And so, in spite of all their urgings, Henry would not grant to Perkin Warbeck the importance of martyrdom, any more than he had to Lambert Simnel. "Give him a decent horse to ride and let him follow somewhere in the rear of our company to London. Neither served nor ill-treated," he ordered contemptuously. "Has any one of you heard news of my cousin, the lady Katherine Gordon?"

"They say that the first thing the impostor did upon landing, before ever the fighting began, was to have her placed for safety on that little rocky island off the toe of Cornwall which is called St. Michael's Mount," Stafford was able to inform him.

"If he did, it is the only decent thing I ever heard of him," said Henry. "Find out if she is with child, which G.o.d forbid, lest there be no end to this matter. And have her conveyed honourably by some other route to Greenwich, where she may be solaced by the Queen's kindness."

Henry saw to it that Elizabeth was at Greenwich when Perkin was brought into London. It was in order to spare her feelings, he said, since-being but a woman-she appeared at one time to have entertained doubts as to whether the rogue might really be her brother. So she was spared the sight of him riding defencelessly through London, with the mob throwing rotten vegetables and howling derisively at his heels. And of course there could be no doubt about his being counterfeit now, for, although the King's servants had never laid a hand upon him, he had been forced to read aloud a confession-not once or twice but many times. It was, in fact, that same biography which the King had had printed and circulated throughout the country, giving an itinerary of his short wandering life and details of his comparatively humble parentage.

Elizabeth was glad to be out of London, because merely hearing people joke about it afflicted her with the kind of vicarious shame which one feels about the exposure of theories or persons one once believed in. She was kind to Katherine Gordon and was glad to be able to a.s.sure her that once the hubbub of his arrival had died down Perkin would be allowed to live somewhere in the Palace of Westminster with no more restraint than a turned key to his apartments and a couple of guards. It was a triumph of Tudor clemency. But Elizabeth had to be very firm with Katherine about a.s.suming that they were sisters-in-law. She found herself flinching every time the charming Scots girl referred to her husband as Richard, and- since nothing would shake her confidence in him-the Queen had to banish his name from their conversation.

Soon there was all their excitement of the Earl of Surrey's return from Scotland, and Ann's joy at welcoming him. Actually, he reported, there had been very little fighting. James challenged him to single combat with Berwick as the prize-which offer he had felt obliged to decline, since Berwick did not belong to him but to the King, his master. But with Perkin's claims puffed out like a candle James was clearly in a more conciliatory mood, and Henry, always tireless in the pursuit of peace and prosperity, took advantage of it to arrange a long peace treaty between the two countries and a marriage between the handsome, gifted James and his daughter Margaret. And with the arrival of the Earl of Bothwell and all the preparations for a proxy wedding and the making of much finery for their daughter, Henry could no longer keep the Queen away from Westminster.

"We Tudors will soon be the arbiters of the world!" she bragged merrily, peac.o.c.king before her sisters in her own new gown.

"We Tudors!" mocked Cicely, who had come back to London for the event. "Why, Bess Plantagenet, I believe you are really growing proud of this Welsh dynasty you have started! You look like a galleon in full sail, with your new purple velvet and your children grown up and marrying and going out into the world!"

"She looks lovely," a.s.serted Ann, tweaking the pearled sides of her eldest sister's headdress to a yet more becoming angle.

"And you must admit that the Tudor himself will look most impressive in his state ermine as the bride's father!" laughed Elizabeth. "Henry must be at the peak of his power; and if hard endeavour goes for anything, he deserves it, and I am heartily glad for him after all the worry he has had. He is so pleased, Cicely, that our Margaret will be Queen of Scotland." Elizabeth walked to the window, her gorgeous train swis.h.i.+ng after her, and raised her arms in a wide gesture of relief. "Think back upon those awful days of insecurity we endured during the Wars of the Roses, my dears, and imagine how fine it feels to have one daughter Queen of Scotland, my small, bright-hued Mary destined one day perhaps to be Queen of France, and Arthur married to the rich Aragon princess." Even if her children were growing up, Elizabeth herself was barely thirty-five, still slender and young enough to be foolish at times. She swung round and faced them, arms akimbo, as she used to do when encouraging or haranguing them when they were small. "As I say," she bragged again with an air, "we Tudors begin to bestride the world!"

