V—THE KING'S WAY
A BOAT deep laden with blue coat men-at-arms came first. Blue coat men-at-arms filled the last boat shoulder to shoulder. In the royal barge blue coats stood serried at bow and stern. Under its canopy Elizabeth sat between Sir Henry Bedingfield and my Lord Williams of Thame, gentlemen very loyal to Queen Mary. Her lips moved and she muttered: “Tanquam ovis, tanquam ovis.”
Bedingfield took her up. “If you want an answer, madam, talk English.”
“What answer?” She shook her head in sad resignation. “I am led as a sheep to the slaughter.”
Bedingfield exclaimed: “You are little like a sheep, madam, and we no butchers, by your leave.”
The boats drew past Whitehall. She looked through the swaying, golden air at the forest of towers. “What are you, then?” she said, “gentlemen or gaolers? What am I? bond or free?”
“You have wit enough to guess that riddle, madam,” Bedingfield growled.
She sighed. “You suspect me everything but what I am, a simple woman, sorrowful.”
Sir Henry Bedingfield then made an angry noise,
For all the humble resignation of her words and her tone and her well-arranged pathetic pose, her cheeks were flushed and her eyes gleaming. Through heavy weeks she had pined and fretted in the Tower, captive of the malice of Spain and her sister's envious ill-will. Now she breathed free air and drank the sparkle of clear sunshine. She felt new power of life in her veins.
They had summoned her to quit the Tower in briefest phrase. If she was free, whither she was to go they would not tell her, but, since it was two honest country gentlemen who had her in charge, she feared no mystery of danger. The simple woman, sorrowful, dared to suspect that she was let out of her prison because there was danger for those who would keep her in.
The barge laboured up stream to Richmond. With the men-at-arms close about her she was borne to the palace in the park. There she found some few of her servants waiting her. If she were permitted servants again it was a good omen. But when she saw them she hid her face and made her bosom heave. “Good friends, farewell,” she sobbed out, “farewell. Pray for me. I feel I am borne here to be slain.”
Lord Williams, at her side, blurted out an oath. “Madam, madam, or such villainy should be, I and my men would die at your feet.”
She gave a pitiful little sob and shook her head and passed with faltering steps to her chamber. But there a tearful tire-woman who caught a glimpse of her face as she passed a mirror suffered from amazement, for she saw a triumphant mocking smile.
In the morning she was roused betimes and bidden ride. Again she asked humbly whither, and could get no answer. That night they brought her to Windsor, and the townsfolk crowded to the castle hill to toss their caps and cheer. Sir Henry Bedingfield scowled and swore and set his men-at-arms upon the crowd and bade catch some of the noisiest and clap them in the stocks. When she saw the helpless people ridden down, the blood started in her cheeks and she cried out: “This is foul shame!” Then she recovered herself and bit her lip and plaintively: “Alack, alack, good gentlemen, is it a crime to be my friends?”
Bedingfield shrugged. “Folly is ever a crime. Ride on. Ride on, I say.”
So they brought her to the dean's house. After supper she sent a message to Bedingfield to beg him speak with her. When he came she looked at his swart, bulldog jowl and turned away and cowered into her chair.
“You asked for me, madam,” he shrugged.
“You frighten me,” she murmured, and looked up at him with a plaintive, wistful smile, one hand on her bosom.
He also allowed himself a smile as he shook his head. “You bring these goods to the wrong market, madam. I had all I want of languishing eyes twenty years past.”
“How you hate me!” she murmured.
He laughed “Tilly vally, tilly vally. A girl is no matter for me to hate.”
“Then why are you so hard? Why must you ride down the good fellows who did no wrong but greet me? Why”
“Out on all catechisms! You'll be none the better of thinking every ragamuffin ready to riot for you. And all the worse of the Queen's-hearing that towns howl goodwill to you.”
“Why—why—” her sorrows dissolved in smiles—“why then you are my friend at heart?”
“Softly, softly. You are always kissing or scratching. I'm no friend, nor no foe neither; and as for a heart, why that minds its own business. I am a tough old watch dog to keep you out of mischief.”
She flung out her hand to him with a pretty impulsive gesture. “Now I know you, Sir Henry.”
He touched her hand a moment and jerked a bow. “I hope you do, madam. It were best for you. To make you sleep sound, remember that I have known you some time.”
In the morning they rode on westward; and that night they passed at my Lord Williams' house of Ryecote, and he entertained her royally.
