Michel and Angele [A Ladder of Swords] — Complete

CHAPTER VIII

Five minutes later, Lempriere of Rozel, as butler to the Queen, saw a sight of which he told to his dying day. When, after varied troubles hereafter set down, he went back to Jersey, he made a speech before the Royal Court, in which he told what chanced while Elizabeth was at chapel.

“There stood I, butler to the Queen,” he said, with a large gesture, “but what knew I of butler’s duties at Greenwich Palace! Her Majesty had given me an office where all the work was done for me. Odds life, but when I saw the Gentleman of the Rod and his fellow get down on their knees to lay the cloth upon the table, as though it was an altar at Jerusalem, I thought it time to say my prayers. There was naught but kneeling and retiring. Now it was the salt-cellar, the plate, and the bread; then it was a Duke’s Daughter—a noble soul as ever lived—with a tasting-knife, as beautiful as a rose; then another lady enters who glares at me, and gets to her knees as does the other. Three times up and down, and then one rubs the plate with bread and salt, as solemn as St. Ouen’s when he says prayers in the Royal Court. Gentles, that was a day for Jersey. For there stood I as master of all, the Queen’s butler, and the greatest ladies of the land doing my will—though it was all Persian mystery to me, save when the kettle-drums began to beat and the trumpet to blow, and in walk bareheaded the Yeomen of the Guard, all scarlet, with a golden rose on their backs, bringing in a course of twenty-four gold dishes; and I, as Queen’s butler, receiving them.

“Then it was I opened my mouth amazed at the endless dishes filled with niceties of earth, and the Duke’s Daughter pops onto my tongue a mouthful of the first dish brought, and then does the same to every Yeoman of the Guard that carried a dish—that her notorious Majesty be safe against the hand of poisoners. There was I, fed by a Duke’s Daughter; and thus was Jersey honoured; and the Duke’s Daughter whispers to me, as a dozen other unmarried ladies enter, ‘The Queen liked not the cut of your frieze jerkin better than do I, Seigneur.’ With that she joins the others, and they all kneel down and rise up again, and lifting the meat from the table, bear it into the Queen’s private chamber.

“When they return, and the Yeomen of the Guard go forth, I am left alone with these ladies, and there stand with twelve pair of eyes upon me, little knowing what to do. There was laughter in the faces of some, and looks less taking in the eyes of others; for my Lord Leicester was to have done the duty I was set to do that day, and he the greatest gallant of the kingdom, as all the world knows. What they said among themselves I know not, but I heard Leicester’s name, and I guessed that they were mostly in the pay of his soft words. But the Duke’s Daughter was on my side, as was proved betimes when Leicester made trouble for us who went from Jersey to plead the cause of injured folk. Of the Earl’s enmity to me—a foolish spite of a great nobleman against a Norman-Jersey gentleman—and of how it injured others for the moment, you all know; but we had him by the heels before the end of it, great earl and favourite as he was.”

In the same speech Lempriere told of his audience with the Queen, even as she sat at dinner, and of what she said to him; but since his words give but a partial picture of events, the relation must not be his.

When the Queen returned from chapel to her apartments, Lempriere was called by an attendant, and he stood behind the Queen’s chair until she summoned him to face her. Then, having finished her meal, and dipped her fingers in a bowl of rose-water, she took up the papers Leicester had given her—the Duke’s Daughter had read them aloud as she ate—and said:

“Now, my good Seigneur of Rozel, answer me these few questions: First, what concern is it of yours whether this Michel de la Foret be sent back to France, or die here in England?”

“I helped to save his life at sea—one good turn deserves another, your high-born Majesty.”

The Queen looked sharply at him, then burst out laughing.

“God’s life, but here’s a bull making epigrams!” she said. Then her humour changed. “See you, my butler of Rozel, you shall speak the truth, or I’ll have you where that jerkin will fit you not so well a month hence. Plain answers I will have to plain questions, or De Carteret of St. Ouen’s shall have his will of you and your precious pirate. So bear yourself as you would save your head and your honours.”

Lempriere of Rozel never had a better moment than when he met the Queen of England’s threats with faultless intrepidity. “I am concerned about my head, but more about my honours, and most about my honour,” he replied. “My head is my own, my honours are my family’s, for which I would give my head when needed; and my honour defends both until both are naught—and all are in the service of my Queen.”

Smiling, Elizabeth suddenly leaned forward, and, with a glance of satisfaction towards the Duke’s Daughter, who was present, said:

“I had not thought to find so much logic behind your rampant skull,” she said. “You’ve spoken well, Rozel, and you shall speak by the book to the end, if you will save your friends. What concern is it of yours whether Michel de la Foret live or die?”

“It is a concern of one whom I’ve sworn to befriend, and that is my concern, your ineffable Majesty.” “Who is the friend?”

“Mademoiselle Aubert.”

“The betrothed of this Michel de la Foret?”

“Even so, your exalted Majesty. But I made sure De la Foret was dead when I asked her to be my wife.”

“Lord, Lord, Lord, hear this vast infant, this hulking baby of a Seigneur, this primeval innocence! Listen to him, cousin,” said the Queen, turning again to the Duke’s Daughter. “Was ever the like of it in any kingdom of this earth? He chooses a penniless exile—he, a butler to the Queen, with three dove-cotes and the perquage—and a Huguenot withal. He is refused; then comes the absent lover over sea, to shipwreck; and our Seigneur rescues him, ‘fends him; and when yon master exile is in peril, defies his Queen’s commands”—she tapped the papers lying beside her on the table—“then comes to England with the lady to plead the case before his outraged sovereign, with an outlawed buccaneer for comrade and lieutenant. There is the case, is’t not?”

“I swore to be her friend,” answered Lempriere stubbornly, “and I have done according to my word.”

“There’s not another nobleman in my kingdom who would not have thought twice about the matter, with the lady aboard his ship on the high seas-’tis a miraculous chivalry, cousin,” she added to the Duke’s Daughter, who bowed, settled herself again on her velvet cushion, and looked out of the corner of her eyes at Lempriere.

