CHAPTER XLIV.
The darker scenes of the early part of the reign of George I. had passed away, and, though there were troubles and contentions in many parts of Europe, and conspiracies and designs against the existing government in England, general tranquillity reigned in this island, and prosperity and happiness were following fast upon the steps of peace.
But I must lead the reader away from England to a small village in France, some eight or nine miles from the capital; a sufficient distance to retain all its rustic quietness, and yet near enough to allow the intelligence of the great world to penetrate before it had grown very stale. At the distance of half a mile from this village was placed a small French château, built in a little trim park on a rising ground. The château had nothing remarkable about it; it was just like all other châteaux at the same period; a congregation of oddly-shaped masses of building, with several little round towers, having conical slated roofs, like candles with extinguishers on their tops. It had a sunny and pleasant aspect, however, and an avenue of fine old walnut trees ran up to it from the high road.
In a small room in this château, very quietly furnished, sat a group of people, with some of whom the reader is already acquainted, enjoying a pleasant dessert of wild strawberries and light Burgundy wine. Perfect contentment was upon all their countenances, and harmony in all their hearts. One young man, indeed, was pale and grave, though serene in aspect.
But I must begin with those of whom the reader as yet knows little. They consisted of two elderly people and one young lady. The first was a fine dignified man, somewhat beyond the middle age, with hair very grey but with eyes still bright and keen. The second was a lady younger, but not by many years; and, though they were both advanced in life, as I have said, they continued to call each other by the names of early affection.
Passing from one part of the chain of life to another very distant, we must notice that bright-looking curly-headed boy, little more than two years old, seated on the knee of that very beautiful girl whom he calls "mother," in the good old Saxon tongue. It is Emmeline's boy, and I need not say who is that gentleman by her side. An old lady close by, now a little bowed with age, is the Dowager Countess of Eskdale.
But who are the two whom I have mentioned as rather beyond middle life? Emmeline calls them "father, mother;" and looks at them with love none the less because she was so long bereaved of their fostering care. The pale young man in a military dress, with signs of mourning, too, in his apparel, is Richard Newark, and that fat, round, rosy-pippin personage--Heaven! what a crowd of leaden figures rush upon the imagination as one looks at him!
"It is strange, Dick," said Lord Eskdale, "that you and good Van Noost should have arrived here this morning after we have not met for so long a time! Do you know, Emmeline," he continued, turning to his wife, "that this is the anniversary of the day on which I first set eyes on that dear face?"
"Do you think I can ever forget it, Henry?" she answered. "It is the first of my days of brightness. It is like a sweet song remembered in a happy dream."
"And how can I ever thank you, my dear Lord," continued her husband, addressing her father, "for giving me that commission to seek and regain for you your daughter, which has ended in bestowing such happiness on myself?"
"There are two things, my dear Harry, for which many sage friends have blamed me," replied Lord Newark, "which I can never regret, and of the wisdom of which even those who blamed me are now convinced; the one, my having trusted a young man, whom I knew to be the soul of real honour, with so delicate a task; the other, my having set at nought all ideas of imaginary dignity, and, as a merchant, having secured to my family that competence which I had lost by doing my duty as a soldier. I am proud of both these acts, and both have ended in happiness. Had my poor boys but lived to see this day, there would be little in the past even to bring one cloud of melancholy over my setting sun."
Richard Newark looked up in his face as he spoke, and asked--
"Would you never regret, my good Lord and cousin, having lost in the cause of a bad prince those fair lands in Devonshire, to which I am sure, if you feel like me, you must cling even in memory?"
"Not a whit, Dick," replied the old nobleman. "The favours of fortune, or, as some would call them better, the gifts of God, are loans, my dear boy, to be resumed when it is His pleasure; and--"
"Then I have borrowed them long enough," interrupted Richard Newark, in his abrupt way; "and it is high time they should be restored."
"No, no, Dick," said Lord Newark. "They are yours since your father's death. I have nought to do with them, and could not enjoy them even if you gave them up."
"They are not mine at all," replied the young man, "never have been mine, never have been my father's."
"But the forfeiture, the forfeiture!" exclaimed Lord Newark. "If they are not yours, whose are they?"