They laughed at her, affectionately, glad of her high spirits. "And What about Harry, your favourite? What high honours is he destined for?" asked Ann, the perspicacious.

Elizabeth's face became all motherly concern immediately. "Oh, Ann, you must not say that! No mother should have favourites," she protested, yet at the same time realizing how precious it was to be still the centre of his world. "I am afraid the King has arranged no spectacular marriage for him yet. He is only a second son, of course, and recently since Henry has become so much more devout he has spoken about training him for the Church."

Irreverently, the girls burst out laughing. "Harry, a sober prelate!" they spluttered. And Patch, who had joined them unnoticed, placed a platter upside down upon his head, joined his fingertips together and raised his eyes to Heaven, treating them to a ridiculous mime of Prince Harry being solemn in a tonsure.

"Let us go and look at Margaret's gown for the proxy wedding. That is what really matters," suggested Elizabeth, linking her arm in Cicely's. "The dressmakers are with her now." And as Ann had already seen it the two of them went along together. Margaret Tudor was standing in the middle of her room, a mere child in her bridal finery, with her women busy all about her. "She is too young to go to James yet," whispered Elizabeth, touched by the virgin freshness of her daughter.

"It does not seem so long since it was you standing like that trying on your wedding dress," murmured Cicely; and their smiling glances met, holding the memory.

"And to think how much I minded!" said Elizabeth.

"Minded?"

"About that odious Dauphin."

"All the same, that was your real bridal gown. For in a sense there has been no one since," said Cicely, with unusual understanding. "Or has there?"

Elizabeth shook her head sadly. "Only someone-I could have loved-"

"Tom Stafford?" said Cicely, still speaking in intimate undertones.

But Elizabeth had moved away and did not answer. To hide the colour burning her cheeks she bent down to examine the rose embroidery on her daughter's train. Life, for her, had never been as uncomplicated as that. And Margaret, having remarked their presence, was growing restive beneath all the measurements and pins. "Aunt Cicely, do you think I shall make a beautiful bride? Will the Earl of Bothwell like me?" she called across the heads of kneeling dressmakers. "I am so glad Lord Welles let you come to see me betrothed. But you ought to have come sooner, when all London was in an uproar about Perkin Warbeck! My father made him ride through the streets and read out loud all about who he really was. It was as good as a play, my laundress told me. She says they emptied their slops from upper windows all over that golden hair of his which he pretends is like ours, and even scooped up muck from the gutters and threw it in his face."

"Have you seen him, Bess?" asked Cicely.

"No. I am only now come from Greenwich."

"And I imagine none of us would want to!" said Ann, who had followed them, with a toss of her dainty head.

"But I have!" shouted Margaret triumphantly, emerging from the billows of satin which were being drawn over her rumpled head.

"You have seen him?" repeated the Queen in surprise. "Where?"

"From the window of that little anteroom beside the King's work-closet. It looks down on to a tiny walled garden where the monks used to walk. And Perkin Warbeck is allowed to walk there now. I saw him when I went to write my signature on some marriage doc.u.ments. And the secretary told me that my father sometimes stands there and looks down too."

If Margaret had hoped to spring a surprise on her relatives, her sense of importance was satisfied. It was beneath a Queen's dignity to ask what so base an imposter looked like, but Elizabeth was glad when one of her sisters did.

"Oh, very ordinary," replied Margaret superciliously. "A fair, slight young man in plain worsted such as merchants wear. I could not see so much as a gash on him and he did not look even ashamed. After all the trouble he has caused, my father should have sent him whipped to Tyburn."

"Your father the King knows best," reproved Elizabeth sharply. "And it would become you to remember that your future husband was not so long ago this Perkin Warbeck's friend."

But the child's words had disturbed her.

"Why do you suppose Henry watches him like that?" she asked, returning with her sisters to her own apartments.

"Curiosity, I suppose," shrugged Cicely. "After all, whoever he is, this Perkin person has had rather an amazing run for his money."