“You opposed Sir Hugh Pawlett’s officers who went to arrest this De la Foret,” continued Elizabeth. “Call you that serving your Queen? Pawlett had our commands.”

“I opposed them but in form, that the matter might the more surely be brought to your Majesty’s knowledge.”

“It might easily have brought you to the Tower, man.”

“I had faith that your Majesty would do right in this, as in all else. So I came hither to tell the whole story to your judicial Majesty.”

“Our thanks for your certificate of character,” said the Queen, with amused irony. “What is your wish? Make your words few and plain.”

“I desire before all that Michel de la Foret shall not be returned to the Medici, most radiant Majesty.”

“That’s plain. But there are weighty matters ‘twixt France and England, and De la Foret may turn the scale one way or another. What follows, beggar of Rozel?”

“That Mademoiselle Aubert and her father may live without let or hindrance in Jersey.”

“That you may eat sour grapes ad eternam? Next?”

“That Buonespoir be pardoned all offences and let live in Jersey on pledge that he sin no more, not even to raid St. Ouen’s cellars of the muscadella reserved for your generous Majesty.”

There was such humour in Lempriere’s look as he spoke of the muscadella that the Queen questioned him closely upon Buonespoir’s raid; and so infectious was his mirth, as he told the tale, that Elizabeth, though she stamped her foot in assumed impatience, smiled also.

“You shall have your Buonespoir, Seigneur,” she said; “but for his future you shall answer as well as he.”

“For what he does in Jersey Isle, your commiserate Majesty?”

“For crime elsewhere, if he be caught, he shall march to Tyburn, friend,” she answered. Then she hurriedly added: “Straightway go and bring Mademoiselle and her father hither. Orders are given for their disposal. And to-morrow at this hour you shall wait upon me in their company. I thank you for your services as butler this day, Monsieur of Rozel. You do your office rarely.”

As the Seigneur left Elizabeth’s apartments, he met the Earl of Leicester hurrying thither, preceded by the Queen’s messenger. Leicester stopped and said, with a slow malicious smile: “Farming is good, then—you have fine crops this year on your holding?”

The point escaped Lempriere at first, for the favourite’s look was all innocence, and he replied: “You are mistook, my lord. You will remember I was in the presence-chamber an hour ago, my lord. I am Lempriere, Seigneur of Rozel, butler to her Majesty.”

“But are you, then? I thought you were a farmer and raised cabbages.” Smiling, Leicester passed on.

For a moment the Seigneur stood pondering the Earl’s words and angrily wondering at his obtuseness. Then suddenly he knew he had been mocked, and he turned and ran after his enemy; but Leicester had vanished into the Queen’s apartments.

The Queen’s fool was standing near, seemingly engaged in the light occupation of catching imaginary flies, buzzing with his motions. As Leicester disappeared he looked from under his arm at Lempriere. “If a bird will not stop for the salt to its tail, then the salt is damned, Nuncio; and you must cry David! and get thee to the quarry.”

Lempriere stared at him swelling with rage; but the quaint smiling of the fool conquered him, and instead of turning on his heel, he spread himself like a Colossus and looked down in grandeur. “And wherefore cry David! and get quarrying?” he asked. “Come, what sense is there in thy words, when I am wroth with yonder nobleman?”

“Oh, Nuncio, Nuncio, thou art a child of innocence and without history. The salt held not the bird for the net of thy anger, Nuncio; so it is meet that other ways be found. David the ancient put a stone in a sling and Goliath laid him down like an egg in a nest—therefore, Nuncio, get thee to the quarry. Obligato, which is to say Leicester yonder, hath no tail—the devil cut it off and wears it himself. So let salt be damned, and go sling thy stone!”

Lempriere was good-humoured again. He fumbled in his purse and brought forth a gold-piece. “Fool, thou hast spoken like a man born sensible and infinite. I understand thee like a book. Thou hast not folly and thou shalt not be answered as if thou wast a fool. But in terms of gold shalt thou have reply.” He put the gold-piece in the fool’s hand and slapped him on the shoulder.

“Why now, Nuncio,” answered the other, “it is clear that there is a fool at Court, for is it not written that a fool and his money are soon parted? And this gold-piece is still hot with running ‘tween thee and me.”

Lempriere roared. “Why, then, for thy hit thou shalt have another gold-piece, gossip. But see”—his voice lowered—“know you where is my friend, Buonespoir, the pirate? Know you where he is in durance?”

“As I know marrow in a bone I know where he hides, Nuncio, so come with me,” answered the fool.

“If De Carteret had but thy sense, we could live at peace in Jersey,” rejoined Lempriere, and strode ponderously after the light-footed fool who capered forth singing:

CHAPTER IX

The next day at noon, as her Majesty had advised the Seigneur, De la Foret was ushered into the presence. The Queen’s eye quickened as she saw him, and she remarked with secret pleasure the figure and bearing of this young captain of the Huguenots. She loved physical grace and prowess with a full heart. The day had almost passed when she would measure all men against Leicester in his favour; and he, knowing this clearly now, saw with haughty anxiety the gradual passing of his power, and clutched futilely at the vanishing substance. Thus it was that he now spent his strength in getting his way with the Queen in little things. She had been so long used to take his counsel—in some part wise and skilful—that when she at length did without it, or followed her own mind, it became a fever with him to let no chance pass for serving his own will by persuading her out of hers. This was why he had spent an hour the day before in sadly yet vaguely reproaching her for the slight she put upon him in the presence-chamber by her frown; and another in urging her to come to terms with Catherine de Medici in this small affair—since the Frenchwoman had set her revengeful heart upon it—that larger matters might be settled to the gain of England. It was not so much that he had reason to destroy De la Foret, as that he saw that the Queen was disposed to deal friendly by him and protect him. He did not see the danger of rousing in the Queen the same unreasoning tenaciousness of will upon just such lesser things as might well be left to her advisers. In spite of which he almost succeeded, this very day, in regaining, for a time at least, the ground he had lost with her. He had never been so adroit, so brilliant, so witty, so insinuating; and he left her with the feeling that if he had his way concerning De la Foret—a mere stubborn whim, with no fair reason behind it—his influence would be again securely set. The sense of crisis was on him.

