"None, sir," said Humfrey, "except of giving up all if I can so defend her from aught." He spoke in a quiet matter-of-fact way that made his father look with some inquiry at his grave settled face, quite calm, as if saying nothing new, but expressing a long-formed quiet purpose.

Nor, though Humfrey was his eldest son and heir, did Richard Talbot try to cross it.

He asked whether he might see Cicely before going on to London, but Sir Amias said that in that case she would not be allowed to return to the Queen, and that to have had any intercourse with the prisoners might overthrow all his designs in London, and he therefore only left with Humfrey his commendations to her, with a pot of fresh honey and a lavender-scented set of kerchiefs from Mistress Susan.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

TETE-A-TETE.

During that close imprisonment at Tixall Cicely learnt to know her mother both in her strength and weakness. They were quite alone; except that Sir Walter Ashton daily came to perform the office of taster and carver at their meals, and on the first evening his wife dragged herself upstairs to superintend the arrangement of their bedroom, and to supply them with toilette requisites according to her own very limited notions and possessions. The Dame was a very homely, hard-featured lady, deaf, and extremely fat and heavy, one of the old uncultivated rustic gentry who had lagged far behind the general civilisation of the country, and regarded all refinements as effeminate French vanities. She believed, likewise, all that was said against Queen Mary, whom she looked on as barely restrained from plunging a dagger into Elizabeth's heart, and letting Parma's h.e.l.l-hounds loose upon Tixall. To have such a guest imposed on her was no small grievance, and nothing but her husband's absolute mandate could have induced her to come up with the maids who brought sheets for the bed, pillows, and the like needments. Mary tried to make her requests as moderate as necessity would permit; but when they had been shouted into her ears by one of the maids, she shook her head at most of them, as articles unknown to her. Nor did she ever appear again. The arrangement of the bed-chamber was performed by two maidservants, the Knight himself meanwhile standing a grim sentinel over the two ladies in the outer apartment to hinder their holding any communication through the servants. All requests had to be made to him, and on the first morning Mary made a most urgent one for writing materials, books, and either needlework or spinning.

Pen and ink had been expressly forbidden, the only book in the house was a thumbed and torn primer, but Dame Joan, after much grumbling at fine ladies' whims, vouchsafed to send up a distaff, some wool, a piece of unbleached linen, and a skein of white thread.

Queen Mary executed therewith an exquisite piece of embroidery, which having escaped Dame Joan's first impulse to burn it on the spot, remained for many years the show and the wonder of Tixall. Save for this employment, she said she should have gone mad in her utter uncertainty about her own fate, or that of those involved with her. To ask questions of Ashton was like asking them of a post. He would give her no notion whether her servants were at Chartley or not, whether they were at large or in confinement, far less as to who was accused of the plot, and what had been discovered. All that could be said for him was that his churlishness was pa.s.sive and according to his ideas of duty. He was a very reluctant and uncomfortable jailer, but he never insulted, nor wilfully ill-used his unfortunate captive.

Thus Mary was left to dwell on the little she knew, namely, that Babington and his fellows were arrested, and that she was supposed to be implicated; but there her knowledge ceased, except that Humfrey's warning convinced her that Cuthbert Langston had been at least one of the traitors. He had no doubt been offended and disappointed at that meeting during the hawking at Tutbury.

"Yet I need scarcely seek the why or the wherefore," she said. "I have spent my life in a world of treachery. No sooner do I take a step on ground that seems ever so firm, than it proves a quicksand. They will swallow me at last."

Daily-more than daily-did she and Cicely go over together that hurried conversation on the moor, and try to guess whether Langston intended to hint at Cicely's real birth. He had certainly not disclosed her secret as yet, or Paulett would never have selected her as sprung of a loyal house, but he might guess at the truth, and be waiting for an opportunity to sell it dearly to those who would regard her as possessed of dangerous pretensions.

And far more anxiously did the Queen recur to examining Cicely on what she had gathered from Humfrey. This was in fact nothing, for he had been on his guard against either telling or hearing anything inconsistent with loyalty to the English Queen, and thus had avoided conversation on these subjects.

Nor did the Queen communicate much. Cicely never understood clearly what she dreaded, what she expected to be found among her papers, or what had been in the packet thrown into the well. The girl did not dare to ask direct questions, and the Queen always turned off indirect inquiries, or else a.s.sured her that she was still a simple happy child, and that it was better for her own sake that she should know nothing, then caressed her, and fondly pitied her for not being admitted to her mother's confidence, but said piteously that she knew not what the secrets of Queens and captives were, not like those of Mistress Susan about the goose to be dressed, or the crimson hose to be knitted for a surprise to her good husband.

