CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.

A HOME GAYER THAN CONGENIAL.

Madame Lalande, _nee_ Powell, was the widow of a West Indian planter, late deceased. Her husband, during life, had held commercial intercourse with Bristol, then chief port of communication with all the Transatlantic colonies. Though a Creole of French descent, the isle of his nativity, in the Antilles, had come under British rule; and he himself rather affected English tastes and habits, often visiting England and making short sojourns in it. At a Bristol ball he had first met Gwendoline Powell, Ambrose's sister; had married in Bristol, and there designed spending the evening of his days in retirement from the cares of business life. And when the time at length came for carrying this design into execution, he sold off his West Indian plantation--an extensive one, with its human chattels, some hundreds in number--and invested the proceeds in Bristol property, part of it being a handsome dwelling-house meant for his future home:

Into this he had entered about a year before the commencement of the civil strife, which he lived not to see. The cold, moist climate of our island, so different to that of the tropical Antilles, was fatal to him, and in less than twelve months after settling on the Avon's banks he was buried there, having succ.u.mbed to an attack of pleurisy. Possibly fast living may have had something to do with it. He was a man of social inclinings and sumptuous habits, which his great wealth enabled him to indulge without stint; and he had recklessly disregarded the care of his health.

Fortunately for those who inherited his property, his life of extravagance had not been long enough to dissipate it, and Madame Lalande was still one of the wealthiest women in Bristol, with no one to share her wealth, save an only daughter, a girl of some eighteen summers, or, to speak more correctly, one summer of eighteen years in length. For the occasional visits to England with her father and mother had been made in this season, the rest of her life spent in a land where winter is unknown. All summer her life in every sense; from her cradle not a wish denied, or taste ungratified, but everything lavished upon her which money could purchase or parental fondness bestow.

As a consequence, Clarisse Lalande had grown up a spoilt child; and now that she was almost a woman, the fruits of such folly made themselves manifest. Imperious and capricious, she had a temper which would not brook restraint. For this it had never known, accustomed all her life to the obeisance of black slaves, and the flattery of mulatto hand-maidens.

Flattery from others she had received too--a very incense of it--which her beauty, without thought of her prospective wealth, commanded. For a beauty she was, of the true Creole type, with all its characteristics; the golden brown tint of skin, the crimson flush of cheeks, the brilliancy of dark eyes, with a luxuriance of hair that defied confinement by ordinary clasp or comb. There was the suspicion of a "wave" in it; and report said that the blood in her father's veins had not been pure Circa.s.sian, but with a slight admixture of Ethiopian. All the more piquant were the charms it had transmitted to his daughter, as the star-like fire in her brown-black eyes, and a figure of grandly voluptuous outline. Some of her mental characteristics, too, may have come from it--a certain sensuousness, with the impatience of control already adverted to.

Such being Clarisse Lalande, it scarce needs saying that between her and her cousins Powell there was little congeniality either of tastes or sentiments. Though in person more resembling Sabrina, the two were mental antipodes; while sunbright Vaga, who looked altogether unlike her dark-skinned Creole cousin, had yet certain similar traits of temper; the which made mutual antipathy, at first sight, as when alkali and acid come into contact. It afterwards became heart-hatred, inspired and nursed by the most powerful of influences.

Considering that Madame Lalande was Ambrose Powell's sister, and that her late husband had been a Protestant of Huguenot ancestry--at least four-fifths of him--one would naturally expect her to be on the Parliamentary side--supposing her to take a side at all--with ardent inclinings thereto. Ardent inclinings had she, and side she took; but, strange perversity, _against_ the Parliament, not _for_ it!

And it was like mother, like daughter, for Clarisse, with all her frivolousness of character, had political leanings too, or more properly caprices, the frivolity itself their cause. In the eyes of the imperious young lady Roundheadism and Puritanism were things of reproach, and the terms themselves often scornfully on her lips. Kingly form of government was the only one fit for gentlepeople; and Cavaliers alone worthy to a.s.sociate with such as she--those curled darlings, "dear delightful creatures," as, in her fond partiality, she was accustomed to call them.

Wonderfully hospitable was Madame Lalande; that is, in a fashionable way. She gave grand entertainments, which was indeed but continuing what had been done before the death of her husband. Nor was it so long after that event they were recommenced, and carried on with greater _eclat_ than ever. For Clarisse had become a toast and now an heiress-- sole and safe from any possibility of late-born brother or sister to share the demised wealth. There was keen compet.i.tion for the favour of her smiles. Knights and baronets were flitting about in plenty, with here and there an earl; and as her ambitious mother aimed at having a t.i.tled son-in-law, so spread she the banquet to allure them.