On Michel de la Foret entering the presence the Queen’s attention had become riveted. She felt in him a spirit of mastery, yet of unselfish purpose. Here was one, she thought, who might well be in her household, or leading a regiment of her troops. The clear fresh face, curling hair, direct look, quiet energy, and air of nobility—this sort of man could only be begotten of a great cause; he were not possible in idle or prosperous times.

Elizabeth looked him up and down, then affected surprise. “Monsieur de la Foret,” she said, “I do not recognise you in this attire”—glancing towards his dress.

De la Foret bowed, and Elizabeth continued, looking at a paper in her hand: “You landed on our shores of Jersey in the robes of a priest of France. The passport for a priest of France was found upon your person when our officers in Jersey made search of you. Which is yourself—Michel de la Foret, soldier, or a priest of France?”

De la Foret replied gravely that he was a soldier, and that the priestly dress had been but a disguise.

“In which papist attire, methinks, Michel de la Foret, soldier and Huguenot, must have been ill at ease—the eagle with the vulture’s wing. What say you, Monsieur?”

“That vulture’s wing hath carried me to a safe dove-cote, your gracious Majesty,” he answered, with a low obeisance.

“I’m none so sure of that, Monsieur,” was Elizabeth’s answer, and she glanced quizzically at Leicester, who made a gesture of annoyance. “Our cousin France makes you to us a dark intriguer and conspirator, a dangerous weed in our good garden of England, a ‘troublous, treacherous violence’—such are you called, Monsieur.”

“I am in your high Majesty’s power,” he answered, “to do with me as it seemeth best. If your Majesty wills it that I be returned to France, I pray you set me upon its coast as I came from it, a fugitive. Thence will I try to find my way to the army and the poor stricken people of whom I was. I pray for that only, and not to be given to the red hand of the Medici.”

“Red hand—by my faith, but you are bold, Monsieur!”

Leicester tapped his foot upon the floor impatiently, then caught the Queen’s eye, and gave her a meaning look.

De la Foret saw the look and knew his enemy, but he did not quail. “Bold only by your high Majesty’s faith, indeed,” he answered the Queen, with harmless guile.

Elizabeth smiled. She loved such flattering speech from a strong man. It touched a chord in her deeper than that under Leicester’s finger. Leicester’s impatience only made her more self-willed on the instant.

“You speak with the trumpet note, Monsieur,” she said to De la Foret. “We will prove you. You shall have a company in my Lord Leicester’s army here, and we will send you upon some service worthy of your fame.”

“I crave your Majesty’s pardon, but I cannot do it,” was De la Foret’s instant reply. “I have sworn that I will lift my sword in one cause only, and to that I must stand. And more—the widow of my dead chief, Gabriel de Montgomery, is set down in this land unsheltered and alone. I have sworn to one who loves her, and for my dead chief’s sake, that I will serve her and be near her until better days be come and she may return in quietness to France. In exile we few stricken folk must stand together, your august Majesty.”

Elizabeth’s eye flashed up. She was impatient of refusal of her favour. She was also a woman, and that De la Foret should flaunt his devotion to another woman was little to her liking. The woman in her, which had never been blessed with a noble love, was roused. The sourness of a childless, uncompanionable life was stronger for the moment than her strong mind and sense.

“Monsieur has sworn this, and Monsieur has sworn that,” she said petulantly—“and to one who loveth a lady, and for a cause—tut, tut, tut!—”

Suddenly a kind of intriguing laugh leaped into her eye, and she turned to Leicester and whispered in his ear. Leicester frowned, then smiled, and glanced up and down De la Foret’s figure impertinently.

“See, Monsieur de la Foret,” she added; “since you will not fight, you shall preach. A priest you came into my kingdom, and a priest you shall remain; but you shall preach good English doctrine and no Popish folly.”

De la Foret started, then composed himself, and before he had time to reply, Elizabeth continued: “Partly for your own sake am I thus gracious; for as a preacher of the Word I have not need to give you up, according to agreement with our brother of France. As a rebel and conspirator I were bound to do so, unless you were an officer of my army. The Seigneur of Rozel has spoken for you, and the Comtesse de Montgomery has written a pleading letter. Also I have from another source a tearful prayer—the ink is scarce dry upon it—which has been of service to you. But I myself have chosen this way of escape for you. Prove yourself worthy, and all may be well—but prove yourself you shall. You have prepared your own brine, Monsieur; in it you shall pickle.”

She smiled a sour smile, for she was piqued, and added: “Do you think I will have you here squiring of distressed dames, save as a priest? You shall hence to Madame of Montgomery as her faithful chaplain, once I have heard you preach and know your doctrine.”

Leicester almost laughed outright in the young man’s face now, for he had no thought that De la Foret would accept, and refusal meant the exile’s doom.

It seemed fantastic that this noble gentleman, this very type of the perfect soldier, with the brown face of a picaroon and an athletic valour of body, should become a preacher even in necessity.

Elizabeth, seeing De la Foret’s dumb amazement and anxiety, spoke up sharply: “Do this, or get you hence to the Medici, and Madame of Montgomery shall mourn her protector, and Mademoiselle your mistress of the vermilion cheek, shall have one lover the less; which, methinks, our Seigneur of Rozel would thank me for.”

De la Foret started, his lips pressed firmly together in effort of restraint. There seemed little the Queen did not know concerning him; and reference to Angele roused him to sharp solicitude.

“Well, well?” asked Elizabeth impatiently, then made a motion to Leicester, and he, going to the door, bade some one to enter.

There stepped inside the Seigneur of Rozel, who made a lumbering obeisance, then got to his knees before the Queen.

“You have brought the lady safely—with her father?” she asked.

Lempriere, puzzled, looked inquiringly at the Queen, then replied: “Both are safe without, your infinite Majesty.”

De la Foret’s face grew pale. He knew now for the first time that Angele and her father were in England, and he looked Lempriere suspiciously in the eyes; but the swaggering Seigneur met his look frankly, and bowed with ponderous and genial gravity.

