Unknown to History: A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland by Yonge (best book club books for discussion TXT) 📖

to the ground. But she is full of hope in her son, now that he is come of age, and hath put to death her great foe, the Earl of Morton."

"The poor lady might as well put her faith in—in a jelly-fish," said Humfrey, falling on a comparison perfectly appreciated by the old sailor.

"Heh? She will get naught but stings. How knowest thou?"

"Why, do none know here that King James is in the hands of him they call the Master of Gray?"

"Queen Mary puts in him her chief hope."

"Then she hath indeed grasped a jelly-fish. Know you not, father, those proud and gay ones, with rose-coloured bladders and long blue beards—blue as the azure of a herald's coat?"

"Ay, marry I do. I remember when I was a lad, in my first voyage, laying hold on one. I warrant you I danced about till I was nearly overboard, and my arm was as big as two for three days later. Is the fellow of that sort? The false Scot."

"Look you, father, I met in London that same Johnstone who was one of this lady's gentlemen at one time. You remember him. He breakfasted at Bridgefield once or twice ere the watch became more strict."

"Yea, I remember him. He was an honest fellow for a Scot."

"When he made out that I was the little lad he remembered, he was very courteous, and desired his commendations to you and to my mother. He had been in Scotland, and had come south in the train of this rogue, Gray. I took him to see the old Pelican, and we had a breakfast aboard there. He asked much after his poor Queen, whom he loves as much as ever, and when he saw I was a man he could trust, your true son, he said that he saw less hope for her than ever in Scotland—her friends have been slain or exiled, and the young generation that has grown up have learned to dread her like an incarnation of the scarlet one of Babylon. Their preachers would hail her as Satan loosed on them, and the nobles dread nothing so much as being made to disgorge the lands of the Crown and the Church, on which they are battening. As to her son, he was fain enough to break forth from one set of tutors, and the messages of France and Spain tickled his fancy—but he is nought. He is crammed with scholarship, and not without a shrewd apprehension; but, with respect be it spoken, more the stuff that court fools are made of than kings. It may be, as a learned man told Johnstone, that the shock the Queen suffered when the brutes put Davy to death before her eyes, three months ere his birth, hath damaged his constitution, for he is at the mercy of whosoever chooses to lead him, and hath no will of his own. This Master of Gray was at first inclined to the Queen's party, thinking more might be got by a reversal of all things, but now he finds the king's men so strong in the saddle, and the Queen's French kindred like to be too busy at home to aid her, what doth he do, but list to our Queen's offers, and this ambassage of his, which hath a colour of being for Queen Mary's release, is verily to make terms with my Lord Treasurer and Sir Francis Walsingham for the pension he is to have for keeping his king in the same mind."

"Turning a son against a mother! I marvel that honourable counsellors can bring themselves to the like."

"Policy, sir, policy," said Humfrey. "And this Gray maketh a fine show of chivalry and honour, insomuch that Sir Philip Sidney himself hath desired his friendship; but, you see, the poor lady is as far from freedom as she was when first she came to Sheffield."

"She is very far from believing it, poor dame. I am sorry for her, Humfrey, more sorry than I ever thought I could be, now I have seen more of her. My Lord himself says he never knew her break a promise. How gracious she is there is no telling."

"That we always knew," said Humfrey, looking somewhat amazed, that his honoured father should have fallen under the spell of the "siren between the cold earth and moon."

"Yes, gracious, and of a wondrous constancy of mind, and evenness of temper," said Richard. "Now that thy mother and I have watched her more closely, we can testify that, weary, worn, and sick of body and of heart as she is, she never letteth a bitter or a chiding word pass her lips towards her servants. She hath nothing to lose by it. Their fidelity is proven. They would stand by her to the last, use them as she would, but assuredly their love must be doubly bound up in her when they see how she regardeth them before herself. Let what will be said of her, son Humfrey, I shall always maintain that I never saw woman, save thine own good mother, of such evenness of condition, and sweetness of consideration for all about her, ay, and patience in adversity, such as, Heaven forbid, thy mother should ever know."

"Amen, and verily amen," said Humfrey. "Deem you then that she hath not worked her own woe?"

"Nay, lad, what saith the Scripture, 'Judge not, and ye shall not be judged'? How should I know what hath passed seventeen years back in Scotland?"

"Ay, but for present plots and intrigues, judge you her a true woman?"

"Humfrey, thou hadst once a fox in a cage. When it found it vain to dash against the bars, rememberest thou how it scratched away the earth in the rear, and then sat over the hole it had made, lest we should see it?"

"The fox, say you, sir? Then you cannot call her ought but false."

"They tell me," said Sir Richard, "that ever since an Italian named Machiavel wrote his Book of the Prince, statecraft hath been craft indeed, and princes suck in deceit with the very air they breathe. Ay, boy, it is what chiefly vexes me in the whole. I cannot doubt that she is never so happy as when there is a plot or scheme toward, not merely for her own freedom, but the utter overthrow of our own gracious Sovereign, who, if she hath kept this lady in durance, hath shielded her from her own bloodthirsty subjects. And for dissembling, I never saw her equal. Yet she, as thy mother tells me, is a pious and devout woman, who bears her troubles thus cheerfully and patiently, because she deems them a martyrdom for her religion. Ay, all women are riddles, they say, but this one the most of all!"

