A period now began of daily penance to Mrs. Talbot, of daily excitement and delight to Cis. Two hours or more had to be spent in attendance on Queen Mary. Even on Sundays there was no exemption, the visit only took place later in the day, so as not to interfere with going to church.
Nothing could be more courteous or more friendly than the manner in which the elder lady was always received. She was always made welcome by the Queen herself, who generally entered into conversation with her almost as with an equal. Or when Mary herself was engaged in her privy chamber in dictating to her secretaries, the ladies of the suite showed themselves equally friendly, and told her of their mistress's satisfaction in having a companion free from all the rude and unaccountable humours and caprices of my Lady Countess and her daughters. And if Susan was favoured, Cis was petted. Queen Mary always liked to have young girls about her. Their fresh, spontaneous, enthusiastic homage was pleasant to one who loved above all to attract, and it was a pleasure to a prisoner to have a fresh face about her.
Was it only this, or was it the maternal instinct that made her face light up when the young girl entered the room and return the shy reverential kiss of the hand with a tender kiss on the forehead, that made her encourage the chatter, give little touches to the deportment, and present little keepsakes, which increased in value till Sir Richard began to look grave, and to say there must be no more jewels of price brought from the lodge? And as his wife uttered a word that sounded like remonstrance, he added, "Not while she passes for my daughter."
Cis, who had begun by putting on a pouting face, burst into tears. Her adopted parents had always been more tolerant and indulgent to her than if she had been a child over whom they felt entire rights, and instead of rewarding her petulance with such a blow as would have fallen to the lot of a veritable Talbot, Richard shrugged his shoulders and left the room—the chamber which had been allotted to Dame Susan at the Manor-house, while Susan endeavoured to cheer the girl by telling her not to grieve, for her father was not angry with her.
"Why—why may not the dear good Queen give me her dainty gifts?" sobbed Cis.
"See, dear child," said Susan, "while she only gave thee an orange stuck with cloves, or an embroidery needle, or even a puppy dog, it is all very well; but when it comes to Spanish gloves and coral clasps, the next time there is an outcry about a plot, some evil-disposed person would be sure to say that Master Richard Talbot had been taking bribes through his daughter."
"It would be vilely false!" cried Cis with flashing eyes.
"It would not be the less believed," said Susan. "My Lord would say we had betrayed our trust, and there never has been one stain on my husband's honour."
"You are wroth with me too, mother!" said Cis.
"Not if you are a good child, and guard the honour of the name you bear."
"I will, I will!" said Cis. "Never will I take another gift from the Queen if only you and he will call me your child, and be—good to me—" The rest was lost in tears and in the tender caresses that Susan lavished on her; all the more as she caught the broken words, "Humfrey, too, he would never forgive me."
Susan told her husband what had passed, adding, "She will keep her word."
"She must, or she shall go no more to the lodge," he said.
"You would not have doubted had you seen her eye flash at the thought of bringing your honour into question. There spoke her kingly blood."
"Well, we shall see," sighed Richard, "if it be blood that makes the nature. I fear me hers is but that of a Scottish thief! Scorn not warning, mother, but watch thy stranger nestling well."
"Nay, mine husband. While we own her as our child, she will do anything to be one with us. It is when we seem to put her from us that we wound her so that I know not what she might do, fondled as she is—by—by her who—has the best right to the dear child."
Richard uttered a certain exclamation of disgust which silenced his discreet wife.
Neither of them had quite anticipated the result, namely, that the next morning, Cis, after kissing the Queen's hand as usual, remained kneeling, her bosom heaving, and a little stammering on her tongue, while tears rose to her eyes.
"What is it, mignonne," said Mary, kindly; "is the whelp dead? or is the clasp broken?"
"No, madam; but—but I pray you give me no more gifts. My father says it touches his honour, and I have promised him—Oh, madam, be not displeased with me, but let me give you back your last beauteous gift."
Mary was standing by the fire. She took the ivory and coral trinket from the hand of the kneeling girl, and dashed it into the hottest glow. There was passion in the action, and in the kindling eye, but it was but for a moment. Before Cis could speak or Susan begin her excuses, the delicate hand was laid on the girl's head, and a calm voice said, "Fear not, child. Queens take not back their gifts. I ought to have borne in mind that I am balked of the pleasure of giving—the beat of all the joys they have robbed me of. But tremble not, sweetheart, I am not chafed with thee. I will vex thy father no more. Better thou shouldst go without a trinket or two than deprive me of the light of that silly little face of thine so long as they will leave me that sunbeam."
She stooped and kissed the drooping brow, and Susan could not but feel as if the voice of nature were indeed speaking.
A few words of apology in her character of mother for the maiden's abrupt proceeding were met by the Queen most graciously. "Spare thy words, good madam. We understand and reverence Mr. Talbot's point of honour. Would that all who approached us had held his scruples!"
Perhaps Mary was after this more distant and dignified towards the matron, but especially tender and caressing towards the maiden, as if to make up by kindness for the absence of little gifts.