Now De la Foret spoke. “Your high Majesty,” said he, “if I may ask Mademoiselle Aubert one question in your presence—”

“Your answer now; the lady in due season,” interposed the Queen.

“She was betrothed to a soldier, she may resent a priest,” said De la Foret, with a touch of humour, for he saw the better way was to take the matter with some outward ease.

Elizabeth smiled. “It is the custom of her sex to have a fondness for both,” she answered, with an acid smile. “But your answer?”

De la Foret’s face became exceeding grave. Bowing his head, he said: “My sword has spoken freely for the Cause; God forbid that my tongue should not speak also. I will do your Majesty’s behest.”

The jesting word that was upon the royal lips came not forth, for De la Foret’s face was that of a man who had determined a great thing, and Elizabeth was one who had a heart for high deeds. “The man is brave indeed,” she said under her breath, and, turning to the dumfounded Seigneur, bade him bring in Mademoiselle Aubert.

A moment later Angele entered, came a few steps forward, made obeisance, and stood still. She showed no trepidation, but looked before her steadily. She knew not what was to be required of her, she was a stranger in a strange land; but persecution and exile had gone far to strengthen her spirit and greaten her composure.

Elizabeth gazed at the girl coldly and critically. To women she was not over-amiable; but as she looked at the young Huguenot maid, of this calm bearing, warm of colour, clear of eye, and purposeful of face, some thing kindled in her. Most like it was that love for a cause, which was more to be encouraged by her than any woman’s love for a man, which as she grew older inspired her with aversion, as talk of marriage brought cynical allusions to her lips.

“I have your letter and its protests and its pleadings. There were fine words and adjurations—are you so religious, then?” she asked brusquely.

“I am a Huguenot, your noble Majesty,” answered the girl, as though that answered all.

“How is it, then, you are betrothed to a roistering soldier?” asked the Queen.

“Some must pray for Christ’s sake, and some must fight, your most christian Majesty,” answered the girl. “Some must do both,” rejoined the Queen, in a kinder voice, for the pure spirit of the girl worked upon her. “I am told that Monsieur de la Foret fights fairly. If he can pray as well, methinks he shall have safety in our kingdom, and ye shall all have peace. On Trinity Sunday you shall preach in my chapel, Monsieur de la Foret, and thereafter you shall know your fate.”

She rose. “My Lord,” she said to Leicester, on whose face gloom had settled, “you will tell the Lord Chamberlain that Monsieur de la Foret’s durance must be made comfortable in the west tower of my palace till chapel-going of Trinity Day. I will send him for his comfort and instruction some sermons of Latimer.”

She stepped down from the dais. “You will come with me, mistress,” she said to Angele, and reached out her hand.

Angele fell on her knees and kissed it, tears falling down her cheek, then rose and followed the Queen from the chamber. She greatly desired to look backward towards De la Foret, but some good angel bade her not. She realised that to offend the Queen at this moment might ruin all; and Elizabeth herself was little like to offer chance for farewell and love-tokens.

So it was that, with bowed head, Angele left the room with the Queen of England, leaving Lempriere and De la Foret gazing at each other, the one bewildered, the other lost in painful reverie, and Leicester smiling maliciously at them both.

CHAPTER X

Every man, if you bring him to the right point, if you touch him in the corner where he is most sensitive, where he most lives, as it were; if you prick his nerves with a needle of suggestion where all his passions, ambitions and sentiments are at white heat, will readily throw away the whole game of life in some mad act out of harmony with all he ever did. It matters little whether the needle prick him by accident or blunder or design, he will burst all bounds, and establish again the old truth that each of us will prove himself a fool given perfect opportunity. Nor need the occasion of this revolution be a great one; the most trivial event may produce the great fire which burns up wisdom, prudence and habit.

The Earl of Leicester, so long counted astute, clearheaded, and well-governed, had been suddenly foisted out of balance, shaken from his imperious composure, tortured out of an assumed and persistent urbanity, by the presence in Greenwich Palace of a Huguenot exile of no seeming importance, save what the Medici grimly gave him by desiring his head. It appeared absurd that the great Leicester, whose nearness to the throne had made him the most feared, most notable, and, by virtue of his opportunities, the most dramatic figure in England, should have sleepless nights by reason of a fugitive like Michel de la Foret. On the surface it was preposterous that he should see in the Queen’s offer of service to the refugee evidence that she was set to grant him special favours; it was equally absurd that her offer of safety to him on pledge of his turning preacher should seem proof that she meant to have him near her. Elizabeth had left the presence-chamber without so much as a glance at him, though she had turned and looked graciously at the stranger. He had hastily followed her, and thereafter impatiently awaited a summons which never came, though he had sent a message that his hours were at her Majesty’s disposal. Waiting, he saw Angele’s father escorted from the palace by a Gentleman Pensioner to a lodge in the park; he saw Michel de la Foret taken to his apartments; he saw the Seigneur of Rozel walking in the palace grounds with such possession as though they were his own, self-content in every motion of his body.

Upon the instant the great Earl was incensed out of all proportion to the affront of the Seigneur’s existence. He suddenly hated Lempriere only less than he hated Michel de la Foret. As he still waited irritably for a summons from Elizabeth, he brooded on every word and every look she had given him of late; he recalled her manner to him in the ante-chapel the day before, and the admiring look she cast on De la Foret but now. He had seen more in it than mere approval of courage and the self-reliant bearing of a refugee of her own religion.

These were days when the soldier of fortune mounted to high places. He needed but to carry the banner of bravery, and a busy sword, and his way to power was not hindered by poor estate. To be gently born was the one thing needful, and Michel de la Foret was gently born; and he had still his sword, though he chose not to use it in Elizabeth’s service. My Lord knew it might be easier for a stranger like De la Foret, who came with no encumbrance, to mount to place in the struggles of the Court, than for an Englishman, whose increasing and ever-bolder enemies were undermining on every hand, to hold his own.

