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

"Nay, child, I would not lessen thy love and duty to her, poor soul, but it is not even piety in a mother that can keep a maiden from temptation. I blame not her in warning thee."

Richard himself escorted the damsel to her new home. There was no preventing their being joined by Babington, who, being well acquainted with the road, and being also known as a gentleman of good estate, was able to do much to make their journey easy to them, and secure good accommodation for them at the inns, though Mr. Talbot entirely baffled his attempts to make them his guests, and insisted on bearing a full share of the reckoning. Neither did Cicely fulfil her mother's commission to show herself inclined to accept his attentions. If she had been under contrary orders, there would have been some excitement in going as far as she durst, but the only effect on her was embarrassment, and she treated Antony with the same shy stiffness she had shown to Humfrey, during the earlier part of his residence at home. Besides, she clung more and more to her adopted father, who, now that they were away from home and he was about to part with her, treated her with a tender, chivalrous deference, most winning in itself, and making her feel herself no longer a child.

Arriving at last at Wingfield, Sir Ralf Sadler had hardly greeted them before a messenger was sent to summon the young lady to the presence of the Queen of Scots. Her welcome amounted to ecstasy. The Queen rose from her cushioned invalid chair as the bright young face appeared at the door, held out her arms, gathered her into them, and, covering her with kisses, called her by all sorts of tender names in French and Scottish.

"O ma mie, my lassie, ma fille, mine ain wee thing, how sweet to have one bairn who is mine, mine ain, whom they have not robbed me of, for thy brother, ah, thy brother, he hath forsaken me! He is made of the false Darnley stuff, and compacted by Knox and Buchanan and the rest, and he will not stand a blast of Queen Elizabeth's wrath for the poor mother that bore him. Ay, he hath betrayed me, and deluded me, my child; he hath sold me once more to the English loons! I am set faster in prison than ever, the iron entereth into my soul. Thou art but daughter to a captive queen, who looks to thee to be her one bairn, one comfort and solace."

Cicely responded by caresses, and indeed felt herself more than ever before the actual daughter, as she heard with indignation of James's desertion of his mother's cause; but Mary, whatever she said herself, would not brook to hear her speak severely of him. "The poor laddie," she said, "he was no better than a prisoner among those dour Scots lords," and she described in graphic terms some of her own experiences of royalty in Scotland.

The other ladies all welcomed the newcomer as the best medicine both to the spirit and body of their Queen. She was regularly enrolled among the Queen's maidens, and shared their meals. Mary dined and supped alone, sixteen dishes being served to her, both on "fish and flesh days," and the reversion of these as well as a provision of their own came to the higher table of her attendants, where Cicely ranked with the two Maries, Jean Kennedy, and Sir Andrew Melville. There was a second table, at which ate the two secretaries, Mrs. Curll, and Elizabeth Curll, Gilbert's sister, a most faithful attendant on the Queen. As before, she shared the Queen's chamber, and there it was that Mary asked her, "Well, mignonne, and how fares it with thine ardent suitor? Didst say that he rode with thee?"

"As far as the Manor gates, madam."

"And what said he? Was he very pressing?"

"Nay, madam, I was ever with my father—Mr. Talbot."

"And he keeps the poor youth at arm's length. Thine other swain, the sailor, his son, is gone off once more to rob the Spaniards, is he not?—so there is the more open field."

"Ay! but not till he had taught Antony a lesson."

The Queen made Cis tell the story of the encounter, at which she was much amused. "So my princess, even unknown, can make hearts beat and swords ring for her. Well done! thou art worthy to be one of the maids in Perceforest or Amadis de Gaul, who are bred in obscurity, and set all the knights a sparring together. Tourneys are gone out since my poor gude-father perished by mischance at one, or we would set thee aloft to be contended for."

"O madame mere, it made me greatly afraid, and poor Humfrey had to go off without leave-taking, my Lady Countess was so wrathful."

"So my Lady Countess is playing our game, is she! Backing Babington and banishing Talbot? Ha, ha," and Mary again laughed with a merriment that rejoiced the faithful ears of Jean Kennedy, under her bedclothes, but somewhat vexed Cicely. "Indeed, madam mother," she said, "if I must wed under my degree, I had rather it were Humfrey than Antony Babington."

"I tell thee, simple child, thou shall wed neither. A woman does not wed every man to whom she gives a smile and a nod. So long as thou bear'st the name of this Talbot, he is a good watch-dog to hinder Babington from winning thee: but if my Lady Countess choose to send the swain here, favoured by her to pay his court to thee, why then, she gives us the best chance we have had for many a long day of holding intercourse with our friends without, and a hope of thee will bind him the more closely."

"He is all yours, heart and soul, already, madam."

"I know it, child, but men are men, and no chains are so strong as can be forged by a lady's lip and eye, if she do it cunningly. So said my belle mere in France, and well do I believe it. Why, if one of the sour-visaged reformers who haunt this place chanced to have a daughter with sweetness enough to temper the acidity, the youth might be throwing up his cap the next hour for Queen Bess and the Reformation, unless we can tie him down with a silken cable while he is in the mind."