"Thinkest thou that she hath tampered with—with that poor maiden's faith?" asked Humfrey huskily.

"I trow not yet, my son," replied Richard; "Cis is as open as ever to thy mother, for I cannot believe she hath yet learnt to dissemble, and I greatly suspect that the Queen, hoping to return to Scotland, may be willing to keep her a Protestant, the better to win favour with her brother and the lords of his council; but if he be such a cur as thou sayest, all hope of honourable release is at an end. So thou seest, Humfrey, how it lies, and how, in my judgment, to remain here is but to wring thine own heart, and bring the wench and thyself to sore straits. I lay not my commands on thee, a man grown, but such is my opinion on the matter."

"I will not disobey you, father," said Humfrey, "but suffer me to consider the matter."

CHAPTER XVIII. CIS OR SISTER.

Buxtona, quae calidae celebraris nomine lymphae
Forte mihi post hac non adeunda, Vale.

(Buxton of whose warm waters men tell,
Perchance I ne'er shall see thee more, Farewell.)

Thus wrote Queen Mary with a diamond upon her window pane, smiling as she said, "There, we will leave a memento over which the admirable Dr. Jones will gloat his philosophical soul. Never may I see thee more, Buxton, yet never thought I to be so happy as I have here been."

She spoke with the tenderness of farewell to the spot which had always been the pleasantest abode of the various places of durance which had been hers in England. Each year she had hoped would be her last of such visits, but on this occasion everything seemed to point to a close to the present state of things, since not only were the negotiations with Scotland apparently prosperous, but Lord Shrewsbury had obtained an absolute promise from Elizabeth that she would at all events relieve him from his onerous and expensive charge. Thus there was general cheerfulness, as the baggage was bestowed in carts and on beasts of burthen, and Mary, as she stood finishing her inscription on the window, smiled sweetly and graciously on Mistress Talbot, and gave her joy of the arrival of her towardly and hopeful son, adding, "We surprised him at the well! May his Cis, who is yet to be found, I trow, reward his lealty!"

That was all the notice Mary deigned to take of the former relations between her daughter and young Talbot. She did not choose again to beg for secrecy when she was sure to hear that she had been forestalled, and she was too consummate a judge of character not to have learnt that, though she might despise the dogged, simple straightforwardness of Richard and Susan Talbot, their honour was perfectly trustworthy. She was able for the present to keep her daughter almost entirely to herself, since, on the return to Sheffield, the former state of things was resumed. The Bridgefield family was still quartered in the Manor-house, and Mistress Talbot continued to be, as it were, Lady Warder to the captive in the place of the Countess, who obstinately refused to return while Mary was still in her husband's keeping. Cicely, as Mary's acknowledged favourite, was almost always in her apartments, except at the meals of the whole company of Shrewsbury kinsfolk and retainers, when her place was always far removed from that of Humfrey. In truth, if ever an effort might have obtained a few seconds of private conversation, a strong sense of embarrassment and perplexity made the two young people fly apart rather than come together. They knew not what they wished. Humfrey might in his secret soul long for a token that Cis remembered his faithful affection, and yet he knew that to elicit one might do her life-long injury. So, however he might crave for word or look when out of sight of her, an honourable reluctance always withheld him from seeking any such sign in the short intervals when he could have tried to go beneath the surface. On the other hand, this apparent indifference piqued her pride, and made her stiff, cold, and almost disdainful whenever there was any approach between them. Her vanity might be flattered by the knowledge that she was beyond his reach; but it would have been still more gratified could she have discovered any symptoms of pining and languishing after her. She might peep at him from under her eyelashes in chapel and in hall; but in the former place his gaze always seemed to be on the minister, in the latter he showed no signs of flagging as a trencher companion. Both mothers thought her marvellously discreet; but neither beheld the strange tumult in her heart, where were surging pride, vanity, ambition, and wounded affection.

In a few days, Sir Ralf Sadler and his son-in-law Mr. Somer arrived at Sheffield in order to take the charge of the prisoner whilst Shrewsbury went to London. The conferences and consultations were endless, and harassing, and it was finally decided that the Earl should escort her to Wingfield, and, leaving her there under charge of Sadler, should proceed to London. She made formal application for Mistress Cicely Talbot to accompany her as one of her suite, and her supposed parents could not but give their consent, but six gentlewomen had been already enumerated, and the authorities would not consent to her taking any more ladies with her, and decreed that Mistress Cicely must remain at home.

"This unkindness has made the parting from this place less joyous than I looked for," said Mary, "but courage, ma mignonne. Soon shall I send for thee to Scotland, and there shalt thou burst thine husk, and show thyself in thy true colours;" and turning