During the brief rule of the gay Ess.e.x, as a matter of course Madame Lalande's house was open to him; and so frequently was he its guest, there had been talk of an attraction in it beyond the delights of the dinner table or the joys of the dance. He was not a lord; but, as the son of one, in all probability some day would be.

Alas! for any matrimonial designs Madame Lalande might have upon the rollicking Colonel for her daughter, her chances of showing him further hospitality were brought to an abrupt end, by his heels getting kicked up in a different way, and himself carried off a prisoner to Berkeley Castle.

Withal the festivities in the house of the planter's relict went on as usual--nearly every night something of dinner party, and during the day receptions. If there was suffering in other homes of Bristol through the state of semi-siege in which the place was then held, nothing of this affected the home of the rich West Indian widow. There all was gaiety and splendour.

Yet it had inmates who took little delight in its joys, and one who detested them--that one Ambrose Powell. A new style of life, with a companionship altogether uncongenial, was it to him; and, but for its being forced upon him by the necessity of circ.u.mstances, he would not have continued it a single day--not an hour. It was many long years since he had last met his sister; and, remembering her as a guileless country girl--almost portionless too--seeing her now a sharp woman of the world, wealthy and devoted to ideas of frivolity and fashion,--above all, finding her changed from the political faith of their common father and family, he was alike surprised and shocked--angry, moreover, to the point of reproaching, even scolding her; and would have done so, but for the question "_Cui bono_?" which had negative, though silent, answer in all he saw around. His dear sister Gwen, who in earlier days would have humbly listened to his counsels, and been controlled by them, would now resent the meekest suggestion as to her way of life or the conduct of her affairs.

Many a time, after becoming her guest, did he regret having pa.s.sed on, and beyond Gloucester, to seek an asylum in Bristol. But he was in Bristol now, he and his; and how to get out of it was not a mere question of inconvenience, but a matter of great difficulty, attended with danger. Though not so close to the door, after that 7th of March night, the wolves were still without, on the roads--ravening everywhere.

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.

THE NIGHT OWL.

The conspiracy having been nipped in the bud, and the conspirators in prison, Bristol again breathed freely. The approaches to it were once more open, the thwarted Royalists having withdrawn to a distance; so that Jerky Jack might have made the return trip to Gloucester with a despatch stuck in the band of his hat safe as it inside his wooden leg.

But swifter messengers traversed that road now, cleared of the enemy at both ends, and on both sides of the river Severn.

He who had effected this clearance was Sir William Waller, jocularly styled "William the Conqueror," from the succession of victories he had late achieved. Also was he known as the "Night Owl;" a sobriquet due to his habit of making nocturnal expeditions that oft took the Royalists by surprise. No Crophead he, but a Cavalier in the true sense; a very Paladin--withal a Christian gentleman. He had separated from slow-going Lord General, and made one of his bold dashes down to the shires bordering Wales; first relieving Gloucester, which was in a manner besieged by the Monmouthshire levies of Lord Herbert. The besiegers were not only brushed off, but the main body of them either killed or captured; only a scant residue escaping to their fastnesses beyond the Wye; whither the "Conqueror" followed, chastising them still further.

Returning across the Forest of Dean, he outwitted the Royalist troops under Prince Maurice; and, once were setting face westward, raided through Herefordshire on to its chief city--which he captured, with a flock of foul birds that had been roosting there ever since its abandonment by the Parliamentarians under the silly Stamford.

But the "Night Owl" himself was not the bird to remain long on perch anywhere; and, gathering up his captured game--a large bag, including some of Herefordshire's best blood, as the Scudamores, Conningsbys, and Pyes--he rounded back to Gloucester, and on to Bristol.

Not to tarry here, either. Soon as he had disembarra.s.sed himself of his captive train--committed to the keeping of Fiennes--he was off again into Somersetshire, there to measure swords with Maurice and the Marquis of Hertford. As he rode out through the Bath gate at the head of a troop of steel-clad cuira.s.siers--"Hesselrig's Lobsters"--the citizens of Bristol felt more confident of safety than ever since the strife began.

For now they were a.s.sured against danger, outside as within. Internal treason had been awed, the traitors cowed and crushed, by what had befallen the conspirators of March the Seventh. The two chiefs of them, Yeomans and Boucher, had been tried, found guilty, and sentenced to death--a sentence soon afterwards carried into execution. Grand efforts were made to get them off; the King himself, by letter, threatening to retaliate upon the poor captives taken at Cirencester--such of them as remained unmurdered. Old Patrick, Earl of Forth, his Majesty's Lieutenant-General, was put forward as the writer of the barbarous epistle. But canny Scot and accomplished soldier as his lordship might be, in a polemical contest he was no match for the lawyer, Fiennes, who flung the threat back in his teeth, saying:

"The men we have tried and condemned are not soldiers, but spies and conspirators. The prisoners you took at Cirencester are prisoners of war. I would have you observe the distinction. And know, too, that for every hair of their heads that falls, I will hang ten of your curled Cavaliers--make Bristol a shambles of them."

