The Pigeon Pie Page 5

  CHAPTER V.

  THE vigils of the night had been as unwonted for Lucy as for her sister,and she slept soundly till Rose was already up and dressed. Her firstreflection was on the strange sights she had seen, followed by a doubtwhether they were real, or only a dream; but she was certain it was nosuch thing; she recollected too well the chill of the stone to her feet,and the sound of the blasts of wind. She wondered over it, wished tomake out the cause, but decided that she should only be scolded forpeeping, and she had better keep her own counsel.

  That Lucy should keep silence when she thought she knew more than otherpeople was, however, by no means to be expected; and though she would saynot a word to her mother or Rose, of whom she was afraid, she was quiteready to make the most of her knowledge with Eleanor.

  When she came down stairs she found Walter, with his elbows on the tableand his book before him, learning the task which his mother required ofhim every day; Eleanor had just come in with her lapfull of the stilllingering flowers, and called her to help to make them up into nosegays.

  Lucy came and sat down by her on the floor, but paid little attention tothe flowers, so intent was she on showing her knowledge.

  “Ah! you don’t know what I have seen.”

  “I dare say it is only some nonsense,” said Eleanor, gravely, for she wasrather apt to plume herself on being steadier than her elder sister.

  “It is no nonsense,” said Lucy. “I know what I know.”

  Before Eleanor had time to answer this speech, the mystery of which wasenhanced by a knowing little nod of the head, young Mr. Enderby made hisappearance in the hall, with a civil good-morning to Walter, which theboy hardly deigned to acknowledge by a gruff reply and little nod, andthen going on to the little girls, renewed with them yesterday’s war ofwords. “Weaving posies, little ladies?”

  “Not for rebels,” replied Lucy, pertly.

  “May I not have one poor daisy?”

  “Not one; the daisy is a royal flower.”

  “If I take one?”

  “Rebels take what they can’t get fairly,” said Lucy, with the smartnessof a forward child; and Sylvester, laughing heartily, continued, “Whatwould General Cromwell say to such a nest of little malignants?”

  “That is an ugly name,” said Eleanor.

  “Quite as pretty as Roundhead.”

  “Yes, but we don’t deserve it.”

  “Not when you make that pretty face so sour?”

  “Ah!” interposed Lucy, “she is sour because I won’t tell her my secret ofthe pie.”

  “Oh, what?” said Eleanor.

  “Now I have you!” cried Lucy, delighted. “I know what became of thepigeon pie.”

  In extreme alarm and anger, Walter turned round as he caught these words.“Lucy, naughty child!” he began, in a voice of thunder; then,recollecting the danger of exciting further suspicion, he stammered,“what—what—what—are you doing here? Go along to mother.”

  Lucy rubbed her fingers into her eyes, and answered sharply, in a pettishtone, that she was doing no harm. Eleanor, in amazement, asked whatcould be the matter.

  “Intolerable!” exclaimed Walter. “So many girls always in the way?”

  Sylvester Enderby could not help smiling, as he asked, “Is that all youhave to complain of?”

  “I could complain of something much worse,” muttered Walter. “Get away,Lucy?”

  “I won’t at your bidding, sir.”

  To Walter’s great relief, Rose entered at that moment, and all was smoothand quiet; Lucy became silent, and the conversation was kept up in safeterms between Rose and the young officer. The colonel, it appeared, wasso much better that he intended to leave Forest Lea that very day; and itwas not long before he came down, and presently afterwards Lady Woodley,looking very pale and exhausted, for her anxieties had kept her awake allnight.

  After a breakfast on bread, cheese, rashers of bacon, and beer, thehorses were brought to the door, and the colonel took his leave of LadyWoodley, thanking her much for her hospitality.

  “I wish it had been better worth accepting,” said she.

  “I wish it had, though not for my own sake,” said the colonel. “I wishyou would allow me to attempt something in your favour. One thing,perhaps, you will deign to accept. Every royalist house, especiallythose belonging to persons engaged at Worcester, is liable to besearched, and to have soldiers quartered on them, to prevent fugitivesfrom being harboured there. I will send Sylvester at once to obtain aprotection for you, which may prevent you from being thus disturbed.”

  “That will be a kindness, indeed,” said Lady Woodley, hardly able torestrain the eagerness with which she heard the offer made, that gave thebest hope of saving her son. She was not certain that the colonel hadnot some suspicion of the true state of the case, and would not takenotice, unwilling to ruin the son of his friend, and at the same timereluctant to fail in his duty to his employers.

  He soon departed; Mistress Lucy’s farewell to Sylvester being thus:“Good-bye, Mr. Roundhead, rebel, crop-eared traitor.” At which Sylvesterand his father turned and laughed, and their two soldiers looked verymuch astonished.

  Lady Woodley called Lucy at once, and spoke to her seriously on herforwardness and impertinence. “I could tell you, Lucy, that it is notlike a young lady, but I must tell you more, it is not like a youngChristian maiden. Do you remember the text that I gave you to learn alittle while ago—the ornament fit for a woman?”