It was a wild day, more in the manner of the equinox than summer. The west wind charged upon them in gusts, sometimes with stinging volleys of rain. Elizabeth's eyes sparkled to it like a boy's, but she was careful to make proper ladylike moan over her sufferings. As they rode by Stanton St. John something happened.
Whether it was by her naughtiness or the wind's you may judge as you please, but certain it is that her French hood and its veil lost their pins and blew streaming out. She screamed appropriately and reined up, snatching at the hood wildly, her fine red hair all mad. “I pray you, gentlemen, I pray you,” she cried breathlessly, “give me leave to tire myself. I must needs ride back to the village and pray the grace of a woman and a mirror.”
Bedingfield pulled his horse across the road. “You can tire yourself behind the hedge,” he growled.
“Do you take me for a gipsy girl, sir?” she said fiercely.
“Get a woman to a mirror and the fiend knows when you may get her away; and we must get to Woodstock to-night. So, madam, behind the hedge or ride on. It's no matter. You are more than comely enough for a man's undoing with your hair undone.”
“'For whom do you bind your tawny tresses, my Pyrrha, jewelled with simplicity?'”
She shrugged and gave a contemptuous laugh. “With boors one must do as boors do.” She sprang lightly to the ground, tossed her rein to my lord, and vanished behind the hedge.
Behind its shelter Elizabeth was elaborately coaxing the fiery tresses into shape. Out of the ditch there rose a voice:
Cui flavam religas comam Simplex munditiis?
and after the voice a man, a man with a womanly mop of black curls and doublet and hose of pea green. In one hand he bore a hunk of bread and cheese, in another half an onion. This he pressed to his heart as he bowed. “I stoop to translate,” he explained, “because you are bitterly English. For whom do you bind your tawny tresses, my Pyrrha, jewelled with simplicity?”
“Horace with a flavour of onion is a new dish,” Elizabeth smiled.
“I am a new dish, madam. I hope to give you a new indigestion.”
With her hands still in her hair, a delectable figure, she made him a curtsey. “'Merci, monsieur, I defy you. My stomach is invincible.”
“I award you the crown of womanhood,” he cried, and, falling on his knee, held out the onion. “I acclaim you worthy to be my mate—a woman whom I have sought in vain from the Scythians to the pillars of Hercules and from the Hyperboreans to the children of Ham. Embrace me with reverence but a decent ardour.”
“Alack, sir, I am not worthy.”
“I never supposed so. For I am unique in the world—a man who knows what he wants.”
“And you are pleased to want me, sir?”
“Alas, I want you less each minute that I look at you. Yet, if you are honest, I want you. For I want, of all things, only a wife with a digestion.”
“Why, sir, am I so ill to look upon?” she posed coquettishly.
“You look altogether a woman, which is a thing that grows tedious to a man.”
“And is it not a woman that you would marry, sir?”
“Being a man I am doomed to that heroic emprise. Yet would I have to wife one who was not so fond of being a woman but that she would sometimes let me forget it.”
“What!” Sir Henry Bedingfield's jowl rose over the hedge. “Why, 'tis my poor mazed cousin, Chrysostom Bagpuize.”
The man in pea green shook his head sadly. “Good wife, let us weep together for my poor sane cousin, Harry Bedingfield. Faith, an honest man who can never forget himself is the most miserable of the works of God.”
“Good wife, quotha!” Bedingfield laughed loud. “You are rising in the world, Chrys. It is the Princess Elizabeth.”
The man in pea green bowed till his cadaverous face was hidden in his curls. “I congratulate you twice. Once, because you are a creature which it must be monstrous difficult to be. Twice, because you have met me, who can show you how to enjoy being anything. And, thirdly, I weep for you. What in the name of all mournful sanity are you doing with that dull morality, Harry Bedingfield?”
“Morality is my gaoler, sir,” she laughed.
“So saith the whole human race. But I will prove to you at your leisure”—he shook a preacher's finger at her, then suddenly snatched at his hair in a frenzied manner and leapt upon the hedge bank—“any dull truth you please. Whither do you take her, Harry Morality?”
“We ride to Woodstock. And we ride now. Come, madam, to horse!”
“Morality never had manners. Farewell, my philosopher of the onion.”
“But no; but no. Your onion is a faithful lover.” He sprang away from her offered hand and went bounding across the meadow whistling like a blackbird. As she mounted she saw a plump and piebald horse come bounding to meet him.
“What is the sweet fellow, gentle or simple?” she laughed to Sir Henry.