But Cicely could see that she expected the worst, and believed in a set purpose to shed her blood, and she spent much time in devotion, though sorely distressed by the absence of all those appliances which her Church had taught her to rest upon. And these prayers, which often began with floods of tears, so that Cicely drew away into the window with her distaff in order not to seem to watch them, ended with rendering her serene and calm, with a look of high resignation, as having offered herself as a sacrifice and martyr for her Church.

And yet was it wholly as a Roman Catholic that she had been hated, intrigued against, and deposed in her own kingdom? Was it simply as a Roman Catholic that she was, as she said, the subject of a more cruel plot than that of which she was accused?

Mysterious woman that she was, she was never more mysterious than to her daughter in those seventeen days that they were shut up together! It did not so much strike Cicely at the time, when she was carried along with all her mother's impulses and emotions, without reflecting on them, but when in after times she thought over all that then had pa.s.sed, she felt how little she had understood.

They suffered a good deal from the heat and closeness of the rooms, for Mary was like a modern Englishwoman in her craving for free air, and these were the dog-days. They had contrived by the help of a diamond that the Queen carried about with her, after the fashion of the time, to extract a pane or two from the lattices so ingeniously that the master of the house never found it out. And as their two apartments looked out different ways, they avoided the full sunshine, for they had neither curtains nor blinds to their windows, by moving from one to the other; but still the closeness was very oppressive, and in the heat of the day, just after dinner, they could do nothing but lie on the table, while the Queen told stories of her old life in France, till sometimes they both went to sleep. Most of her dainty needlework was done in the long light mornings, for she hardly slept at all in the hot nights. Cis scarcely saw her in bed, for she prayed long after the maiden had fallen asleep, and was up with the light and embroidering by the window.

She only now began to urge Cicely to believe as she did, and to join her Church, taking blame to herself for never having attempted it more seriously. She told of the oneness and the glory of Roman Catholicism as she had seen it in France, held out its promises and professions, and dwelt on the comfort of the intercession of the Blessed Virgin and the Saints; a.s.suring Cicely that there was nothing but sacrilege, confusion, and cruelty on the other side.

Sometimes the maiden was much moved by the tender manner and persuasive words, and she really had so much affection and admiration for her mother as to be willing to do all that she wished, and to believe her the ablest and most clear-sighted of human beings; but whenever Mary was not actually talking to her, there was a curious swaying back of the pendulum in her mind to the conviction that what Master Richard and Mistress Susan believed must be the right thing, that led to trustworthy goodness. She had an enthusiastic love for the Queen, but her faith and trust were in them and in Humfrey, and she could see religious matters from their point of view better than from that of her mother.

So, though the Queen often felt herself carrying her daughter along, she always found that there had been a slipping back to the old standpoint every time she began again. She was considering with some anxiety of the young maiden's future.

"Could I but send thee to my good sister, the d.u.c.h.ess of Lorraine, she would see thee well and royally married," she said. "Then couldst thou be known by thine own name, and rank as Princess of Scotland. If I can only see my Courcelles again, she would take thee safely and prove all-and thy hand will be precious to many. It may yet bring back the true faith to England, when my brave cousin of Guise has put down the Bearnese, and when the poor stumbling-block here is taken away."

"Oh speak not of that, dear madam, my mother."

"I must speak, child. I must think how it will be with thee, so marvellously saved, and restored to be my comfort. I must provide for thy safety and honour. Happily the saints guarded me from ever mentioning thee in my letters, so that there is no fear that Elizabeth should lay hands on thee, unless Langston should have spoken-the which can hardly be. But if all be broken up here, I must find thee a dwelling with my kindred worthy of thy birth."

"Mr. and Mrs. Talbot would take me home," murmured Cicely.

"Girl! After all the training I have bestowed on thee, is it possible that thou wouldst fain go back to make cheeses and brew small beer with those Yorkshire boors, rather than reign a princess? I thought thy heart was n.o.bler."

Cicely hung her head ashamed. "I was very happy there," she said in excuse.

"Happy-ay, with the milkmaid's bliss. There may be fewer sorrows in such a life as that-just as those comely kine of Ashton's that I see grazing in the park have fewer sorrows than human creatures. But what know they of our joys, or what know the commonalty of the joy of ruling, calling brave men one's own, riding before one's men in the field, wielding counsels of State, winning the love of thousands? Nay, nay, I will not believe it of my child, unless 'tis the base Border blood that is in her which speaks."

Cicely was somewhat overborne by being thus accused of meanness of tastes, when she had heard the Queen talk enviously of that same homely life which now she despised so heartily. She faltered in excuse, "Methought, madam, you would be glad to think there was one loving shelter ever open to me."