Though not Nathaniel Fiennes's exact words, they convey his meaning very near. And he could and would have acted up to them, as the King and his counsellors knew. So, whether or not they deemed his argument rational, it was unanswerable, or at all events unanswered, by a counter-threat; and the Cirencester prisoners were spared execution, while the Bristol conspirators went to the scaffold.

Much has been made of the King's forbearance in this affair by those who did not, or would not, comprehend the motive. It was pure fear, not humanity--fear of a still more terrible retaliation. At that time the Parliament held ten prisoners for one in the hands of the Royalists--men of such rank and quality, his Majesty dared not put their lives in peril, much less let them be sacrificed. He had his revenge in secret, however, since under his very nose at Oxford many of the hapless captives from Cirencester miserably perished, through the torturing treatment of the Royal Provost-Marshal, Smith.

Finally, the "two State martyrs"--as Yeomans and Boucher have been styled by the Royalist writers--were strung up, protesting their innocence to the last, for all they were little believed. The evidence adduced at their trial clearly proved intent to shed the blood of their fellow-citizens; else why were they and their co-conspirators armed?

Independent of this, their design of handing over Bristol to the rule of Prince Rupert and his ruffians meant something more than the mere spilling of blood in a street conflict--it involved the sack and pillage of peaceful homes, the violation of women, rapine and ruin in every way.

It was only on getting the details of the trial that the Bristolians became fully sensible of the danger they had so narrowly escaped; convinced then, as Captain Birch worded it, that they had been standing upon a mine.

Notwithstanding all these occurrences and circ.u.mstances running counter to the Royal cause, against which the tide seemed to have turned, within Montserrat House--as the late Monsieur Lalande had named his dwelling-- was no interruption of the festive scenes already alluded to. Its guests were as numerous, its gaieties gay and frequent as ever. For, to speak truth, the political _bias_ of the planter's widow, as that of her daughter, was but skin deep. Hair had much to do with it; and, like enough, had the Parliamentarian officers but worn theirs a little longer, submitted it to the curling tongs, and given themselves to swearing and swaggering, in a genteel Cavalier way, they would have been more welcome to the hospitality of her house.

Still not all of them were denied it; for not all were of the Roundhead type. Among them were many gentlemen of high birth and best manners, some affecting as fine feathers as the Cavaliers themselves. For the "Self-denying Ordinance" had not yet been ordained, nor the Parliamentary army moulded to the "new model."

In view of certain people sojourning in Montserrat House, it need scarce be said that Sir Richard Walwyn and Eustace Trevor were visitors there.

Even without reference to the predilections of Madame or Mademoiselle, they could not well be excluded. But there was no thought of excluding them; both were unmistakably eligible, and one of them most welcome, for reasons that will presently appear. They had arrived in Bristol only a short while antecedent to its state of semi-siege, the Powells having long preceded them thither. And now that the approaches were again open, most of their time was spent keeping them so; the troop with the "big sergeant," and standard showing a crown impaled upon a sword, once more displaying its prowess in encounters with the Cavaliers. After Rupert had disappeared from that particular scene, Prince Maurice, with his _corps d'armee_, began to manoeuvre upon it, swinging round southward into Somersetshire to unite his force with that of Hertford.

To hang upon his skirts, and hara.s.s his outposts, was the work of Sir Richard Walwyn; a duty which often carried him and his Foresters afar from the city, and kept them away weeks at a time.

He was just returning to it when Waller pa.s.sed through. But, entering by a different route and gate from that taken by the latter going out, he missed him. Like enough but for this he would have been commanded along. For the "Conqueror" had carried off with him the _elite_ of the troops quartered in Bristol, almost stripping it of a garrison, to the no small annoyance of Nathaniel Fiennes. Glad was the Governor that the troop with the "big sergeant" had escaped such requisition--overjoyed his eyes to see that banner, bearing the emblem of a crown with sword stuck through it once more waving before the Castle gate.

CHAPTER THIRTY.

A MIXED a.s.sEMBLY.

If Waller's pa.s.sage through Bristol caused general rejoicing, there was joy in a certain private circle at the re-entry of Sir Richard Walwyn with his troop. Three of the inmates of Montserrat House hailed his return with a flutter of delight; though not all on his account, nor any of them its mistress, the Madame herself. She was pleased, however, to see the gallant knight again, as also his young troop captain, so much, that within a week after their return she sent out invitations to a grand ball, to be given, if not professedly for them, at least so understood.