"Like a cat watching a caught mouse," mused Elizabeth. "I sometimes wish he had put him to death. It might have been kinder. Henry did not even suggest making him a scullion. I wonder- what he is waiting for."

Cicely surveyed her anxiously. "Bess, you are not still fancying that he might really be d.i.c.kon? Not after what that awful Tyrrell man said-"

"No, no. Of course not. But, all the same, I should like to see him-just once."

After Cicely had rejoined her husband Elizabeth sat idly by her open window, watching summer thunder-clouds pile up above the sunset. The approaching storm made the evening still and airless. There was much to do for the entertainment of her Scottish guests, but her mind was not on her daughter's affairs. It had gone back to the things which Margaret had said with such young callousness. "Why is it that other people are allowed to see him and not I?" she wondered. "Why, half the people in London must have seen him. And I was always allowed to see Lambert Simnel. I went down into the kitchens that day. And I could see him now any day I liked, about the Palace or out hawking. And why was Henry so anxious to keep me away from Westminster?"

The storm spent its fury and pa.s.sed, freshening the earth, and the morning of the proxy wedding dawned bright and cloudless. Yet, in spite of all the happy hospitable duties she had to perform, the thought nagged absurdly at the back of Elizabeth's mind. She could have asked Henry to let her see Perkin, of course. But even when their guests had retired, befriended and impressed, she could not bring herself to do so. He would probably laugh at her. Or refuse. And if he refused she would know that he himself, as she had once suspected, was not quite sure. That he was afraid that she, like her Aunt Margaret, might recognize him. The old quick fire of hope which she had supposed to be extinguished began to run through her again. In the evening, returning from vespers, she made occasion to walk with her ladies beside the old garden wall. Stopping for a moment or two and calling to one of them to adjust her shoe, she gave herself time to observe the strong iron gate. Seeing her, a couple of men-at-arms who had been sitting dicing on a log of wood beside it rose hurriedly and stood to attention. They were Perkin's guards, she supposed. A heavy old key hung from the belt of one of them.

When she went back into the Palace she found the King and the proxy bridegroom awaiting her. The Earl had come to make his adieux. He would be leaving in the morning. His master, he a.s.sured her, would count himself a very happy man.

"He will probably need to be a very firm one sometimes," laughed Elizabeth, with her usual candour. "But, happy as we are about this union, we shall be glad to have our daughter with us for a year or two longer."

"If Margaret is a little imperious sometimes, it is probably the effect of all this sudden ceremony and importance," said Henry, not liking to hear his favourite daughter even lightly criticized. "After so much excitement I think, Madam, it would be well if you took her to the quiet of our palace at Richmond to-morrow."

Elizabeth looked up quickly. "To-morrow?" she repeated involuntarily.

"I will tell them to prepare the barge."

But quite suddenly and definitely Elizabeth knew that she could not go to-morrow. There was something she must do first, even if it meant defying him. "If, by your Grace's leave, we might make it the following day-with all the clothes we brought-my own and the children's, it would be a little difficult to depart so soon. And I had hoped to spend a little time with Arthur before he returns to Ludlow-" she improvised. And because she was so seldom difficult-or because a guest was present-he could not well refuse to gratify so reasonable a request. "The day afterwards, then," he agreed pleasantly enough; but Elizabeth knew that it was a command.

"That gives me twenty-four hours," she thought, and wasted several of them lying awake. "He may change his mind and put this Perkin to death, and then I shall never see him," she thought. "But who is there to help me? Surely, among all the courtiers who daily pay me compliments, there is at least one who would arrange so small a thing?" Her mind roved over them, but not one, she decided, would risk the King's displeasure. She thought of Stafford, but he was married and a King's man now. Her mind moved down the social scale a little. Surely there was one of her own household-or one of the royal servants-who would find a way to serve her in this matter. And towards morning she remembered that there was someone who had said that he would do anything for her-anything at all.

Elizabeth rose early and, going to feed the parrot which Lord Stanley had given her, made loud lamentation that her new pet was ailing. And what more normal than to send for the King's head falconer?

"Why, of course, Madam," agreed her ladies. "He is so clever with birds."

