Love's wings are overfleet
And like the panther's feet
The feet of Love.
—SWINBURNE.
When Mistress Peyton had finally dismissed Daniel Pye from her service, after having seen him flogged and pilloried, she felt somewhat more at ease.
She did not see his gesture of menace, nor would it have perturbed her much if she had. Her spite against the man had been cruel and petty; she knew that well enough, yet did not strive to curb it. Daniel Pye's howls at the whipping post had momentarily served to alleviate the anxieties which as day succeeded day grew in intensity.
The recollection of what she had made the man suffer was a solace, even now when the awful truth had begun to dawn upon her that in striving to gain too much, she had very likely lost all.
Rumour was overbusy with Michael Kestyon; his popularity with the king, my lord Shaftesbury's interest in the long-forgotten peerage claim, Michael's long conferences with Sir William Jones, the Attorney-General, who was said to know more about peerages, genealogies and legitimacies than did His Majesty's heralds and poursuivants themselves.
On Sir William's report would the king ultimately base his decision as to Michael Kestyon's claim to the title and estates of Stowmaries and Rivaulx. The matter would not be referred to the Lord's House of Parliament. It was absolutely one for the Crown to decide, nor were the noble lords like to go against the king's mandate.
Already gossips averred that Michael had paid the Attorney-General one hundred thousand pounds for the report which was ready to be submitted to the king, and which, needless to say, was entirely in favour of the claim. It was also said that my lord Stowmaries—financially somewhat straitened for the moment, through a recent highly-interesting adventure—was unable to cap his cousin's munificent gift to Sir William Jones by one more magnificent still.
All these rumours were quite sufficient forsooth to cause the fair Julia many an anxious hour and many a sleepless night. Small wonder that when she thought of Daniel Pye and of that hundred thousand pounds paid to the Attorney-General, which could not have been forthcoming if the miserable reprobate had delivered his mistress' letter to M. Legros in good time, no wonder, then, I say, that her small teeth, sharp as those of a wildcat, set against each other in an agony of impotent rage. She would have liked to have got hold of her serving-man again, to have had him flogged again and again, ay, and to have had him deprived of his right hand for his disobedience and his lies.
The "might-have-beens" were becoming positive torture to the beautiful Julia; and my lord Stowmaries had not yet come home. He had gone to Rome for the dispensation, which he told her in an ardent and passionate missive, he had at last obtained. Julia laughed, a cruel, callous, bitter laugh when she read that letter. Of a truth the man must be mad who could for a moment think that she would wed him in poverty and obscurity, just as readily as she would in riches.
Cousin John did his best to console her. He vowed that rumour lied, that Michael was spending his money in a vain endeavour to retain his popularity with the king, in which he was rapidly failing, and that no sensible-minded person did believe that His Majesty would uphold the preposterous claims of a sworn adventurer, wastrel and soldier of fortune, against so elegant a gentleman as was my lord of Stowmaries.
After one of these visits from Cousin John, Mistress Julia always felt temporarily relieved of her anxiety. She had thought it best for the moment to keep aloof from the society of London; she was nowhere to be seen in public, not even at the playhouses where she had once been the cynosure of all eyes. She wanted to see her future fully assured before she again encountered the admiring glances of the men, or the oft ill-natured comments of the women.
When at last Lord Stowmaries, back from his journey to Rome, was once more at her feet, glowing with loving ardour, triumphant in his success, Mistress Peyton remained cold and unresponsive. He did not notice this, for he was full of projects and happy that the path which led him to her arms had at last been made quite clear.
"Madly as I longed for your sweet presence, my best beloved," he said whilst he covered her little hands with kisses, "I would not return until I knew that I was free—quite free to place mine all, my name, my fortune at your feet. I journeyed to Rome, dear heart, immediately after the esclandre in Paris. I paid Michael his due, then flew to His Holiness. When I returned homewards I was eager to know how the scandal had spread. Nay, there is no fear now that the tailor will strive to interfere with me. There are various rumours current about the wench, one of them being that she will go to a nunnery, the other, which gains far more credence, being that King Louis, vastly interested in her adventure hath cast eyes of admiration on her and that Mme. de Montespan is deadly jealous. Be that as it may, Monseigneur the Archbishop of Paris is now wholly on my side. He gave me letters to His Holiness, whom I saw in Rome."
"And what said His Holiness, the Pope?" queried Julia, feigning eagerness which she was far from feeling.
"He has granted me religious dispensation to contract a fresh marriage, provided the courts of England do dissolve my present bonds, which is a foregone conclusion," said the young man triumphantly. "My man of law tells me that it will be but a matter of a few weeks, and that the case will be decided as soon as heard, provided the tailor's wench doth not defend it, which under the circumstances she is not like to do. I am free, dear heart, free to marry you as soon as you will consent."
