"They are strange indeed, maiden," he replied, "and I must hear more of this. We have met before, I now believe; and we must meet again. Meanwhile, I will keep off bird-catchers till you and his reverence get clear of these limed twigs. Ah! I see a gallant; I will go draw William d'Aubigny aside while you pass forth."
And now again Sir William proceeded on his expedition, and conducted his gentle companion beyond the precincts of the palace. As they parted one from the other, Monina, in a brief, energetic manner, delivered the message of the departed queen to the good chamberlain: he was more disconcerted than surprised, and the reflection that Clifford was a party to the secret, added to his consternation. He felt how far he was compromised by the introduction of Monina to the young queen; fear for a while palsied his better feelings: he replied only by entreating her not to remain longer in London, but to embark in all haste for France: he then quitted her, yet again came back to ask where she sojourned in town, and turned away a second time, as if to escape from his better self, and from the interest he felt in King Edward's son, which impelled him to ask a thousand questions.
He returned to the courtyard of the palace, and found Clifford pacing its length in deep thought. Monina's words had awakened a thousand ideas in his unquiet bosom. Since the event to which she referred, when he delivered Richard from Frion's hands, he had run a headlong, ruinous course. No character can be wholly evil; and Clifford's was not destitute of good, though overgrown and choked up by weedy vices, so that his better nature too often served but as a spur and incentive to folly and crime. He was generous; but that led to rapacity; since, unable to deny himself or others, if he despoiled himself one day, on the next he engaged in the most desperate enterprises to refill the void. He was bold—that made him fearless in doing wrong; and to drown the gentle spirit of humanity, which, too often for his own peace, sprung up in his heart, he hardened himself in selfishness; then, as his sensitive, undisciplined nature received new impressions, he was cowardly, cruel, and remorseless. He had never forgotten the princely boy he had saved: he turned to that recollection as to one of the few oases of virtue in the far extended desert of ill, over which, in hours of satiety or despondency, his sickening memory wandered. Indeed, he was yet too young to be decidedly vicious: for at one-and-twenty a thousand mere human impulses, unrepressed by worldly wisdom, occasion sallies of kindly sympathy. The worst was, that Clifford was a ruined man: his fortunes were nought, his reputation shaken on its base; he veiled, by an appearance of hilarity and recklessness, the real despair that gnawed at his heart, when he considered all that he might have been—the worse than nothing that he was. Hitherto he had, to a great degree, blinded the world, and he longed for some adventure, some commotion, either public or private, that should refill his emptied money-bags, and paint him fair in men's eye's: all these considerations mingled incongruously to make him wish to know more of the outcast duke. He awaited the return of Stanley—he learned the name of the Spanish girl: as they spoke, both became aware that the other possessed a secret each dreaded to avow. Clifford first dashed through the flimsy barrier of useless discretion, and related his adventure at Lisle; meantime Sir William broke forth in lamentation, that young Richard should have been induced to quit the security of private life, to enter on an unequal and bloody contest, which could only end in destruction to himself and his partizans, while England would again be made the tomb of the Irish (the landing of Richard at Cork was all that was then known), whom he might allure from their woods and bogs to ravage the more gifted sister isle. A new light was let in on Clifford at these words. Was the game already playing—the box shaken—the die about to fall? This required his attention, and determined his half-formed purpose of visiting, that same night, the daughter of de Faro.
CHAPTER XIX
CLIFFORD'S RESOLVE
His father was a right good lord,
His mother a lady of high degree;
But they, alas! were dead him frae,
And he loved keeping companie.
To spend the day with merry cheer,
To drink and revel every night;
To card and dice from eve to morn,
It was, I ween, his heart's delight.
THE HEIR OF LYNNE.
It had been Monina's design to return to the protection of Lady Brampton, immediately on the fulfilment of her task in England. The appearance of Clifford suggested other ideas. It was the duty of every friend of York to declare his existence, and claim the allegiance of his subjects. It might seem a hopeless enterprise for her, a young foreign girl, to do this in the heart of the usurper's power; and yet she fancied that she might attempt it with success. The most distant prospect of serving her beloved friend was hailed by her with romantic ardour; while the knowledge possessed by Stanley and Clifford promised to render her undertaking less nugatory in its effects. Her purpose was quickly formed. She resolved to postpone her departure, and to busy herself in replanting, in Tudor's own city of London, the uprooted rose-bush, parent of the spotless flower. None but a woman's fond enthusiastic heart can tell the glow of joy, the thrilling gladness, that diffused itself through her frame, as this plain spread itself, clear as a map, beautiful as a champagne country viewed from some overtopping mountain peak, to her keen mind's eye. She rode to London occupied by these thoughts, and on her arrival, announced to the merchant friend, at whose house she resided, her intention of remaining in England: the vessel that was on the morrow to have conveyed her away would bear instead a letter to Lady Brampton, explanatory of her hopes and intentions: that very night, in the seclusion of her chamber, she robbed some hours from sleep to write it; her enthusiasm animated her expressions; her cheeks glowed as she wrote, for she spoke of services she might render to him who was the idol of her thoughts; though with his idea she consciously mingled no feeling save that of devoted friendship and an intense desire to benefit. The weariness of spirit that oppressed her in his absence, she did not attribute to him.
Thus intently occupied, she was unaware of a parley in the room beneath growing into a loud contention, till steps upon the stairs recalled her wandering thoughts; she looked up from her task; but her gaze of inquiry was changed to an expression of heartfelt pleasure, when Sir Robert Clifford entered the apartment. Here then her enterprise commenced. There was something that did not quite please her in the manners of her visitant, but this was secondary to the great good she might achieve through him. Her eyes danced in their own joy, as she cried, "Welcome, gallant gentleman! you are here to my wish: you come to learn how best you may prove your allegiance to your rightful sovereign, your zeal in his cause."