Storms, however, were brewing without. Lady Shrewsbury made open complaints of her husband having become one of Mary's many victims, representing herself as an injured wife driven out of her house. She actually in her rage carried the complaint to Queen Elizabeth, who sent down two commissioners to inquire into the matter. They sat in the castle hall, and examined all the attendants, including Richard and his wife. The investigation was extremely painful and distressing, but it was proved that nothing could have been more correct and guarded than the whole intercourse between the Earl and his prisoner. If he had erred, it had been on the side of caution and severity, though he had always preserved the courteous demeanour of a gentleman, and had been rejoiced to permit whatever indulgences could be granted. If there had been any transgressions of the strict rules, they had been made by the Countess herself and her daughters in the days of their intimacy with the Queen; and the aspersions on the unfortunate Earl were, it was soon evident, merely due to the violent and unscrupulous tongues of the Countess and her daughter Mary. No wonder that Lord Shrewsbury wrote letters in which he termed the lady "his wicked and malicious wife," and expressed his conviction that his son Gilbert's mind had been perverted by her daughter.
The indignation of the captive Queen was fully equal to his, as one after another of her little court returned and was made to detail the points on which he or she had been interrogated. Susan found her pacing up and down the floor like a caged tigress, her cap and veil thrown back, so that her hair—far whiter than what was usually displayed—was hanging dishevelled, her ruff torn open, as if it choked back the swelling passion in her throat.
"Never, never content with persecuting me, they must insult me! Is it not enough that I am stripped of my crown, deprived of my friends; that I cannot take a step beyond this chamber, queen as I am, without my warder? Must they attaint me as a woman? Oh, why, why did the doom spare me that took my little brothers? Why did I live to be the most wretched, not of sovereigns alone, but of women?"
"Madam," entreated Marie de Courcelles, "dearest madam, take courage. All these horrible charges refute themselves."
"Ah, Marie! you have said so ten thousand times, and what charge has ever been dropped?"
"This one is dropped!" exclaimed Susan, coming forward. "Yes, your Grace, indeed it is! The Commissioner himself told my husband that no one believed it for a moment."
"Then why should these men have been sent but to sting and gall me, and make me feel that I am in their power?" cried the Queen.
"They came," said the Secretary Curll, "because thus alone could the Countess be silenced."
"The Countess!" exclaimed Mary. "So my cousin hath listened to her tongue!"
"Backed by her daughter's," added Jean Kennedy.
"It were well that she knew what those two dames can say of her Majesty herself, when it serves them," added Marie de Courcelles.
"That shall she!" exclaimed Mary. "She shall have it from mine own hand! Ha! ha! Elizabeth shall know the choice tales wherewith Mary Talbot hath regaled us, and then shall she judge how far anything that comes from my young lady is worth heeding for a moment. Remember you all the tales of the nips and the pinches? Ay, and of all the endearments to Leicester and to Hatton? She shall have it all, and try how she likes the dish of scandal of Mary Talbot's cookery, sauced by Bess of Hardwicke. Here, nurse, come and set this head-gear of mine in order, and do you, my good Curll, have pen, ink, and paper in readiness for me."
The Queen did little but write that morning. The next day, on coming out from morning prayers, which the Protestants of her suite attended, with the rest of the Shrewsbury household, Barbara Mowbray contrived to draw Mrs. Talbot apart as they went towards the lodge.
"Madam," she said, "they all talk of your power to persuade. Now is the time you could do what would be no small service to this poor Queen, ay, and it may be to your own children."
"I may not meddle in any matters of the Queen's," returned Susan, rather stiffly.
"Nay, but hear me, madam. It is only to hinder the sending of a letter."
"That letter which her Grace was about to write yesterday?"
"Even so. 'Tis no secret, for she read fragments of it aloud, and all her women applauded it with all their might, and laughed over the stings that it would give, but Mr. Curll, who bad to copy it, saith that there is a bitterness in it that can do nothing but make her Majesty of England the more inflamed, not only against my Lady Shrewsbury, but against her who writ the letter, and all concerned. Why, she hath even brought in the comedy that your children acted in the woodland, and that was afterwards repeated in the hall!"
"You say not so, Mistress Barbara?"
"Indeed I do. Mr. Curll and Sir Andrew Melville are both of them sore vexed, and would fain have her withdraw it; but Master Nau and all the French part of the household know not how to rejoice enough at such an exposure of my Lady, which gives a hard fling at Queen Elizabeth at the same time! Nay, I cannot but tell you that there are things in it that Dame Mary Talbot might indeed say, but I know not how Queen Mary could bring herself to set down—"
Barbara Mowbray ventured no more, and Susan felt hopeless of her task, since how was she by any means to betray knowledge of the contents of the letter? Yet much that she had heard made her feel very uneasy on all accounts. She had too much strong family regard for the Countess and for Gilbert Talbot and his wife to hear willingly of what might imperil them, and though royal indignation would probably fly over the heads of the children, no one was too obscure in those Tudor times to stand in danger from a sovereign who might think herself insulted. Yet as a Hardwicke, and the wife of a Talbot, it was most unlikely that she would have any opening for remonstrance given to her.