Then, as she did not reply, he added reproachfully:
"You are silent, my Julia; will you not tell me that you are glad?"
She made no effort to smile.
"Indeed, my lord, I am glad," she said calmly, "but I would not have you hasten matters too much."
"Why not? To me every day, every hour that separates me from you, seems like weary cycles of dull and deadly years. Methinks that if you would but allow me to proclaim you to the whole world as my future countess, I could wait more patiently then."
"Not yet, my lord, not yet," she said with a slight show of petulance.
"Why not?" he urged.
"The times are troublous for your co-religionists, my lord," she said vaguely.
"Bah! the troubles will not last, and they do not affect me."
"Are you quite sure of that, my lord? One by one the Papists in the kingdom fall under the ban of public hatred."
"We are much maligned, but the king is on our side," interposed Stowmaries with an indifferent shrug of the shoulders.
"Mayhap, mayhap," she rejoined impatiently. "But nevertheless, the Papists are in bad odour. There is talk that the Duke of York will soon be sent abroad. The outcry in London is loud against what is called a Papist intrigue to sell England to France and to place her people under the yoke of Rome."
"What hath all that to do with our love, dear heart?"
"Everything," she said, angry with him for being so obtuse, not liking yet to show him her hand, the cruel hand which would dismiss him without compunction, were his fortunes on the wane. "You forget that by disgracing the tailor's wench, you have made Michael Kestyon, the claimant to your title, passing rich."
"Bah! He hath spent half that substance already, so 'tis said. The king soon tires of his friends, and his affections are an expensive luxury to keep."
"Rumour goes on to say that Michael Kestyon hath paid the Attorney-General one hundred thousand pounds that he may send a favourable report of his case to the king," asserted Mistress Peyton, relentlessly, almost spitefully.
Lord Stowmaries made no direct reply. Truth to tell, he thought his fair Julia's anxieties futile, but at the same time, with unvarying optimism and self-sufficiency, he had attributed these anxieties on his behalf to her great love for him. Everything so far had gone well with him; for years now his every wish in life had been gratified; even the child-marriage, that great obstacle to the desires of his heart, had been swept away from before his path, leaving it clear and broad, to lead him straight to gratification and to happiness.
With characteristic vanity he would not see that Julia, who had been all eagerness and ardour awhile ago, had suddenly become cold and well-nigh hostile. In every word which she uttered, in every inflection of her voice—even when it became petulant and spiteful—he heard but the echo of the overmastering emotions of a tender heart, whose sole object, himself, was in imaginary peril.
He loved her all the better for her fears, though he felt none himself. He knew quite well that a wave of fanatical hatred against the Roman Catholics was passing over Puritan England; that the nation tired of a king's treachery had turned in deadly bitterness against those whom it held responsible for the constitutional faithlessness of a Stuart.
But Titus Oates had not yet come forward with his lies, and Lord Stowmaries and his co-religionists were the last to foresee that the abject terror and malignant intolerance of the whole nation were already being directed against them, and that these would anon culminate in those shameful accusations, mock trials and scandalous verdicts which have remained to this day a dark and ineradicable blot on England's integrity and on her sense of justice.
We must not suppose for a moment that Mistress Peyton foresaw the ugly black cloud which was looming on the not very distant horizon. Her intuition in political matters only went so far as these affected her own prospects. But no one who lived in London in this year of grace could help but see that Papists were held in abhorrence and in fear. The terms of the treaty of Dover had, despite strenuous efforts on the part of my lords Clifford and Arlington, become public property. England, with eyes rendered unseeing by abject fear, saw herself the minion of France, the slave of the Papacy. It only needed the tiny spark to kindle these smouldering ashes into raging flames.
Mistress Peyton, keenly alive to her own interests, did not wish to tie her future irrevocably to a man who within the next few months might find himself divested of title and wealth and mayhap in the dock for treason. Therefore, all Stowmaries' ardent entreaties received but little response.
"There is time and to spare," was all the hope which the fair beauty chose to give to her adorer; "as you say, this wave of anti-Romanism will pass away; Michael Kestyon will dissipate his newly-acquired wealth in riotous living; then you, my lord, will be free to think once more of marriage. I' faith the bonds are scarce broken yet; your nullity suit, my lord, hath not even been tried; the tailor may prove more obstinate than you think, and give you trouble yet. On my soul, 'twill be better to wait till all anxiety is removed from you, until Michael Kestyon is sunk back in obscurity and the tailor's baggage hid in a nunnery. Then, my lord, you may claim my promise—but not before."
My lord of Stowmaries had perforce to be satisfied for the present, though he chafed under this further period of incertitude. But the fair Julia would grant him no more for the present, although after her cold declaration that she herself would not be tied by a promise, she did exact from him a holy and solemn pledge that he considered himself bound to her irrevocably and whatever might betide, so help him God.