“We be cousins—for the chastening of us both,” quoth Sir Henry. “It's a gentleman of good blood and estate as any. When he came of age he went mad. His mother married again, and he swore that proved him a creature with no title to be born who must needs go and look for one. He went a vagabond over all Europe, from Borussia to the Portugals, and a vagabond he is still, and like to be. Pity it is, for there's wit and goodwill in him; but he is properly mad.”
A scurry of hoofs and the plump piebald horse thrust in between them as its rider shouted: “You'll have need of a madman at Woodstock.”
Sir Henry lifted a humorous eyebrow at Elizabeth. “Two of a trade will never agree. But look you, Chrys, there must be strict rule at Woodstock, and no mercy for any follies. Go your ways, and leave us to ours.”
“Mercy! I defy any man to be merciful to me.” Chrysostom turned to Elizabeth. “Forgive the poor soul, madam, he is blatantly tedious, having never done anything without a reason since he was weaned.”
She laughed gaily and made eyes at him. For all his leanness and his wild airs he was a fine shape of a man. “If you had need of reasons, sir, we should never have you at Woodstock,” she coquetted.
“Now you fish for me,” he said coolly. “Well, I swear that when I look at you I feel that I cannot keep from Woodstock. Yet the more I look at you, the less I like you. There's what every man ought to give a woman—a riddle; being tit for her everlasting tat. Now I'll ride on, to enjoy the new taste of a woman riding after me.” He shot ahead, lank and long on his plump piebald with huge saddle-bags pounding its flanks.
Elizabeth turned to Bedingfield to laugh. “I think, sir, we are not like to be dull at Woodstock.”
“I will see to it that we are, madam,” he said gruffly.
So they came, with expectations, to Woodstock Palace. She was lodged decently in the gatehouse; and they left her free to do all in reason that she chose, so that she was hard put to it to find any way of teasing Bedingfield. And she saw no more of Chrysostom of the onion, and could not hear of him. Bedingfield's assurance that she should be dull enough came sadly true. She began to scribble pathetic sentiments in this manner:
Much suspected of me,
Nothing proved can be,
Quoth Elizabeth prisoner.
She was so pleased with that that she cut it with a diamond on the window. Now when she grew sentimental she was always dangerous.
During these days Mary, the Queen, won her Spanish husband to her arms at last. For the sake of policy, Philip had made himself forget how “little will he had for her.” His Spain wanted England too sorely for him to boggle about taking a plain, faded woman to wife as well. But he landed mightily afraid, bringing his own cooks lest the vile English should poison him, and men-at-arms in footmen's doublets lest he should be set upon and stabbed. A prey to such apprehensions, he could not feel much love for the haggard woman who flung herself upon him. He had neither the brains nor the kindliness to pretend love. The man who was to redeem all the years of her hungry misery proved himself nothing better than an animal of callous craft. Happily or unhappily, which you will, she was still able to cheat herself, to believe him the fine flower of a Christian gentleman and put all the blame of his faults on her own ugliness, her own dulness, her own barren nature.
Philip conceived himself sorely misused in having to marry her. He was resolute to get all his price for it, and his price was the assured ownership of England. While Elizabeth lived he could not be sure of anything. At any hour Mary's feeble health might yield to death, and Elizabeth was her heir at law and in the favour of the people. He could find no excuse for his ambassador, Renard, who had failed to make an end of her.
In Philip's cabinet at Whitehall they sat together, and Philip, who had a genius for being formal, read to the unhappy ambassador a long letter composed of all the scolding that he had spoken a dozen times.
When it was ended, “I beg leave to thank you, sir,” said Renard coldly. “I am altogether of your Majesty's opinion. I have certainly failed. I am grateful that your Majesty still spares to show me how I might have succeeded. It would have been a triumph for the Christian faith to secure the girl's execution”
“Execution! execution!” Philip spluttered. He had the ungainly loose lip of his family. “You make me sick with your talk of execution. Cannot a woman die unless she is executed?”
“The devil has furnished Madam Elizabeth with excellent good health,” quoth Renard.
Philip smoothed down his yellow moustache and beard. “It is our duty to combat the devil,” he said, and looked hard at Renard, “with all the weapons that God has given us.”
But Renard was diplomatically dull. “For my part, sir, I know no weapon but prayer. On your Majesty's order I will pray for her death zealously.”
Philip's prominent, cold, grey eyes dilated. “Prayer shall not suffice. Prayer without works is null.”
“Your Majesty bids me procure her death?” said Renard bluntly.