  Lucy hung her head, and with tears filling her eyes, as her motherprompted her continually, repeated the text in a low mumbling voice, halfcrying: “Whose adorning, let it not be the putting on of gold, or theplaiting of hair, or the putting on of apparel, but let it be the hiddenman of the heart, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which isin the sight of GOD of great price.”

  “And does my little Lucy think she showed that ornament when she pushedherself forward to talk idle nonsense, and make herself be looked at andtaken notice of?”

  Lucy put her finger in her mouth; she did not like to be scolded, as shecalled it, gentle as her mother was, and she would not open her mind totake in the kind reproof.

  Lady Woodley took the old black-covered Bible, and finding two of theverses in S. James about the government of the tongue, desired Lucy tolearn them by heart before she went out of the house; and the little girlsat down with them in the window-seat, in a cross impatient mood, veryunfit for learning those sacred words. “She had done no harm,” shethought; “she could not help it if the young gentleman would talk toher!”

  So there she sat, with the Bible in her lap, alone, for Lady Woodley wasso harassed and unwell, in consequence of her anxieties, that Rose hadpersuaded her to go and lie down on her bed, since it would be better forher not to try to see Edmund till the promised protection had arrived,lest suspicion should be excited. Rose was busy about her householdaffairs; Eleanor, a handy little person, was helping her; and Walter andCharles were gone out to gather apples for a pudding which she hadpromised them.

  Lucy much wished to be with them; and after a long brooding over herill-temper, it began to wear out, not to be conquered, but to depart ofitself; she thought she might as well learn her lesson and have done withit; so by way of getting rid of the task, not of profiting by the warningit conveyed, she hurried through the two verses ending with—“Behold howgreat a matter a little fire kindleth!”

  As soon as she could say them perfectly, she raced upstairs, and into hermother’s room, gave her the book, and repeated them at her fastest pace.Poor Lady Woodley was too weary and languid to exert herself to speak tothe little girl about her unsuitable manner, or to try to bring thelesson home to her; she dismissed her, only saying, “I hope, my dear, youwill remember this,” and away ran Lucy, first to the orchard in search ofher brothers, and not finding them there, round and round the garden andpleasance. Edmund, in his hiding-place, heard the voice calling “Walter!Charlie!” and peeping out, caught a glimpse of a little figure, her l
ongfrock tucked over her arm, and long locks of dark hair blowing out fromunder her small, round, white cap. What a pleasure it was to him to havethat one view of his little sister!

  At last, tired with her search, Lucy returned to the house, and therefound Deborah ironing at the long table in the hall, and crooning awayher one dismal song of “Barbara Allen’s cruelty.”

  “So you can sing again, Deb,” she began, “now the Roundheads are gone andDiggory come back?”

  “Little girls should not meddle with what does not concern them,”answered Deborah.

  “You need not call me a little girl,” said Lucy. “I am almost elevenyears old; and I know a secret, a real secret.”

  “A secret, Mistress Lucy? Who would tell their secrets to the like ofyou?” said Deborah, contemptuously.

  “No one told me; I found it out for myself!” cried Lucy, in highexultation. “I know what became of the pigeon pie that we thought Roseate up!”

  “Eh? Mistress Lucy!” exclaimed Deborah, pausing in her ironing, full ofcuriosity.

  Lucy was delighted to detail the whole of what she had observed.

  “Well!” cried Deborah, “if ever I heard tell the like! That slip of athing out in all the blackness of the night! I should be afraid of mylife of the ghosts and hobgoblins. Oh! I had rather be set up for amark for all the musketeers in the Parliament army, than set one foot outof doors after dark!”

  As Deborah spoke, Walter came into the hall. He saw that Lucy hadobserved something, and was anxious every time she opened her lips. Thismade him rough and sharp with her, and he instantly exclaimed, “How now,Lucy, still gossipping?”

  “You are so cross, I can’t speak a word for you,” said Lucy, fretfully,walking out of the room, while Walter, in his usual imperious way, beganto shout for Diggory and his boots. “Diggory, knave!”

  “Anon, sir!” answered the dogged voice.

  “Bring them, I say, you laggard!”

  “Coming, sir, coming.”

  “Coming, are you, you snail?” cried Walter, impatiently. “Your heels aretardier now than they were at Worcester!”

  “A man can’t do more nor he can do, sir,” said Diggory, sullenly, as heplodded into the hall.

  “Answering again, lubber?” said Walter. “Is this what you call cleaned?You are not fit for your own shoe-blacking trade! Get along with you!”and he threw the boots at Diggory in a passion. “I must wear them,though, as they are, or wait all day. Bring them to me again.”