"Loving! Ah! I see what it is," said the Queen, in a tone of disgust. "It is the sailor loon that has overthrown it all. A couple of walks in the garden with him, and the silly maid is ready to throw over all n.o.bler thoughts."

"Madam, he spoke no such word to me."

"'Twas the infection, child-only the infection."

"Madam, I pray you-"

"Whist, child. Thou wilt be a perilous bride for any commoner, and let that thought, if no other, keep thee from lowering thine eyes to such as he. Were I and thy brother taken out of the way, none would stand between thee and both thrones! What would English or Scots say to find thee a household Joan, wedded to one of Drake's rude pirate fellows? I tell thee it would be the worse for him. They have made it treason to wed royal blood without Elizabeth's consent. No, no, for his sake, as well as thine own, thou must promise me never thus to debase thy royal lineage."

"Mother; neither he nor I have thought or spoken of such a matter since we knew how it was with me.

"And you give me your word?"

"Yea, madam," said Cicely, who had really never entertained the idea of marrying Humfrey, implicit as was her trust in him as a brother and protector.

"That is well. And so soon as I am restored to my poor servants, if I ever am, I will take measures for sending the French remnant to their own land; nor shall my Courcelles quit thee till she hath seen thee safe in the keeping of Madame de Lorraine or of Queen Louise, who is herself a kinswoman of ours, and, they say, is piety and gentleness itself."

"As you will, madam," said Cicely, her heart sinking at the thought of the strange new world before her, but perceiving that she must not be the means of bringing Humfrey into trouble and danger.

Perhaps she felt this the more from seeing how acutely her mother suffered at times from sorrow for those involved in her disaster. She gave Babington and his companions, as well as Nau and Curll, up for lost, as the natural consequence of having befriended her; and she blamed herself remorsefully, after the long experience of the fatal consequences of meddling in her affairs, for having entered into correspondence with the bright enthusiastic boy whom she remembered, and having lured him without doubt to his death.

"Alack! alack!" she said, "and yet such is liberty, that I should forget all I have gone through, and do the like again, if the door seemed opened to me. At least there is this comfort, cruel child, thy little heart was not set on him, gracious and handsome though he were-and thy mother's most devoted knight! Ah! poor youth, it wrings my soul to think of him. But at least he is a Catholic, his soul will be safe, and I will have hundreds of ma.s.ses sung for him. Oh that I knew how it goes with them! This torture of silent suspense is the most cruel of all."

Mary paced the room with impatient misery, and in such a round the weary hours dragged by, only mitigated by one welcome thunderstorm, for seventeen days, whose summer length made them seem the more endless. Cicely, who had never before in her life been shut up in the house so many hours, was pale, listless, and even fretful towards the Queen, who bore with her petulance so tenderly as more than once to make her weep bitterly for very shame. After one of these fits of tears, Mary pleaded earnestly with Sir Walter Ashton for permission for the maiden to take a turn in the garden every day, but though the good gentleman's complexion bore testimony that he lived in the fresh air, he did not believe in its efficacy; he said he had no orders, and could do nothing without warrant. But that evening at supper, the serving-maid brought up a large brew of herbs, dark and nauseous, which Dame Ashton had sent as good for the young lady's megrim.

"Will you taste it, sir?" asked the Queen of Sir Walter, with a revival of her lively humour.

"The foul fiend have me if a drop comes within my lips," muttered the knight. "I am not bound to taste for a tirewoman!" he added, leaving it in doubt whether his objection arose from distaste to his lady's messes, or from pride; and he presently said, perhaps half-ashamed of himself, and willing to cast the blame on the other side,

"It was kindly meant of my good dame, and if you choose to flout at, rather than benefit by it, that is no affair of mine."

He left the potion, and Cicely disposed of it by small instalments at the windows; and a laugh over the evident horror it excited in the master, did the captives at least as much good as the camomile, centaury, wormwood, and other ingredients of the bowl.

Happily it was only two days later that Sir Walter announced that his custody of the Queen was over, and Sir Amias Paulett was come for her. There was little preparation to make, for the two ladies had worn their riding-dresses all the time; but on reaching the great door, where Sir Amias, attended by Humfrey, was awaiting them, they were astonished to see a whole troop on horseback, all armed with head-pieces, swords and pistols, to the number of a hundred and forty.

"Wherefore is this little army raised?" she asked.

"It is by order of the Queen," replied Ashton, with his accustomed surly manner, "and need enough in the time of such treasons!"

The Queen turned to him with tears on her cheeks. "Good gentlemen," she said, "I am not witting of anything against the Queen. Am I to be taken to the Tower?"