This was the first of many pleasant meals which they shared with their host, Jacob Smith. Soon Emlyn found from inquiries that she made among his neighbours without seeming to do so, that this cousin of hers bore an excellent name and was trusted by all.
“Then why should we not trust him also?” asked Cicely, “who must find friends and put faith in some one.”
“Even with the jewels, Mistress?”
“Even with the jewels, for such things are his business, and they would be safer in his strong chest than tacked into our garments, where the thought of them haunts me night and day.”
“Let us wait a while,” said Emlyn, “for once they were in that box how do we know if we should get them out again?”
On the morrow of this talk the Visitor Legh came to see them, and had no cheerful tale to tell. According to him the Lord Cromwell declared that as the Abbot of Blossholme claimed these Shefton estates, the King stood, or would soon stand, in the shoes of the said Abbot of Blossholme, and therefore the King claimed them and could not surrender them. Moreover, money was so wanted at Court just then, and here Legh looked hard at them, “that there could be no talk of parting with anything of value except in return for a consideration,” and he looked at them harder still.
“And how can my Lady give that,” broke in Emlyn sharply, for she feared lest Cicely should commit herself. “To-day she is but a homeless pauper, save for a few pounds in gold, and even if she should come to her own again, as your Worship knows, her first year’s profits are all promised.”
“Ah!” said the Doctor sadly, “doubtless the case is hard. Only,” he added, with cunning emphasis, “a tale has just reached me that the Lady Harflete has wealth hidden away which came to her from her mother; trinkets of value and such things.”
Now Cicely coloured, for the man’s little eyes pierced her like gimlets, and her powers of deceit were very small. But this was not so with Emlyn, who, as she said, could play thief to catch a thief.
“Listen, Sir,” she said, with a secret air, “you have heard true. There were some things of value—why should we hide it from you, our good friend? But, alas! that greedy rogue, the Abbot of Blossholme, has them. He has stripped my poor Lady as bare as a fowl for roasting. Get them back from him, Sir, and on her behalf I say she’ll give you half of them, will you not, my Lady?”