However, it was possible that Curll wished to give her an opening, for no sooner were the ladies settled at work than he bowed himself forward and offered his mistress his copy of the letter.
"Is it fair engrossed, good Curll?" asked Mary.
"Thanks. Then will we keep your copy, and you shall fold and prepare our own for our sealing."
"Will not your Majesty hear it read over ere it pass out of your hands?" asked Curll.
"Even so," returned Mary, who really was delighted with the pungency of her own composition. "Mayhap we may have a point or two to add."
After what Mistress Barbara had said, Susan was on thorns that Cis should hear the letter; but that good young lady, hating the expressions therein herself, and hating it still more for the girl, bethought her of asking permission to take Mistress Cicely to her own chamber, there to assist her in the folding of some of her laces, and Mary consented. It was well, for there was much that made the English-bred Susan's cheeks glow and her ears tingle.
But, at least, it gave her a great opportunity. When the letter was finished, she advanced and knelt on the step of the canopied chair, saying, "Madam, pardon me, if in the name of my unfortunate children, I entreat you not to accuse them to the Queen."
"Your children, lady! How have I included them in what I have told her Majesty of our sweet Countess?"
"Your Grace will remember that the foremost parts in yonder farce were allotted to my son Humfrey and to young Master Babington. Nay, that the whole arose from the woodland sport of little Cis, which your Grace was pleased to admire."
"Sooth enough, my good gossip, but none could suspect the poor children of the malice my Lady Countess contrived to put into the matter."
"Ah, madam! these are times when it is convenient to shift the blame on one who can be securely punished."
"Certes," said Mary, thoughtfully, "the Countess is capable of making her escape by denouncing some one else, especially those within her own reach."
"Your Grace, who can speak such truth of my poor Lady," said Susan, "will also remember that though my Lord did yield to the persuasions of the young ladies, he so heedfully caused Master Sniggins to omit all perilous matter, that no one not informed would have guessed at the import of the piece, as it was played in the hall."
"Most assuredly not," said Mary, laughing a little at the recollection. "It might have been played in Westminster Hall without putting my gracious cousin, ay, or Leicester and Hatton themselves, to the blush."
"Thus, if the Queen should take the matter up and trace it home, it could not but be brought to my poor innocent children! Humfrey is for the nonce out of reach, but the maiden—I wis verily that your Highness would be loath to do her any hurt!"
"Thou art a good pleader, madam," said the queen. "Verily I should not like to bring the bonnie lassie into trouble. It will give Master Curll a little more toil, ay and myself likewise, for the matter must stand in mine own hand; but we will leave out yonder unlucky farce."
"Your Highness is very good," said Susan earnestly.
"Yet you look not yet content, my good lady. What more would you have of me?"
"What your Majesty will scarce grant," said Susan.
"Ha! thou art of the same house thyself. I had forgotten it; thou art so unlike to them. I wager that it is not to send this same letter at all."
"Your Highness hath guessed my mind. Nay, madam, though assuredly I do desire it because the Countess bath been ever my good lady, and bred me up ever since I was an orphan, it is not solely for her sake that I would fain pray you, but fully as much for your Majesty's own."
"Madame Talbot sees the matter as I do," said Sir Andrew Melville. "The English Queen is as like to be irate with the reporter of the scandal as with the author of it, even as the wolf bites the barb that pierces him when he cannot reach the archer."
"She is welcome to read the letter," said Mary, smiling; "thy semblance falleth short, my good friend."
"Nay, madam, that was not the whole of my purport," said Susan, standing with folded hands, looking from one to another. "Pardon me. My thought was that to take part in all this repeating of thoughtless, idle words, spoken foolishly indeed, but scarce so much in malice as to amuse your Grace with Court news, and treasured up so long, your Majesty descends from being the patient and suffering princess, meek, generous, and uncomplaining, to be—to be—"
"No better than one of them, wouldst thou add?" asked Mary, somewhat sharply, as Susan paused.
"Your Highness has said it," answered Susan; then, as there was a moment's pause, she looked up, and with clasped hands added, "Oh, madam! would it not be more worthy, more noble, more queenly, more Christian, to refrain from stinging with this repetition of these vain and foolish slanders?"
"Most Christian treatment have I met with," returned Mary; but after a pause she turned to her almoner. Master Belton, saying, "What say you, sir?"
"I say that Mrs. Talbot speaks more Christian words than are often heard in these parts," returned he. "The thankworthiness of suffering is lost by those who return the revilings upon those who utter them."
"Then be it so," returned the Queen. "Elizabeth shall be spared the knowledge that some ladies' tongues can be as busy with her as with her poor cousin."
With her own hands Mary tore up her own letter, but Curll's copy unfortunately escaped destruction, to be discovered in after times. Lord and Lady Shrewsbury never knew the service Susan had rendered them by causing it to be suppressed.
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