He began to think upon ways and means to meet this sudden preference of the Queen, made sharply manifest as he waited in the ante-chamber, by a summons to the refugee to enter the Queen’s apartments. When the refugee came forth again he wore a sword the Queen had sent him, and a packet of Latimer’s sermons were under his arm. Leicester was unaware that Elizabeth herself did not see De la Foret when he was thus hastily called; but that her lady-in-waiting, the Duke’s Daughter, who figured so largely in the pictures Lempriere drew of his experiences at Greenwich Palace, brought forth the sermons and the sword, with this message from the Queen:

“The Queen says that it is but fair to the sword to be by Michel de la Foret’s side when the sermons are in his hand, that his choice have every seeming of fairness. For her Majesty says it is still his choice between the Sword and the Book till Trinity Day.”

Leicester, however, only saw the sword at the side of the refugee and the gold-bound book under his arm as he came forth, and in a rage he left the palace and gloomily walked under the trees, denying himself to every one.

To seize De la Foret, and send him to the Medici, and then rely on Elizabeth’s favour for his pardon, as he had done in the past? That might do, but the risk to England was too great. It would be like the Queen, if her temper was up, to demand from the Medici the return of De la Foret, and war might ensue. Two women, with two nations behind them, were not to be played lightly against each other, trusting to their common sense and humour.

As he walked among the trees, brooding with averted eyes, he was suddenly faced by the Seigneur of Rozel, who also was shaken from his discretion and the best interests of the two fugitives he was bound to protect, by a late offence against his own dignity. A seed of rancour had been sown in his mind which had grown to a great size and must presently burst into a dark flower of vengeance. He, Lempriere of Rozel, with three dovecotes, the perquage, and the office of butler to the Queen, to be called a “farmer,” to be sneered at—it was not in the blood of man, not in the towering vanity of a Lempriere, to endure it at any price computable to mortal mind.

Thus there were in England on that day two fools (there are as many now), and one said:

“My Lord Leicester, I crave a word with you.”

“Crave on, good fellow,” responded Leicester with a look of boredom, making to pass by.

“I am Lempriere, lord of Rozel, my lord—”

“Ah yes, I took you for a farmer,” answered Leicester. “Instead of that, I believe you keep doves, and wear a jerkin that fits like a king’s. Dear Lord, so does greatness come with girth!”

“The King that gave me dove-cotes gave me honour, and ‘tis not for the Earl of Leicester to belittle it.”

“What is your coat of arms?” said Leicester with a faint smile, but in an assumed tone of natural interest.

“A swan upon a sea of azure, two stars above, and over all a sword with a wreath around its point,” answered Lempriere simply, unsuspecting irony, and touched by Leicester’s flint where he was most like to flare up with vanity.

“Ah!” said Leicester. “And the motto?”

“Mea spes supra stella—my hope is beyond the stars.”

“And the wreath—of parsley, I suppose?”

Now Lempriere understood, and he shook with fury as he roared:

“Yes, by God, and to be got at the point of the sword, to put on the heads of insolents like Lord Leicester!” His face was flaming, he was like a cock strutting upon a stable mound.

There fell a slight pause, and then Leicester said: “To-morrow at daylight, eh?”

“Now, my lord, now!”

“We have no seconds.”

“‘Sblood! ‘Tis not your way, my lord, to be stickling in detail of courtesy.”

“‘Tis not the custom to draw swords in secret, Lempriere of Rozel. Also my teeth are not on edge to fight you.”

Lempriere had already drawn his sword, and the look of his eyes was as that of a mad bull in a ring. “You won’t fight with me—you don’t think Rozel your equal?” His voice was high.

Leicester’s face took on a hard, cruel look. “We cannot fight among the ladies,” he said quietly. Lempriere followed his glance, and saw the Duke’s Daughter and another in the trees near by.

He hastily put up his sword. “When, my lord?” he asked.

“You will hear from me to-night,” was the answer, and Leicester went forward hastily to meet the ladies—they had news no doubt.

Lempriere turned on his heel and walked quickly away among the trees towards the quarters where Buonespoir was in durance, which was little more severe than to keep him within the palace yard. There he found the fool and the pirate in whimsical converse.

The fool had brought a letter of inquiry and warm greeting from Angele to Buonespoir, who was laboriously inditing one in return. When Lempriere entered the pirate greeted him jovially.

“In the very pinch of time you come,” he said. “You have grammar and syntax and etiquette.”

“‘Tis even so, Nuncio,” said the fool. “Here is needed prosody potential. Exhale!”

The three put their heads together above the paper.

CHAPTER XI

“I would know your story. How came you and yours to this pass? Where were you born? Of what degree are you? And this Michel de la Foret, when came he to your feet—or you to his arms? I would know all. Begin where life began; end where you sit here at the feet of Elizabeth. This other cushion to your knees. There—now speak. We are alone.”

Elizabeth pushed a velvet cushion towards Angele, where she half-knelt, half-sat on the rush-strewn floor of the great chamber. The warm light of the afternoon sun glowed through the thick-tinted glass high up, and, in the gleam, the heavy tapestries sent by an archduke, once suitor for Elizabeth’s hand, emerged with dramatic distinctness, and peopled the room with silent watchers of the great Queen and the nobly-born but poor and fugitive Huguenot. A splendid piece of sculpture—Eleanor, wife of Edward—given Elizabeth by another royal suitor, who had sought to be her consort through many years, caught the warm bath of gold and crimson from the clerestory and seemed alive and breathing. Against the pedestal the Queen had placed her visitor, the red cushions making vivid contrast to her white gown and black hair. In the half-kneeling, half-sitting posture, with her hands clasped before her, so to steady herself to composure, Angele looked a suppliant—and a saint. Her pure, straightforward gaze, her smooth, urbane forehead, the guilelessness that spoke in every feature, were not made worldly by the intelligence and humour reposing in the brown depths of her eyes. Not a line vexed her face or forehead. Her countenance was of a singular and almost polished smoothness, and though her gown was severely simple by comparison with silks and velvets, furs and ruffles of a gorgeous Court at its most gorgeous period, yet in it here and there were touches of exquisite fineness. The black velvet ribbon slashing her sleeves, the slight cloud-like gathering of lace at the back of her head, gave a distinguished softness to her appearance.

