Part 42 (1/2)

”No, madam, back to Chartley,” replied Sir Amias.

”I knew they would never let me see my cousin,” sighed the Queen. ”Sir,” as Paulett placed her on her horse, ”of your pity tell me whether I shall find all my poor servants there.”

”Yea, madam, save Mr. Nau and Mr. Curll, who are answering for themselves and for you. Moreover, Curll's wife was delivered two days since.”

This intelligence filled Mary with more anxiety than she chose to manifest to her unsympathising surroundings; Cis meanwhile had been a.s.sisted to mount by Humfrey, who told her that Mrs. Curll was thought to be doing well, but that there were fears for the babe. It was impossible to exchange many words, for they were immediately behind the Queen and her two warders, and Humfrey could only tell her that his father had been at Chartley, and had gone on to London; but there was inexpressible relief in hearing the sound of his voice, and knowing she had some one to think for her and protect her. The promise she had made to the Queen only seemed to make him more entirely her brother by putting that other love out of the question.

There was a sad sight at the gate,-a whole mult.i.tude of wretched-looking beggars, and poor of all ages and degrees of misery, who all held out their hands and raised one cry of ”Alms, alms, gracious Lady, alms, for the love of heaven!”

Mary looked round on them with tearful eyes, and exclaimed, ”Alack, good folk, I have nothing to give you! I am as much a beggar as yourselves!”

The escort dispersed them roughly, Paulett a.s.suring her that they were nothing but ”a sort of idle folk,” who were only encouraged in laziness by her bounty, which was very possibly true of a certain proportion of them, but it had been a sore grief to her that since Cuthbert Langston's last approach in disguise she had been prevented from giving alms.

In due time Chartley was reached, and the first thing the Queen did on dismounting was to hurry to visit poor Barbara Curll, who had-on her increasing illness-been removed to one of the guest-chambers, where the Queen now found her, still in much distress about her husband, who was in close imprisonment in Walsingham's house, and had not been allowed to send her any kind of message; and in still more immediate anxiety about her new-born infant, who did not look at all as if its little life would last many hours.

She lifted up her languid eyelids, and scarcely smiled when the Queen declared, ”See, Barbara, I am come back again to you, to nurse you and my G.o.d-daughter into health to receive your husband again. Nay, have no fears for him. They cannot hurt him. He has done nothing, and is a Scottish subject beside. My son shall write to claim him,” she declared with such an a.s.sumed air of confidence that a shade of hope crossed the pale face, and the fear for her child became the more pressing of the two griefs.

”We will christen her at once,” said Mary, turning to the nearest attendant. ”Bear a request from me to Sir Amias that his chaplain may come at once and baptize my G.o.d-child.”

Sir Amias was waiting in the gallery in very ill-humour at the Queen's delay, which kept his supper waiting. Moreover, his party had a strong dislike to private baptism, holding that the important point was the public covenant made by responsible persons, and the notion of the sponsors.h.i.+p of a Roman Catholic likewise shocked him. So he made ungracious answer that he would have no baptism save in church before the congregation, with true Protestant gossips.

”So saith he?” exclaimed Mary, when the reply was reported to her. ”Nay, my poor little one, thou shalt not be shut out of the Kingdom of Heaven for his churlishness.” And taking the infant on her knee, she dipped her hand in the bowl of water that had been prepared for the chaplain, and baptized it by her own name of Mary.

The existing Prayer-book had been made expressly to forbid lay baptism and baptism by women, at the special desire of the reformers, and Sir Amias was proportionately horrified, and told her it was an offence for the Archbishop's court.

”Very like,” said Mary. ”Your Protestant courts love to slay both body and soul. Will it please you to open my own chambers to me, sir?”

Sir Amias handed the key to one of her servants but she motioned him aside.

”Those who put me forth must admit me,” she said.

The door was opened by one of the gentlemen of the household, and they entered. Every repository had been ransacked, every cabinet stood open and empty, every drawer had been pulled out. Wearing apparel and the like remained, but even this showed signs of having been tossed over and roughly rearranged by masculine fingers.

Mary stood in the midst of the room, which had a strange air of desolation, an angry light in her eyes, and her hands clasped tightly one into the other. Paulett attempted some expression of regret for the disarray, pleading his orders.

”It needs not excuse, sir,” said Mary, ”I understand to whom I owe this insult. There are two things that your Queen can never take from me-royal blood and the Catholic faith. One day some of you will be sorry for what you have now put upon me! I would be alone, sir,” and she proudly motioned him to the door, with a haughty gesture, showing her still fully Queen in her own apartments. Paulett obeyed, and when he was gone, the Queen seemed to abandon the command over herself she had preserved all this time. She threw herself into Jean Kennedy's arms, and wept freely and piteously, while the good lady, rejoicing at heart to have recovered ”her bairn,” fondled and soothed her with soft Scottish epithets, as though the worn woman had been a child again. ”Yea, nurse, mine own nurse, I am come back to thee; for a little while-only a little while, nurse, for they will have my blood, and oh! I would it were ended, for I am aweary of it all.”

Jean and Elizabeth Curll tried to cheer and console her, alarmed at this unwonted depression, but she only said, ”Get me to bed, nurse, I am sair forfaughten.”

She was altogether broken down by the long suspense, the hards.h.i.+ps and the imprisonment she had undergone, and she kept her bed for several days, hardly speaking, but apparently reposing in the relief afforded by the recovered care and companions.h.i.+p of her much-loved attendants.

There she was when Paulett came to demand the keys of the caskets where her treasure was kept. Melville had refused to yield them, and all the Queen said was, ”Robbery is to be added to the rest,” a sentence which greatly stung the knight, but he actually seized all the coin that he found, including what belonged to Nau and Curll, and, only retaining enough for present expenses, sent the rest off to London.

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

EVIDENCE.

In the meantime the two Richard Talbots, father and son, had safely arrived in London, and had been made welcome at the house of their n.o.ble kinsman.