Many of the invited who were of the King's party wondered, not at her giving a ball, but giving it at such a time, and in honour of their enemies; one of these Eustace Trevor, formerly in the service of the Court itself, whom they regarded as the basest of renegades. Madame Lalande, hitherto such an enthusiastic Royalist, making merry, while the State Martyrs were scarce cold in their graves, and things looking black generally! Waller's unopposed marchings through the surrounding districts had, in a manner, made good the belief in his being invincible; and that he would be equally victorious in the shires of the "West," whither he was now gone. If so, the Royal cause, hitherto ascendant in that quarter, would come under a cloud, if not be extinguished altogether.

Among the Cavalier acquaintances of the planter's widow, therefore, were heard sneering allusions to the "worship of the rising sun," as the reason for her seeming defection.

It was not the correct one, though. Nor, if called upon, could she herself have stated the precise _motif_. Alone her daughter could do that; since it was she had suggested the entertainment; or rather commanded it. Though but turned eighteen, this young lady, child of a precocious clime and race, was a full-grown woman, intellectually as physically; wont to have her own way in Montserrat House, as in her native isle of the Antilles; and was in reality more its mistress than her mother. Her father's will had been read to her, and she quite comprehended its provisions--all in her favour. Little cared she for slanderous whispers, whether by the tongues of Cavaliers or Cropheads; though it was no worship of rising sun inspired her in this particular matter. Instead, a wish to shine herself in the eyes of society; but chiefly those of one for whom she had begun to feel adoration, beyond that to sun, moon, or stars. She could dance like a Bayadere, and knew it.

There need be no difficulty in getting together an a.s.semblage of guests, numerous, and of the right _ton_. Bristol was then an ancient city, second only to London itself; the mushroom Liverpools, Manchesters, and Birminghams having barely a mark upon the map. Besides, in those days, the gentry were more resident in towns; the state of the roads--where there were any--and the scarcity of wheeled vehicles, c.u.mbersome at that, making travel irksome and country life inconvenient. In times of peace the city on Avon's banks had its quota of England's upper crust; but now that war raged around it was crowded with such--fugitives from the adjoining villages and shires, even from beyond the Welsh border, who, as Ambrose Powell and his family, had repaired thither to escape exaction and insult--it might be outrage--from the marauding Cavaliers.

In addition, Bristol, just at this time, contained a goodly sprinkling of the Cavaliers themselves, both military and civilian; not voluntarily there, nor as political refugees, but prisoners. Waller had flung some threescore into it, brought all the way from Monmouth and Hereford, most of them men of high rank, and most as many _on parole_--allowed free range about the city and circulation in its best society, if they had the _entree_.

So, in sending out her invitations, Madame Lalande had not only a large, but varied list to select from; and to do her justice--or it may have have been Clarisse--on this occasion the names were p.r.i.c.ked with impartiality; short hair and long being alike honoured by circulars of complimentary request. In this there might have been an eye to the changing times.

Few were the refusals. No ball had ever come off at Montserrat House unaccompanied by a sumptuous supper. This was lure enough for the elder _invitees_, especially in a city still straitened if not besieged; while to the younger the dancing itself offered attraction sufficient. Since the deposition of the festive Ess.e.x there had been but little gaiety in Bristol; under the stern administration of his successor the dance being discouraged, if not altogether tabooed; so that youthful heels were itching for it, of both s.e.xes, and belonging to families on both sides of the political question.

As a result, over two hundred responded to Madame Lalande's invitations by presenting themselves at Montserrat House. Twice the number would not have inconveniently crowded it; since, in addition to several ample reception rooms, there was plenty of s.p.a.ce in the ornamental grounds outside, which had been prepared for the occasion by a setting and festoonery of lamps. A summer's night--for it was July, and sultry too--this was an advantageous arrangement, the open air being more enjoyable than that inside.

But another advantage was derived from it; one that may be thought strange enough. It gave Madame Lalande's guests an opportunity of _shunning_ one another! With many of them a thing most desirable; for men met there who had been enemies outside--were so still, even to hating--the fugitives from persecution and their very persecutors; the last, now their prisoners, humbled and abashed. Seemingly a fine chance for the former to indulge spites; but good manners forbade that.

Still something more interposed to prevent awkward encounter or recognition. On the ball notes of invitation was marked "Fancy costume at pleasure," which left the invited free to wear masks, or appear without them. But then, even in ordinary street promenade, masks had not been altogether abandoned, at least by ladies, many wearing them to a still later period.

As a consequence of this allowed lat.i.tude, numbers of both s.e.xes who attended the Lalandes' ball came in fancy costumes, and masked. But ladies reliant on their charms were careless about the fastenings of the masks, and, somehow or other, the detested screens soon disappeared, giving the gentlemen an opportunity for the scrutiny and comparing of faces.