She was in curious contrast to the Queen, who sat upon heaped-up cushions, her rich buff and black gown a blaze of jewels, her yellow hair, now streaked with grey, roped with pearls, her hands heavy with rings, her face past its youth, past its hopefulness, however noble and impressive, past its vivid beauty. Her eyes wore ever a determined look, were persistent and vigilant, with a lurking trouble, yet flooded, too, by a quiet melancholy, like a low, insistent note that floats through an opera of passion, romance, and tragedy; like a tone of pathos giving deep character to some splendid pageant, which praises whilst it commemorates, proclaiming conquest while the grass has not yet grown on quiet houses of the children of the sword who no more wield the sword. Evasive, cautious, secretive, creator of her own policy, she had sacrificed her womanhood to the power she held and the State she served. Vain, passionate, and faithful, her heart all England and Elizabeth, the hunger for glimpses of what she had never known, and was never to know, thrust itself into her famished life; and she was wont to indulge, as now, in fancies and follow some emotional whim with a determination very like to eccentricity.

That, at this time, when great national events were forward, when conspiracies abounded, when Parliament was grimly gathering strength to compel her to marry; and her Council were as sternly pursuing their policy for the destruction of Leicester; while that very day had come news of a rising in the North and of fresh Popish plots hatched in France—that in such case, this day she should set aside all business, refuse ambassadors and envoys admission, and occupy herself with two Huguenot refugees seemed incredible to the younger courtiers. To such as Cecil, however, there was clear understanding. He knew that when she seemed most inert, most impassive to turbulent occurrences, most careless of consequences, she was but waiting till, in her own mind, her plans were grown; so that she should see her end clearly ere she spoke or moved. Now, as the great minister showed himself at the door of the chamber and saw Elizabeth seated with Angele, he drew back instinctively, expectant of the upraised hand which told him he must wait. And, in truth, he was nothing loth to do so, for his news he cared little to deliver, important though it was that she should have it promptly and act upon it soon. He turned away with a feeling of relief, however, for this gossip with the Huguenot maid would no doubt interest her, give new direction to her warm sympathies, which if roused in one thing were ever more easily roused in others. He knew that a crisis was nearing in the royal relations with Leicester. In a life of devotion to her service he had seen her before in this strange mood, and he could feel that she was ready for an outburst. As he thought of De la Foret and the favour with which she had looked at him he smiled grimly, for if it meant aught it meant that it would drive Leicester to some act which would hasten his own doom; though, indeed, it might also make another path more difficult for himself, for the Parliament, for the people.

Little as Elizabeth could endure tales of love and news of marriage; little as she believed in any vows, save those made to herself; little as she was inclined to adjust the rough courses of true love, she was the surgeon to this particular business, and she had the surgeon’s love of laying bare even to her own cynicism the hurt of the poor patient under her knife. Indeed, so had Angele impressed her that for once she thought she might hear the truth. Because she saw the awe in the other’s face and a worshipping admiration of the great protectress of Protestantism, who had by large gifts of men and money in times past helped the Cause, she looked upon her here with kindness.

“Speak now, mistress fugitive, and I will listen,” she added, as Cecil withdrew; and she made a motion to musicians in a distant gallery.

Angele’s heart fluttered to her mouth, but the soft, simple music helped her, and she began with eyes bent upon the ground, her linked fingers clasping and unclasping slowly.

“I was born at Rouen, your high Majesty,” she said. “My mother was a cousin of the Prince of Passy, the great Protestant—”

“Of Passy—ah!” said Elizabeth amazed. “Then you are Protestants indeed; and your face is no invention, but cometh honestly. No, no, ‘tis no accident—God rest his soul, great Passy!”

“She died—my mother—when I was a little child. I can but just remember her—so brightly quiet, so quick, so beautiful. In Rouen life had little motion; but now and then came stir and turmoil, for war sent its message into the old streets, and our captains and our peasants poured forth to fight for the King. Once came the King and Queen—Francis and Mary—”

Elizabeth drew herself upright with an exclamation. “Ah, you have seen her—Mary of Scots,” she said sharply. “You have seen her?”

“As near as I might touch her with my hand, as near as is your high Majesty. She spoke to me—my mother’s father was in her train;—as yet we had not become Huguenots, nor did we know her Majesty as now the world knows. They came, the King and Queen—and that was the beginning.”

She paused, and looked shyly at Elizabeth, as though she found it hard to tell her story.

“And the beginning, it was—?” said Elizabeth, impatient and intent.

“We went to Court. The Queen called my mother into her train. But it was in no wise for our good. At Court my mother pined away—and so she died in durance.”

“Wherefore in durance?”

“To what she saw she would not shut her eyes; to what she heard she would not close her soul; what was required of her she would not do.”

“She would not obey the Queen?”

“She could not obey those whom the Queen favoured. Then the tyranny that broke her heart—”

The Queen interrupted her.

“In very truth, but ‘tis not in France alone that Queen’s favourites grasp the sceptre and speak the word. Hath a Queen a thousand eyes—can she know truth where most dissemble?”

“There was a man—he could not know there was one true woman there, who for her daughter’s sake, for her desired advancement, and because she was cousin of Passy, who urged it, lived that starved life; this man, this prince, drew round her feet snares, set pit-falls for her while my father was sent upon a mission. Steadfast she kept her soul unspotted; but it wore away her life. The Queen would not permit return to Rouen—who can tell what tale was told her by one whom she foiled? And so she stayed. In this slow, savage persecution, when she was like a bird that, thinking it is free, flieth against the window-pane and falleth back beaten, so did she stay, and none could save her. To cry out, to throw herself upon the spears, would have been ruin of herself, her husband and her child; and for these she lived.”

Elizabeth’s eyes had kindled. Perhaps never in her life had the life at Court been so exposed to her. The simple words, meant but to convey the story, and with no thought behind, had thrown a light on her own Court, on her own position. Adept in weaving a sinuous course in her policy, in making mazes for others to tread, the mazes which they in turn prepared had never before been traced beneath her eyes to the same vivid and ultimate effect.