  Walter had some idle notion in his head that it was Puritanical to speakcourteously to servants, and despising Diggory for his cowardice andstupidity, he was especially overbearing with him, and went on rating himall the time he was putting on his boots, to go out and try to catch somefish for the morrow’s dinner, which was likely to be but scanty. As soonas he was gone, Diggory, who had listened in sulky silence, began toutter his complaints.

  “Chicken-heart, moon-calf, awkward lubber, those be the best words a poorfellow gets. I can tell Master Walter that these are no times forgentlefolks to be hectoring, especially when they haven’t a penny to paywages with.”

  “You learnt that in the wars, Diggory,” said Deborah, turning round, for,grumble as she might herself, she could not bear to have a word said byanyone else against her lady’s family, and loved to scold her sweetheart,Diggory. “Never mind Master Walter. If he has not a penny in hispocket, and the very green coat to his back is cut out of hisgrandmother’s farthingale, more’s the pity. How should he show he is agentleman but by hectoring a bit now and then, ’specially to such a rogueas thou, coming back when thy betters are lost. That is always the way,as I found when I lost my real silver crown, and kept my trumperyParliament bit.”

  “Ah, Deb!” pleaded Diggory, “thou knowst not what danger is! I thoughtthou wouldst never have set eyes on poor Diggory again.”

  “Much harm would that have been,” retorted Mrs. Deb, tossing her head.“D’ye think I’d have broke my heart? That I’ll never do for a runaway.”

  “’Twas time to run when poor Farmer Ewins was cut down, holloaing forquarter, and Master Edmund’s brains lying strewn about on the ground, forall the world like a calf’s.”

  “’Tis your own brains be like a calf’s,” said Deborah. “I’d bargain toeat all of Master Edmund’s brains you ever saw.”

  “He’s as dead as a red herring.”

  “I say he is as life-like as you or I.”

  “I say I saw him stretched out, covered with blood, and a sword-cut onhis head big enough to be the death of twenty men.”

  “Didn’t that colonel man, as they call him, see him alive and merry longafter? It’s my belief that Master Edmund is not a dozen miles off.”

  “Master Edmund! hey, Deb? I’ll never believe that, after what I’ve seenat Worcester.”

  “Then pray why does Mistress Rose save a whole pigeon out of the pie,hide it in her lap, and steal out of the house with it at midnight?Either Master Edmund is in hiding, or some other poor gentleman from thewars, and I verily believe it is Master Edmund himself; so a fig for hisbrains or yours, and there’s for you, for a false-tongued runaway!Coming, mistress, coming!” and away ran Deborah at a call from Rose.

  Now Deborah was faithful to the backbone, and would have given all shehad in the world, almost her life itself, for her lady and the children;she was a good and honest woman in the main, but tongue and temper weretwo things that she had never learnt to restrain, and she had given herlove to the first person by whom it was sought, without considerationwhether he was worthy of affection or not. That Diggory was a sullen,ill-conditioned, selfish fellow, was evident to everyone else; but he hadpaid court to Deborah, and therefore the foolish woman had allowedherself to be taken with him, see perfections in him, promise to becomehis wife, and confide in him.

  When Deborah left the hall, Diggory returned to his former employment ofchopping wood, and began to consider very intently for him.

  He had really believed, at the moment of his panic-terror, that he sawEdmund Woodley fall, and had at once taken flight, without attempting toafford him any assistance. The story of the brains had, of course, beeninvented on the spur of the moment, by way of excusing his flight, and hewas obliged to persist in the falsehood he had once uttered, though hewas not by any means certain that it had been his master whom he sawkilled, especially after hearing Colonel Enderby’s testimony. And nowthere came alluringly before him the promise of the reward offered forthe discovery of the fugitive cavaliers, the idea of being able to rentand stock poor Ewins’s farm, and setting up there with Deborah. It wasmoney easily come by, he thought, and he would like to be revenged onMaster Walter, and show him that the lubber and moon-calf could do someharm, after all. A relenting came across him as he thought of his ladyand Mistress Rose, though he had no personal regard for Edmund, who hadnever lived at Forest Lea; and his stolid mind was too much enclosed inselfishness to admit much feeling for anyone. Besides, it might not beMaster Edmund; he was probably killed; it might be one of the lords inthe battle, or even the King himself, and that would be worth £1,000.Master Cantwell called them all tyrants and sons of Belial, and what not;and though Dr. Bathurst said differently, who was to know what was right?Dr. Bathurst had had his day, and this was Cantwell’s turn. There was acomedown now of feathered hats, and point collars, and curled hair; andleathern jerkin should have its day. And as for being an informer, hewould keep his own counsel; at any rate, the reward he would have. Itwas scarcely likely to be a hanging matter, after all; and if thegentleman, whoever he might be, did chance to be taken, he would get offscot free, no harm done to him. “Diggory Stokes, you’re a made man!” hefinished, throwing his bill-hook from him.

  Ah! Lucy, Lucy, you little thought of the harm your curiosity andchattering had done, as you saw Diggory stealing along the side of thewood, in the direction leading to Chichester!