“Master Renard, Master Renard, you put words into my mouth. It is the sin of witchcraft. Look to it! I have had cause to count you slothful in service. Make me amends as you shall answer to God. You have my leave to go.”
Renard bowed low and turned away, but his lean face bore no sign of reverence. When he was back in the secrecy of his own room he let himself mutter: “While I served his father I served a gentleman.” So with caution whom he used, lest his master should be pleased to disown him and throw him to the wolves, he began to make arrangements to have Elizabeth quietly killed. There were honest gentlemen enough about his household of experience in such commissions.
If she had known it is likely that Elizabeth would have been glad of it as some excitement for her too peaceful days. But at last she found some otherwise. As she walked in the rose garden on a morning she heard a jolly rich woman's voice sing:
His coat it is so trim and round,
His kiss is worth a hundred pound;
Trolly lolly.
His face it is so like a man,
Who can but love him, then?
Wheresoever he be, he hath my heart,
And shall till death depart;
Trolly lolly.
So well is me begun,
Trolly lolly lo.
Over in the paddock she saw a big, buxom girl, with hair of the colour of the buttercups, who was ravaging the hedge for the eggs of wandering hens, The creature was like health and well-being incarnate. Elizabeth went to the paddock-gate and called to her. She came at her ease, with a large freedom of movement, and made her curtsey.
“Who is thy pretty gentleman, child?” Elizabeth laughed.
She was honestly slow to understand. “If you please, madam?” she asked with round, blue eyes.
“Whose kiss is worth a hundred pound?”
“Oh!” Her brown face was darker for a blush. “It's an old song, madam.”
“Why, you've not tried his kisses? Then I cry him shame. I vow you were made for kissing. But go to, child, when you have tried them you'll not count them worth a hundred pence.”
The woman gazed at her with a grave, innocent wonder in which was something of pity.
Elizabeth laughed. “Who art thou, child?”
“Nell Farmer, madam, the dairymaid.”
“My Helen nonpareil and elusive!” a new voice broke in. “I have sought you by down and dale; whither have you been wandering?” Elizabeth turned to see Chrysostom of the onion.
The dairymaid's face was all aflame, but she looked straight into Chrysostom's eyes as she curtseyed. “Please you, sir, to my father and back again. For he was sick and I nursed him well.
Chrysostom frowned tragically.
“Helen, let no man dare need you but me.”
“Oh, sir!” She looked puzzled. “But I hope there's a many will always need me, or what good am I?”
Chrysostom turned to Elizabeth with a gesture of despair. “There's the horrid gospel of womanhood,” said he. “And now do you wonder that I cannot keep away from Woodstock?”
“With a taste for onions and dairymaids”—her laugh rang sharp—“sure you were bound to come.”
“I protest I have kept away a year and a day because Nell bade me. Have I not kept faith, Helen most fair?”
Again Elizabeth saw with disgust the combination of a wild blush and brave eyes.
“You ought not to be coming now, sir,” Nell said in a low voice.
Fie on you for an infidel,” Chrysostom cried—the comely brown face trembled in a spasm of pain—“who will not believe that God is good and His creatures meant to be happy.”
“'There's the horrid gospel of womanhood,' said he.”
“But I do—but I do!” There were tears in her big blue eyes. “But we be here for to work, and you do not while you come after me.”
“Oh, woman, woman, who must always be saving some other soul's soul. Take heart, Nell, and shalt have me drive kine with thee all day long.”
“'Tis no work for you,” she cried in passionate distress. “Sir, you should be—be”
“Driving kings, belike? Or princesses? Nay, Nell, they be less use in the world than wholesome kine. I protest I am too good a fellow to waste upon principalities and powers.”
She looked at him a moment. “Sir, you are clever at talking. And I must go look for my eggs.” He made her a courtly bow. She curtseyed to Elizabeth.
To Elizabeth he turned smiling. “Now, madam, do me reason. Am I not wisest of mortals to be her slave? Is she not sweet, naked life?”
“So are her cows,” Elizabeth said. “Have you no mind for more than a cow's wits?”
He tossed back his hair, and his eyes were keen as he stared at her. “Now if you abused me I might honour you, but since it is she whom—madam, is it possible that you do me the honour to be jealous?”
“You are mad, sir,” she cried, and turned away.
Then he went—he took always that deliberate pleasure in being absurd, which is the mark of soundest sanity—he went and sat himself down before the dun heifer and sang her a ballad of John Dory and an ambling nag, after which he felt equal to a dinner of respectability with Sir Henry Bedingfield.