“Help me, ye saints, but things are not at such a pass in this place!” she said abruptly, but with weariness in her voice. “Yet sometimes I know not. The Court is a city by itself, walled and moated, and hath a life all its own. ‘If there be found ten honest men within the city yet will I save it,’ saith the Lord. By my father’s head, I would not risk a finger on the hazard if this city, this Court of Elizabeth were set ‘twixt the fire from Heaven and eternal peace. In truth, child, I would lay me down and die in black disgust were it not that one might come hereafter would make a very Sodom or Gomorrah of this land: and out yonder—out in all my counties, where the truth of England is among my poor burgesses, who die for the great causes which my nobles profess but risk not their lives—out yonder all that they have won, and for which I have striven, would be lost.... Speak on. I have not heard so plain a tongue and so little guile these twenty years.”

Angele continued, more courage in her voice. “In the midst of it all came the wave of the new faith upon my mother. And before ill could fall upon her from her foes, she died and was at rest. Then we returned to Rouen, my father and I, and there we lived in peril, but in great happiness of soul until the day of massacre. That night in Paris we were given greatly of the mercy of God.”

“You were there—you were in the massacre at Paris?”

“In the house of the Duke of Langon, with whom was resting after a hazardous enterprise, Michel de la Foret.”

“And here beginneth the second lesson,” said the Queen with a smile on her lips; but there was a look of scrutiny in her eyes, and something like irony in her tone. “And I will swear by all the stars of Heaven that this Michel saved ye both. Is it not so?”

“It is even so. By his skill and bravery we found our way to safety, and in a hiding-place near to our loved Rouen watched him return from the gates of death.”

“He was wounded then?”

“Seven times wounded, and with as little blood left in him as would fill a cup. But it was summer, and we were in the hills, and they brought us, our friends of Rouen, all that we had need of; and so God was with us.

“But did he save thy life, except by skill, by indirect and fortunate wisdom? Was there deadly danger upon thee? Did he beat down the sword of death?”

“He saved my life thrice directly. The wounds he carried were got by interposing his own sword ‘twixt death and me.”

“And that hath need of recompense?”

“My life was little worth the wounds he suffered; but I waited not until he saved it to owe it unto him. All that it is was his before he drew the sword.”

“And ‘tis this ye would call love betwixt ye—sweet givings and takings of looks, and soft sayings, and unchangeable and devouring faith. Is’t this—and is this all?”

The girl had spoken out of an innocent heart, but the challenge in the Queen’s voice worked upon her, and though she shrank a little, the fulness of her soul welled up and strengthened her. She spoke again, and now in her need and in her will to save the man she loved, by making this majesty of England his protector, her words had eloquence.

“It is not all, noble Queen. Love is more than that. It is the waking in the poorest minds, in the most barren souls, of something greater than themselves—as a chemist should find a substance that would give all other things by touching of them a new and higher value; as light and sun draw from the earth the tendrils of the seed that else had lain unproducing. ‘Tis not alone soft words and touch of hand or lip. This caring wholly for one outside one’s self kills that self which else would make the world blind and deaf and dumb. None hath loved greatly but hath helped to love in others. Ah, most sweet Majesty, for great souls like thine, souls born great, this medicine is not needful, for already hath the love of a nation inspired and enlarged it; but for souls like mine and of so many, none better and none worse than me, to love one other soul deeply and abidingly lifts us higher than ourselves. Your Majesty hath been loved by a whole people, by princes and great men in a different sort—is it not the world’s talk that none that ever reigned hath drawn such slavery of princes, and of great nobles who have courted death for hopeless love of one beyond their star? And is it not written in the world’s book also that the Queen of England hath loved no man, but hath poured out her heart to a people; and hath served great causes in all the earth because of that love which hath still enlarged her soul, dowered at birth beyond reckoning?” Tears filled her eyes. “Ah, your supreme Majesty, to you whose heart is universal, the love of one poor mortal seemeth a small thing, but to those of little consequence it is the cable by which they unsteadily hold over the chasm ‘twixt life and immortality. To thee, oh greatest monarch of the world, it is a staff on which thou need’st not lean, which thou hast never grasped; to me it is my all; without it I fail and fall and die.”

She had spoken as she felt, yet, because she was a woman and guessed the mind of another woman, she had touched Elizabeth where her armour was weakest. She had suggested that the Queen had been the object of adoration, but had never given her heart to any man; that hers was the virgin heart and life; and that she had never stooped to conquer. Without realising it, and only dimly moving with that end in view, she had whetted Elizabeth’s vanity. She had indeed soothed a pride wounded of late beyond endurance, suspecting, as she did, that Leicester had played his long part for his own sordid purposes, that his devotion was more alloy than precious metal. No note of praise could be pitched too high for Elizabeth, and if only policy did not intervene, if but no political advantage was lost by saving De la Foret, that safety seemed now secure.

“You tell a tale and adorn it with good grace,” she said, and held out her hand. Angele kissed it. “And you have said to Elizabeth what none else dared to say since I was Queen here. He who hath never seen the lightning hath no dread of it. I had not thought there was in the world so much artlessness, with all the power of perfect art. But we live to be wiser. Thou shalt continue in thy tale. Thou hast seen Mary, once Queen of France, now Queen of Scots—answer me fairly; without if, or though, or any sort of doubt, the questions I shall put. Which of us twain, this ruin-starred queen or I, is of higher stature?”

“She hath advantage in little of your Majesty,” bravely answered Angele.

“Then,” answered Elizabeth sourly, “she is too high, for I myself am neither too high nor too low.... And of complexion, which is the fairer?”

“Her complexion is the fairer, but your Majesty’s countenance hath truer beauty, and sweeter majesty.” Elizabeth frowned slightly, then said:

“What exercises did she take when you were at the Court?”

“Sometimes she hunted, your Majesty, and sometimes she played upon the virginals.”

“Did she play to effect?”

“Reasonably, your noble Majesty.”

“You shall hear me play, and then speak truth upon us, for I have known none with so true a tongue since my father died.”

