He was pondering this very question in the chill, bare walks of Jevery House when Jane's carriage stopped at its iron gates. She had been delayed and almost upset in Drury Lane by the deep mud, so that the noon hour was striking as Sir Thomas Jevery met and courteously walked with her to the entrance hall. Here there were a number of servants, and their chief ushered her into a stately cedar salon the walls of which were painted with the history of the Giants' war. But she hardly noticed these storied panels, for above the mantel there was a picture which immediately arrested her attention. It was a portrait of Oliver Cromwell, the rugged, powerful face standing out with terrible force amid the faces of Pym, Laud, Hampden, Strafford and Montrose. With the countenances of all but Montrose Jane was familiar, and she regarded this unknown face with the most intense interest. It was one not to be ignored, and having been seen, never to be forgotten—a face on the verge of being ugly, and yet so proudly passionate, so true, so strong that it left on Jane's mind the assurance of a soul worthy of honour.
She was standing gazing at it and quite oblivious of the Florentine curtains, the Venetian crystal, and French porcelain, when Delia came hurriedly into the room with an exclamation of delight. "Oh, Miss Swaffham! Oh, Miss Jane!" she cried. "My lady is impatient to see you. Will you kindly come to her room? She has been ill, oh, very ill! and you were always the one she called for!" So saying, she led Jane up a magnificent stairway lined with portraits, mostly by Holbein and Vandyke, and they soon reached Matilda's apartment. As the door opened she rose and stretched out her arms.
"Baggage!" she cried with a weak, hysterical laugh. "You dear little baggage! You best, truest heart! How glad I am to see you!"
And Jane took her in her arms, and both girls cried a little before they could speak. Matilda was so weak, and Jane so shocked to see the change in her friend's appearance, that for a few moments tears were the only possible speech. At length Jane said:
"You have been ill, and you never sent for me. I would have stayed by you night and day. I would have been mother and sister both. Oh, indeed, my mother would have come to you, without doubt! Why did you not let us know?"
"I have only been in London three days. I was ill at de Wick. I became unconscious at my father's burial. We had heard that day that Stephen had been shot while trying to reach the coast. It was the last thing I could bear."
"But I assure you Stephen is at The Hague. Doctor Verity said so, and he said it not without knowledge."
"I know now that it was a false report, but at the time I believed it true. My father was lying waiting for burial, so was Father Sacy, and Lord Hillier's chaplain came over to read the service. It was read at midnight in the old chapel at de Wick. We did not wish any trouble at the last, and we had been told the service would be forbidden; so we had the funeral when our enemies were asleep. You know the old chapel, Jane, where all the de Wicks are buried?"
"Yes, dear; a mournful, desolate place."
"A place of graves, but it felt as if it was crowded that midnight. I'll swear that there were more present than we had knowledge of. The lanterns made a dim light round the crumbling altar, and I could just see the two open graves before it. Father Olney wept as he read the service; we all wept, as the bodies were laid in their graves; and then our old lawyer, William Studley, put into Father Olney's hands the de Wick coat of arms, and he broke it in pieces and cast the fragments on my father's coffin; for we all believed that the last male de Wick was dead. And when I heard the broken arms fall on the coffin, I heard no more. I fell senseless, and they carried me to my own room, and I was out of my mind for many days. My aunt and Delia were very kind to me, but I longed for you, Jane, I did indeed. I am nearly well now, and I have left my heartache somewhere in that awful land of Silence where I lay between life and death so long. I shall weep no more. I will think now of vengeance. I am only a woman, but women have done some mischief before this day, and may do it again."