"Emmeline's," replied her cousin. "The forfeiture extended not to her. They were settled by deed upon your dear lady and her children, male and female, two years before the forfeiture. You lost them by drawing the sword against King William. She lost them, and your sons lost them, by accompanying you in the war and in your flight. You four are specially named in the act of attainder; and the lands fell to her at once as the next heir. The cunning lawyers, I believe, outwitted themselves by making the black and white parchment so particular; but the original act, always preserved by my father, was found by Van Noost when he went down to patch up an old monument in Aleton church by putting a leaden hand on a stone figure. I was always sure there was something of the kind, or my father would not have kept such a sharp watch upon Emmy. He was not a man to keep pet birds in a cage for the sole purpose of feeding them and hearing them sing. God rest his soul! He did it all for me; and so I must say no more."
Lord Eskdale looked to Emmeline, with a thoughtful enquiring glance; and she read his meaning in an instant.
"I will not take them, Dick," she said. "I cannot, will not, take them from you. Am I not right, Henry?"
"But you must, sweet lady," replied Richard. "With what is left, I have enough, and more than enough; so that you do not make me pay back all that has been unjustly taken. The lands were conveyed to my father by gift of the crown, saving the appearance of any nearer heir not named in the act of forfeiture. The lands are yours therefore, and ever have been yours. I will have nothing to do with them. I tell you, dear cousin, I have enough, and far more than enough, for a single man."
"But you may marry, Richard," said Emmeline. "You are very young to make vows of celibacy."
"Never, never, Emmy," he said. "I will not transmit to others an infirmity." And he laid his finger significantly upon his forehead.
A moment of grave silence succeeded; and then, looking at her father, Emmeline, said--
"Would that I could give them back to you, my father!"
"There is nothing to prevent you, Emmy," said Richard Newark. "Lord Stair tells me that your father can hop over the sea and perch upon Ale at once, if he will but promise to live peaceably under the government that exists. In a word, the attainder can be reversed in a moment upon such a promise. His not having joined in the last affair, where we all burnt our fingers more or less, has won him high favour."
Lord Newark bent down his head upon his hand, and fell into deep thought.
"But come, let us talk of other things," said Richard Newark, after pausing for an instant. "Business is dull work; and that is settled. There is only one thing you must promise me, Eskdale and Emmeline. When you are Lord and Lady of Ale Manor, you must let me have my little room up two pair of stairs when I come to see you; and old Mrs. Culpepper, when she is housekeeper again, must not make the maids throw what she used to call my rubbish into the fire."
Emmeline held out her hand to him kindly; and her husband assured him that he should be as free as air in any house of his.
"I have already made free with this house, at all events," replied Richard Newark; "for I have asked Colonel Churchill to come down here to-morrow. He wants much to see you again, Eskdale; and, I can tell you, you owe him something more than a dinner and a bottle of wine."
"He was exceedingly courteous to me when I was a prisoner," said the young Earl; "and I shall be very happy to see him."
"Ay, but you owe him more than that," answered Richard Newark.
"Let me tell him, let me tell him," cried Van Noost, who had sat marvellously silent after the allusion to the leaden hand upon the stone figure. "Let me tell him; for I first ferreted out the facts, and got Colonel Churchill to write them down for my Lord Stair. After he had received your surrender at Preston, my noble Lord, he went to visit that rascal, Tom Higham, on his death-bed, and from his own lips heard that the fellow had deceived you; that, bribed to lead you on into the rebellion, he had given your letter into the hands of the Colonel of Lord Stair's regiment, who tore it open, read it, and sent it back, bidding him tell you that Lord Stair was in Paris, and that if you would send a messenger to him, doubtless everything would be explained, as that noble Lord had never failed in his word; not one syllable of which the rascal told you."
"Heaven forgive him!" said Smeaton. "He did much harm."
The conversation proceeded in the same tone. But enough of it has been given for all the purposes of this book. Were I to paint another scene, it would be that of Christmas eve at Ale Manor House, where, round the wide fire-place of the great hall, might be seen the faces of the same persons as were seated round the table of that small château.
But the story is long enough; and the reader's fancy must supply the rest.