Whatever important personages may have been going hawking that sunny morning, Simnel came immediately. He stood before her, feathered cap in hand and Tudor rose on jerkin, looking st.u.r.dy and dependable. And when, after asking him to examine the parrot, she managed to be alone with him for a few moments he made no elaborate protests of loyalty nor asked any inconvenient questions. He merely waited there, with the bird in his hands, ready to serve her.

"I want to get into that little old walled garden between the Palace and the Abbey," she told him as they stood beside the gilded cage. "But it is locked."

For a moment or two all his attention appeared to be concentrated upon the gaily hued wing outspread between his expert fingers. "How soon could your Grace be there?" he asked.

"In an hour from now?" The Queen's whisper sounded eager as a young girl's.

"It will be unlocked," was all he said.

The very simplicity of his loyalty disarmed her. "You will be taking a grave hazard, Simnel," she warned. "Even the Tudor does not forgive a man twice."

"Life is full of hazards, Madam," he said cheerfully, putting her parrot back carefully into its cage. "But with the ointment I shall send-a little on the wing daily-I think your Grace need have no further anxiety," he added in a louder voice as some of her ladies returned from the errand upon which she had sent them. He bowed then, feathered hat in hand again, and excused himself. "One of the King's favourite falcons has escaped, Madam," he explained. "So I must hurry."

"Oh, Simnel!" exclaimed the women sympathetically.

"I shall soon get her back, ladies," he a.s.sured them. "She may have flown into the yard of a private house or over some garden wall. But everyone will willingly let me in to search."

He was so goodnatured and such a general favourite that the Queen made no doubt they would. Even those two guards whom she had seen dicing away their tedium. "How long will it take you, Simnel?" she asked anxiously.

"No longer than to persuade people to lend me their keys in the King's name. And, of course," he added with an engaging grin as he bent near her to make sure the gilded cage was latched, "to see first that a falcon really escapes!"

IT WAS VERY QUIET in the little walled garden. Only the birds sang as they darted between the tangled bushes or strutted unafraid upon the daisy-strewn gra.s.s. The air was sweet with the scent of honeysuckle and the high walls shut out all sound of the everyday world.

Letting the heavy gate close behind her, Elizabeth felt as if she had stepped outside her normal life into a dream. Warmth and peace enfolded her and time seemed to stand still. Yet she found herself hurrying. As she followed one of the overgrown paths her feet began to run and her breath to come more quickly. Trailing brambles caught at the rich material of her skirts, and cobwebs, still dew-starred, brushed softly through her fingers; but she scarcely heeded them. She had waited so long for this encounter, yet knew not whom she would meet.

"It will be like the day I went to see Simnel in the kitchens," she a.s.sured herself, as she penetrated deeper into the garden. "This Perkin impostor will turn round and my heart will go blank as it did then. There will be the same sharp disappointment, like the cutting of a surgeon's knife, and then I shall be cured."

Suddenly, at a bend in the path, she came upon him. So suddenly that she stopped short with a hand on her racing heart. He was standing in the morning sunlight, a slim graceful figure outlined against a sunwashed wall. The light burnished his golden head as he bent over a book. This time there was to be no short, decisive cure. He might have been d.i.c.kon, grown to manhood, standing there.

"No wonder they all believed in him!" she thought.

Elizabeth supposed that she must have spoken the words aloud, for he turned then and saw her. Some grand lady in green and gold, staring at his solitude. Whatever surprise he may have felt, he had sufficient social poise to conceal it. He came forward a step or two, courteously, to greet her. "Madam, the morning was beautiful before your beauty adorned it," he said, with a delighted smile, "but now-"

Clearly, he had not recognized her. Elizabeth drew closer, looking into his face. Her eagerness may have betrayed her, or the rare jewels she wore. His mind worked like quicksilver. "But now it is home," he submitted smoothly, and stretched out both his shapely hands towards her.

