Jane nodded her head. It was a time when men were put to all sorts of strange expedients and stratagems. She had grown up in the thick of them; and knew how gladly all her family would join in the plot that had the King"s welfare for its aim and object, though it was thought best to keep the matter as far as possible secret.
Her sister was not in peril of her life, and had other relatives with her. A summons from the aged father would weigh above all else; and when the soft-footed Pope brought her the letter as she sat at supper, and she read its contents half aloud, her flitting colour and fluttering breath seemed to bespeak just that amount of natural emotion a daughter was likely to feel.
"Bid William Jackson be ready to attend me on the morrow at daybreak,"
she said to Pope; and no one sought to stay or hinder.
So the brave young girl rode forth again with Charles in front as her servant. With calm courage she pa.s.sed her little party through the lines of the Parliamentary soldiers whenever it was necessary; with ready and dexterous wit, she answered all questions put to her; and on the evening of the second day from leaving Abbotsleigh, she had the joy of seeing Charles taken into the house of Colonel Wyndham, where it was thought he would lie safely hid till a vessel could be chartered to take him over to France.
"Sweet Mistress, how can I thank you for this good service?" asked Charles, as she saw him on the following morning for a few brief moments, ere she started forth for home once more--her task so bravely accomplished.
"My reward is with me now, knowing your Majesty in present safety," she answered; "the rest I shall receive when I hear of your safe arrival in France."
"Nevertheless, sweet Mistress Jane," he said, speaking very earnestly, "if the happy day should come when I return as King to this realm, where I have so many brave and loyal friends, I will not forget those who have aided me in this time of storm and stress and threatened peril!
Farewell; but something tells me that we shall meet again."
They did meet again. For the following year Jane was taken by her brother to Paris, and quite unexpectedly encountered Charles in some public place. He saw her instantly, and advancing, hat in hand, towards her, exclaimed:
"Welcome, my life!"
And since Charles II. has often been charged with ingrat.i.tude towards his friends, let it be said of him here that he showed a different spirit towards the Lanes upon his restoration to power. He settled upon Jane one thousand pounds for life, and half that amount upon her brother the Colonel; also to the girl he gave a beautiful gold watch, and a portrait of himself set round with pearls, which for generations (until, in fact, they were mysteriously stolen and never heard of again) were handed down as a precious family heirloom.
HELEN KOTTENNER
"To be a Queen, and a young Queen, and a widowed Queen in these stormy times, and in these stormy lands! Ah, Helen, Helen, that is indeed no light thing!"
"Indeed, madam, I know that it is not. I pray Heaven night and day for your Majesty, that strength and help may be given you!"
"Thanks, thanks, my faithful Helen. Sometimes I feel I have no one about me I can fully trust but thee. And oh, I have a load of care upon my head! I need a faithful and devoted servant, and where can I turn to find such an one?"
"Must that servant be a man, madam?" asked Helen. The sorrowful Queen turned her gaze upon the speaker, as though she understood the drift of the question.
"Ah, Helen, if we women were not such poor weak things!" she sighed, bowed down by the weight of her troubles. But, after all, woman as she was, the blood of kings ran in the veins of Elizabeth of Hungary, and after a long lingering sigh she lifted her head, and the light came into her eyes.
"Women are not always weak," spoke Helen, with a cautious glance in the direction of the Queen"s maidens at their tapestry work away at the other end of the great hall. But they were laughing and chattering amongst themselves, as girls will do, whatever be the century or the surroundings; and then the eyes of the Queen and her lady met, and Elizabeth paused and hesitated.
Helen Kottenner was the eldest and most trusted of her attendants, and was devoted to her and to the little four-year-old daughter, the Princess Elizabeth, called after her mother. Although little more than a girl in years, Helen"s life had been full of strange experiences and many sorrows; so that she seemed to the young Queen to be a tower of strength to her in her hour of perplexity and distress.
It was only a short while ago that her husband, King Albert, had died; and although the crown had been bestowed upon him in right of his Queen Elizabeth, yet so soon as she was left a widow, with only a little daughter, the haughty Magyars, or n.o.bles of Hungary, repudiated the idea of being ruled over by a woman, and were casting about already to find some husband for her, whom they could make up their minds to recognise as King, in place of him who was dead.
"Helen," said the Queen, "thou dost know what the n.o.bles are talking of.
Hast thou heard more than they tell me?"
"I have heard, madam, that a powerful party is in favour of sending an emba.s.sy to King Wladislas of Poland, offering him the crown, together with the hand of their widowed Queen!"
The young widow started to her feet in uncontrollable emotion, and then as quickly sank back again.
"I have heard it too; but without my consent, without a word to me! They talk, and talk, and plot, and seek to settle questions, to dispose of the crown and a Queen"s hand; and never so much as a word to her! "Tis infamous!--"tis infamous!"
"That would doubtless come later, madam," said Helen gently; "at present they are scarce united among themselves."
"Then long may they remain so disunited!" cried the Queen, with energy.
"It is time that I want, Helen,--time!--time! When the child that the good G.o.d is sending me is born, all may be different. I have prayed our Blessed Lady--ah, how I have prayed!--that she will send me a little son to reign in his father"s stead. Verily I believe that she will hear my prayer. And shall my boy"s birthright be given away before that happy day comes? Oh, the shame and injustice of it! I will not bear such a thing to be done. But how can it be stopped? Would it be enough were I to refuse, strenuously refuse, to have aught to say to such a marriage?"
Helen shook her head somewhat doubtfully.
"Madam, I fear, I greatly fear that it might not suffice. The wedding might, indeed, be postponed till your Majesty"s pleasure. But if the Magyars once make up their mind, they will bring Wladislas. .h.i.ther and crown him King with St. Stephen"s crown; and once so crowned nothing can change his right to rule, unless he grossly violate his coronation oath."
"I know it! I know it!" cried the young Queen, in keen distress; "if once that sacred circlet be placed upon his head, nothing can avail to change the thing that has been done!"
Queen and lady looked full into each other"s eyes. They both knew that these words were the truth. In all the kingdom there was nothing so sacred as that sacred crown. Once let it press the brows of any crowned Prince, and his right was unchangeable and inalienable.
"You see, madam," continued Helen gently, "that the rule of an infant would be well-nigh as irksome to the proud Magyars as that of a woman.
It may perchance be this very thing that is causing them to hasten to some decision. An infant Prince might be a hindrance. A party might gather--probably would gather--in his favour; and the land would be distracted by faction, and, it may be, become imperilled from outside adversaries such as Poland, Bohemia, or even the wily and cruel Turk.
Doubtless those who urge that the King of Poland be crowned King of this realm too, think they are doing a service to their country, and perhaps saving her from a b.l.o.o.d.y war."
"But are the rights of my child thus to be given away, ere we can claim them for him?" cried the Queen indignantly. "Oh, Helen, Helen, dost thou think this thing will be?"
"Indeed, madam, I fear it. All are not yet agreed; but every day there come over fresh adherents to the cause. I trow before long they will dispatch an emba.s.sy. But they will send first to know your Majesty"s pleasure!"