Thereon she called to a lady who waited near in a little room to bring an instrument; but at that moment Cecil appeared again at the door, and his face seeming to show anxiety, Elizabeth, with a sigh, beckoned him to enter.

“Your face, Cecil, is as long as a Lenten collect. What raven croaks in England on May Day eve?” Cecil knelt before her, and gave into her hand a paper.

“What record runs here?” she asked querulously. “A prayer of your faithful Lords and Commons that your Majesty will grant speech with their chosen deputies to lay before your Majesty a cause they have at heart.”

“Touching of—?” darkly asked the Queen.

“The deputies wait even now—will not your Majesty receive them? They have come humbly, and will go hence as humbly on the instant, if the hour is ill chosen.”

Immediately Elizabeth’s humour changed. A look of passion swept across her face, but her eyes lighted, and her lips smiled proudly. She avoided troubles by every means, fought off by subtleties the issues which she must meet; but when the inevitable hour came none knew so well to meet it as though it were a dearest friend, no matter what the danger, how great the stake.

“They are here at my door, these good servants of the State—shall they be kept dangling?” she said loudly. “Though it were time for prayers and God’s mercy yet should they speak with me, have my counsel, or my hand upon the sacred parchment of the State. Bring them hither, Cecil. Now we shall see—Now you shall see, Angele of Rouen, now you shall see how queens shall have no hearts to call their own, but be head and heart and soul and body at the will of every churl who thinks he serves the State and knows the will of Heaven. Stand here at my left hand. Mark the players and the play.”

Kneeling, the deputies presented a resolution from the Lords and Commons that the Queen should, without more delay, in keeping with her oft-expressed resolve and the promise of her Council, appoint one who should succeed to the throne in case of her death “without posterity.” Her faithful people pleaded with her gracious Majesty to forego unwillingness to marry and seek a consort worthy of her supreme consideration, to be raised to a place beside her near that throne which she had made the greatest in the world.

Gravely, solemnly, the chief members of the Lords and Commons spoke, and with as weighty pauses and devoted protestations as though this were the first time their plea had been urged, this obvious duty had been set out before her. Long ago in the flush and pride of her extreme youth and the full assurance of the fruits of marriage, they had spoken with the same sober responsibility; and though her youth had gone and the old certainty had for ever disappeared, they spoke of her marriage and its consequences as though it were still that far-off yesterday. Well for them that they did so, for though time had flown and royal suitors without number had become figures dim in the people’s mind, Elizabeth, fed upon adulation, invoked, admired, besieged by young courtiers, flattered by maids who praised her beauty, had never seen the hands of the clock pass high noon, and still remained under the dearest and saddest illusion which can rest in a woman’s mind. Long after the hands of life’s clock had moved into afternoon, the ancient prayer was still gravely presented that she should marry and give an heir to England’s crown; and she as solemnly listened and dropped her eyes, and strove to hide her virgin modesty behind a high demeanour which must needs sink self in royal duty.

“These be the dear desires of your supreme Majesty’s faithful Lords and Commons and the people of the shires whose wills they represent. Your Majesty’s life, God grant it last beyond that of the youngest of your people so greatly blessed in your rule! But accidents of time be many; and while the world is full of guile, none can tell what peril may beset the crown, if your Majesty’s wisdom sets not apart, gives not to her country, one whom the nation can surround with its care, encompass lovingly by its duty.”

The talk with Angele had had a curious influence upon the Queen. It was plain that now she was moved by real feeling, and that, though she deceived herself, or pretended so to do, shutting her eyes to sober facts, and dreaming old dreams—as it were, in a world where never was a mirror nor a timepiece—yet there was working in her a fresher spirit, urging her to a fairer course than she had shaped for many a day.

“My lords and gentlemen and my beloved subjects,” she answered presently, and for an instant set her eyes upon Angele, then turned to them again, “I pray you stand and hear me.... Ye have spoken fair words to my face, and of my face, and of the person of this daughter of great Henry, from whom I got whatever grace or manner or favour is to me; and by all your reasoning you do flatter the heart of the Queen of England, whose mind indeed sleeps not in deed or desire for this realm. Ye have drawn a fair picture of this mortal me, and though from the grace of the picture the colours may fade by time, may give by weather, may be spoiled by chance, yet my loyal mind, nor time with her swift wings shall overtake, nor the misty clouds may darken, nor chance with her slippery foot may overthrow. It sets its course by the heart of England, and when it passeth there shall be found that one shall be left behind who shall be surety of all that hath been lying in the dim warehouse of fate for England’s high future. Be sure that in this thing I have entered into the weigh-house, and I hold the balance, and ye shall be well satisfied. Ye have been fruitful in counsel, ye have been long knitting a knot never tied, ye shall have comfort soon. But know ye beyond peradventure that I have bided my time with good reason. If our loom be framed with rotten hurdles, when our web is well-ny done, our work is yet to begin. Against mischance and dark discoveries my mind, with knowledge hidden from you, hath been firmly arrayed. If it be in your thought that I am set against a marriage which shall serve the nation, purge yourselves, friends, of that sort of heresy, for the belief is awry. Though I think that to be one and always one, neither mated nor mothering, be good for a private woman, for a prince it is not meet. Therefore, say to my Lords and Commons that I am more concerned for what shall chance to England when I am gone than to linger out my living thread. I hope, my lords and gentlemen, to die with a good Nunc Dimittis, which could not be if I did not give surety for the nation after my graved bones. Ye shall hear soon—ye shall hear and be satisfied, and so I give you to the care of Almighty God.”

Once more they knelt, and then slowly withdrew, with faces downcast and troubled. They had secret knowledge which she did not yet possess, but which at any moment she must know, and her ambiguous speech carried no conviction to their minds. Yet their conference with her was most opportune, for the news she must presently receive, brought by a messenger from Scotland who had outstripped all others, would no doubt move her to action which should set the minds of the people at rest, and go far to stem the tide of conspiracy flowing through the kingdom.

Elizabeth stood watching them, and remained gazing after they had disappeared; then rousing herself, she turned to leave the room, and beckoned to Angele to follow.