It had never occurred to her that she might see him and still not be sure. But this was a man's face, with no boyish curves left. The fair skin was bronzed a little by the weather, the smooth flesh of cheek and chin tightened by shaving. There was about it a jauntiness, a wariness, and even an unfamiliar suggestion of hardness. Only the mouth was tender, as she had remembered d.i.c.kon's. Of course he, too, might feel uncertain and be taking a chance. But whoever he was he had the advantage over her, for he must often have seen her recent portrait in Margaret of Burgundy's house. Elizabeth withdrew her half-extended hands which had moved so spontaneously to meet his. "Are you the person they call Perkin Warbeck?" she asked.

By turning to lay his book aside upon the seat he gained a moment for reflection. But he must have decided to make no effort to gainsay her. "Or Osbeck," he shrugged, as if amused. "They never seem quite certain. And you, Madam," he said, bowing profoundly, "must be Elizabeth, the Queen."

"I came to see how you fared," she lied, "after all that they did to you."

"That was heavenly gracious of you. But their tormentings did not amount to much," he said, gathering up his cloak and spreading it for her across the stone bench. "Will your Grace deign to sit here?"

Elizabeth's limbs were trembling and she could not have refused him if she would. She sank down thankfully in the pleasant shade of an old mulberry tree. "Surely it was hard to bear, the hooting and the-things they threw?"

He winced, but she guessed that his fastidious pride was suffering less from the memory than because she had heard of it. He stood easily before her, expounding his philosophy of life. "One can always keep one's thoughts on something else," he said. "On a lark that is singing, on the thought of how badly the man in front rides, or upon the woman one loves."

"And that would help?" The Queen's voice was low and pitiful.

"Imagination can always rise above reality."

"You have certainly not been wanting in imagination! Imagination for which others have suffered," she said scornfully. He made an expressive gesture of regret and she relented. "But-when you read aloud your confession and they mocked you?"

"Ah, there I found it paid to employ other tactics," he told her, entering into the matter with absurd zest. "It was not my confession, of course. But, even so, one should join in the baiting, giving back shaft for shaft, steering their sense of the ridiculous, whenever possible, towards something else. Always with wit and good humour, bien entendu. For there is nothing your Londoner likes better than a good laugh. I a.s.sure you, Madam, I am becoming so experienced in these matters that I thought of employing my tedium here by writing a book for my fellow-unfortunates. 'Eloquence through rotten eggs,' perhaps, or 'Suitable sayings from the stocks.'"

"Don't!"

Grinning down at her, he looked more than ever like her memories of d.i.c.kon. "But why should you care?" he asked, teasing her with mock amazement.

"Because you remind me-"

"Ah!" He grew grave again, but did not pursue the advantage.

The precious time was pa.s.sing, and she had so much to ask him-so many traps to set. "Tell me about my aunt, the Dowager d.u.c.h.ess," she commanded.

"She is in good health and entrusted me with her love to you."

"Then she really supposed that you would get so far as to see me?"

"And so I have," he reminded her.

"But scarcely in the way that she intended."

"That will be a great disappointment to her," he admitted. "The d.u.c.h.ess was extraordinarily good to me."

"And you adored her." Illusion was so strong that it was on the tip of Elizabeth's tongue to add, "You always did adore her."

"Although I was grateful, I did not enjoy being beholden. Her Grace had too much the ordering of my life. And she could be vindictive. Particularly to the Tudors, of course."

"And it was she, I suppose, who really taught you English?"

"Heaven forbid!" he exclaimed, with a boyish burst of laughter. "She has acquired an execrable Lowland accent."

His own was pure native as the English hills.

"But she taught you all about us. Our names and habits, and how we looked and talked, so that you could speak of us familiarly. And about King Edward."

"There was no need. I remember my father perfectly."

"Jean de Warbeck, the merchant of Tournay?"

"If you say so, Madam."

Quite unreasonably, his good-tempered agreement angered her more than his pride. "Why do you so meekly say everything that is put into your mouth? Oh, I know that you had no choice-out there-when the King made you. But here-with me?"

His smile was both diffident and engaging. "Having failed, would it not be but poor kindness to persuade you?"

"You mean," she said, quick to pick up his thought, "that, so long as there was any question of your succeeding, it was my son or you?"

"And since my day is done let it be indubitably your son."

The insolence of his presuming to give her peace of mind infuriated her. "And probably not pressing his claim is just a clever way to avoid my questioning," she thought.