Darnley; or, The Field of the Cloth of Gold

by G. P. R. James

Lady Constance willingly gave her all manner of leave and license; and accordingly, that very night Mistress Margaret told the chamberer, under the most solemn vows of secresy, that her lady intended to give the prioress, as a gift to the convent, fifty golden marks on the day that she took ship. "But," said the abigail, "it costs the poor lady so much, what with paying the chaplain's keep at the cottage, and my wage-money, which you know I must have, that her purse is running low, and I fear me she will not be able to do as much for the house as she intends. But mind, you promised to tell no one."

"As I hope for salvation, it shall never pass my lips!" replied the chamberer; and away she ran to the refectory, where she bound the refectory-woman by a most tremendous vow not to reveal the tidings she was about to communicate. The refectory-woman vowed with a great deal of facility; and the moment the chamberer was gone she carried in a jelly to the prioress, where, with a low curtsey and an important whisper, she communicated to the superior the important news. Thereupon the prioress was instantly smitten with a violent degree of anxiety about Lady Constance's escape, and sending down to the fisherman, she commanded him instantly to find a ship going to France. To which the fisherman replied, that he knew of no ship going exactly to France, but that there was one lying off the sands, which would doubtless take the lady over for a few broad pieces.

Thus were the preliminaries for Constance's escape brought about in a very short space of time; and, the fisherman having arranged with the captain that he was to take the lady, the chaplain, and waiting-maid to Boulogne for ten George nobles, early the next morning Lady Constance took leave of the prioress, made her the stipulated present, and, accompanied by the good Dr. Wilbraham and her woman, followed the fisherman to the sands, where his boat waited to convey them to a vessel that lay about a mile from the shore.

The sea was calm and tranquil, but to Constance, who had little of a heroine in her nature, it seemed very rough; and every time the boat rose over a wave, she fancied that it must inevitably pitch under the one that followed. However, their passage to the ship was soon over; and as she looked at the high, black sides of the vessel, the lady found a greater degree of security in its aspect, imagining it better calculated to battle with the wild waves than the flimsy little bark that had borne her thither.

The ship, the fisherman had informed her, was a foreign merchantman; and as she came alongside, a thousand strange tongues, gabbling all manner of languages, met her ear. It was a floating tower of Babel. In the midst of the confusion and bustle which occurred in getting herself and her companions upon the deck, she saw that one of the sailors attempted to spring from the ship into the boat, but was restrained by those about him, who unceremoniously beat him back with marline-spikes and ropes' ends; and for the time she beheld no more of him, though she thought she heard some one uttering invectives and complaints in the English language.

For the first few moments after she was on deck, what with the giddiness occasioned by her passage in the boat, and the agitation of getting on board, she could remark nothing that was passing around her; but the moment she had sufficiently recovered to regard the objects by which she was surrounded, a new cause of apprehension presented itself; for close by her side, evidently as commander of the vessel, stood no less distinguished a person than the Portingal captain, of whom honourable mention is made in the first portion of this sage history, and whose proboscis was not easily to be forgot.

It was too late now, however, to recede; and her only resource was to draw down her nun's veil, hoping thus to escape being recognised. For some time she had reason to believe that the disguise she had assumed would be effectual with the Portingal, who, as we may remember, had seen her but once; for, occupied in giving orders for weighing anchor and making sail, he took no notice whatever of his fair passenger, and seemed totally to have forgotten her person. But this was not the case: his attention had been first awakened to Lady Constance herself by the sight of Dr. Wilbraham, whose face he instantly remembered; and a slight glance convinced him that the young nun was the bright lady he had seen in Sir Payan's halls.

Though there were few of the pleasant little passions which make a man a devil that the worthy Portingal did not possess to repletion, it sometimes happened that one battled against the other and foiled it in its efforts; but being withal somewhat of a philosopher, after a certain fashion, it was a part of his internal policy, on which he prided himself, to find means of gratifying each of the contending propensities when it was possible, and, when it was not possible, to satisfy the strongest with as little offence to the others as might be. In the present instance he had several important points to consider. Though he felt strongly inclined to carry Lady Constance with him on a voyage which he was about to make to the East Indies, yet there might be danger in the business, if the young lady had really taken the veil: not only danger in case of his vessel being searched by any cruiser he might encounter, but even danger from his own lawless crew, who, though tolerably free from prejudices, still retained a certain superstitious respect for the church of Rome, and for the things it had rendered sacred, which the worthy captain had never been able to do away with. This consideration would have deterred him from any evil attempt upon the fair girl, whom he otherwise seemed to hold completely in his power, had it not been for the additional incentive of the two large leathern bags which had been committed into his charge at the same time with the young lady, and which, by the relation of their size to their weight, he conceived must contain a prize of some value. Determined by this, he gave orders for making all sail down the Channel, and the ship being fairly under way, he could no longer resist the temptation which the opportunity presented of courting the good graces of his fair passenger. Approaching, then, with an air of what he conceived mingled dignity and sweetness, his head swinging backwards and forwards on the end of his long neck, and his infinite nose protruded like a pointer's when he falls upon the game--"Ah, ah! my very pretty gal," cried he, "you see you be obliged to have recourse to me at last."

"My good friend," said Dr. Wilbraham, struggling with the demon of sea-sickness, which had grasped him by the stomach and was almost squeezing his soul out, "you had better let the lady alone, for she is so sick that she cannot attend to you, though, doubtless, you mean to be civil in your way."

"You go to the debil, master chaplain," replied the captain, "and preach to him's imps! I say, my very pretty mistress, suppose you were to pull up this dirty black veil, and show your charming face;" and he drew aside the young lady's veil in spite of her efforts to hold it down.