"Yea, madam, you who are beautiful and winsome, you can do such things, I am homely and awkward."

"Mort de ma vie, child! the beauty of the best of us is in the man's eyes who looks at us. 'Tis true, thou hast more of the Border lassie than the princess. The likeness of some ewe-milking, cheese-making sonsie Hepburn hath descended to thee, and hath been fostered by country breeding. But thou hast by nature the turn of the neck, and the tread that belong to our Lorraine blood, the blood of Charlemagne, and now that I have thee altogether, see if I train thee not so as to bring out the princess that is in thee; and so, good-night, my bairnie, my sweet child; I shall sleep to-night, now that I have thy warm fresh young cheek beside mine. Thou art life to me, my little one."

James VI. again cruelly tore his mother's heart and dashed her hopes by an unfeeling letter, in which he declared her incapable of being treated with, since she was a prisoner and deposed. The not unreasonable expectation, that his manhood might reverse the proceedings wrought in his name in his infancy, was frustrated. Mary could no longer believe that he was constrained by a faction, but perceived clearly that he merely considered her as a rival, whose liberation would endanger his throne, and that whatever scruples he might once have entertained had given way to English gold and Scottish intimidation.

"The more simple was I to look for any other in the son of Darnley and the pupil of Buchanan," said she, "but a mother's heart is slow to give up her trust."

"And is there now no hope?" asked Cicely.

"Hope, child? Dum spiro, spero. The hope of coming forth honourably to him and to Elizabeth is at an end. There is another mode of coming forth," she added with a glittering eye, "a mode which shall make them rue that they have driven patience to extremity."

"By force of arms? Oh, madam!" cried Cicely.

"And wherefore not? My noble kinsman, Guise, is the paramount ruler in France, and will soon have crushed the heretics there; Parma is triumphant in the Low Countries, and has only to tread out the last remnants of faction with his iron boot. They wait only the call, which my motherly weakness has delayed, to bring their hosts to avenge my wrongs, and restore this island to the true faith. Then thou, child, wilt be my heiress. We will give thee to one who will worthily bear the sceptre, and make thee blessed at home. The Austrians make good husbands, I am told. Matthias or Albert would be a noble mate for thee; only thou must be trained to more princely bearing, my little home-bred lassie."

In spite—nay, perhaps, in consequence—of these anticipations, an entire change began for Cicely. It was as if all the romance of her princely station had died out and the reality had set in. Her freedom was at an end. As one of the suite of the Queen of Scots, she was as much a prisoner as the rest; whereas before, both at Buxton and Sheffield, she had been like a dog or kitten admitted to be petted and played with, but living another life elsewhere, while now there was nothing to relieve the weariness and monotony of the restraint.

Nor was the petting what it was at first. Mary was far from being in the almost frolicsome mood which had possessed her at Buxton; her hopes and spirits had sunk to the lowest pitch, and though she had an admirably sweet and considerate temper, and was scarcely ever fretful or unreasonable with her attendants, still depression, illness, and anxiety could not but tell on her mode of dealing with her surroundings. Sometimes she gave way entirely, and declared she should waste away and perish in her captivity, and that she only brought misery and destruction on all who tried to befriend her; or, again, that she knew that Burghley and Walsingham were determined to have her blood.

It was in these moments that Cicely loved her most warmly, for caresses and endearments soothed her, and the grateful affection which received them would be very sweet. Or in a higher tone, she would trust that, if she were to perish, she might be a martyr and confessor for her Church, though, as she owned, the sacrifice would be stained by many a sin; and she betook herself to the devotions which then touched her daughter more than in any other respect.

More often, however, her indomitable spirit resorted to fresh schemes, and chafed fiercely and hotly at thought of her wrongs; and this made her the more critical of all that displeased her in Cicely.

Much that had been treated as charming and amusing when Cicely was her plaything and her visitor was now treated as unbecoming English rusticity. The Princess Bride must speak French and Italian, perhaps Latin; and the girl, whose literary education had stopped short when she ceased to attend Master Sniggius's school, was made to study her Cicero once more with the almoner, who was now a French priest named De Preaux, while Queen Mary herself heard her read French, and, though always good-natured, was excruciated by her pronunciation.

Moreover, Mary was too admirable a needlewoman not to wish to make her daughter the same; whereas Cicely's turn had always been for the department of housewifery, and she could make a castle in pastry far better than in tapestry; but where Queen Mary had a whole service of cooks and pantlers of her own, this accomplishment was uncalled for, and was in fact considered undignified. She had to sit still and learn all the embroidery stitches and lace-making arts brought by Mary from the Court of France, till her eyes grew weary, her heart faint, and her young limbs ached for the freedom of Bridgefield Pleasaunce and Sheffield Park.

Her mother sometimes saw her weariness, and would try to enliven her by setting her to dance, but here poor Cicely's untaught movements were sure to incur reproof; and even if they had been far more