In the dark entry to the hall he stumbled upon someone, and supposing it a serving man chose to roll out a Latin: “Da veniam, reverendissime.”
He was surprised by a sharp cry that betrayed fear: “Who art thou?” And then an angry, “What do you mean, sir? Do you jest?”
“Edepol! Here be alarms,” said he, and laid hold of the man's shoulder to drag him to the light. “Who art thou, my timorous friend of darkness?”
The man resisted, when up came Bedingfield's brisk step, and he cried: “What, Chrysostom! Well met, man! Here's Mr. Wotton, of Norfolk, an old friend of Sir Gilbert Trench, to dine with us. He is a great traveller, so you may make a match with him. My cousin Chrysostom Bagpuize, Mr. Wotton.”
They came into the light of the hall and bowed to each other. Mr. Wotton, a little dark man, was all smiles. “Forgive a shy man's surprise, sir. What language was that you spoke to me?”
“A scrap of dog-Hebrew, Mr. Wotton. A charm against bogeys, priests, and the like.”
For a moment Mr. Wotton's smile seemed to waver, then he gave back an easy laughing answer. With Sir Henry jovially hospitable they went in to dinner.
Chrysostom was pleased to be polite. Mr. Wotton proved himself a traveller who had seen cities and men, and could talk about them. Sir Henry was much entertained and avowed envy of him. “If I had had your chances, Mr. Wotton, you might not find me such an old bear.”
Mr. Wotton was ready with a compliment. “I find you, Sir Henry, the finest manner of man, a right English gentleman. Bear, say you?” he laughed. “Nay, nowise bear if a bear's keeper.”
“Bear's keeper?” Sir Henry was puzzled. “Meaning Madam Elizabeth? No; say cat's, or, God ha' mercy, kitten's.”
“Does she scratch?” Mr. Wotton laughed.
“Kittenly, kittenly.”
“I have heard there are those at Court who would not have madam kitten grow to be a cat,” said Mr. Wotton carelessly.
Chrysostom, who had been earnestly silent and earnestly drinking, held up his wine to the light, but his eyes looked through Mr. Wotton.
“She hath ever had plenty to hate her,” Sir Henry shrugged.
“Why, good fellows who are loyal to her sister are not like to wish her well.”
“I know one who wishes her neither well nor ill, but even fortune.”
“I suppose”—Mr. Wotton played pensively with a crust—“I suppose there is nothing would be such good service to the Queen as an accident which should make an end of her sister for ever.” He looked up suddenly and stared straight in Bedingfield's face.
That honest man was obtuse. “Bah, the wench is no harm, and she'll do no harm while I have her here.”
Mr. Wotton looked at his wine and drank it up and lightly turned the talk away and soon found he must be going, and his horse was brought and he went.
As they looked after him from the door, “My poor sane cousin,” said Chrysostom, “how long have you known that child of Cain?”
“I did not know him from Adam. He's out of Norfolk riding to Bristol, and being Gilbert Trench's friend asked entertainment.”
“I doubt he was never in Norfolk, I prophesy he'll not seek Bristol, I'll swear he never knew Gilbert Trench, and what he asked was murder.”
Bedingfield's square jaw fell. “Out on it, man”; he began and ended with hissing, for Chrysostom put one hand over his mouth and with the other drew him in.
“I have something to say and you never will have,” said Chrysostom. “My poor, dear friend, when I spoke Latin to the gentleman he was frightened and then pretended not to know Latin. I talked of priests and he winced. Mr. Wotton is a priest, who did not care to own himself a priest because he came to ask you if you would kindly get Madam Elizabeth murdered. Whereat, like a poor sane fool, you bade him to the devil and he is gone.”
Bedingfield, who recognised nothing in this lucid explanation, demanded another and heard it, and yet another and was unconvinced.
Chrysostom yawned at him. “You are impossibly and incredibly sane. Therefore I think life will be amusing at Woodstock. I shall wait and see.”
“You're welcome, but you are mad,” quoth Bedingfield.
The next day Chrysostom came upon him making up accounts with his house steward. When the man was gone, “What, have they opened the game already?” he said with a grin.
“What do you mean? The fellow is leaving me for a better service, and a good fellow, too.”
“Where did you get him?”
“He came with Dr. Gardiner's good word, and a good, trusty servant he hath been. I should be hard put to it to find another of his kidney, but he promises me one in his place to content me.”
Chrysostom whistled. “Dr. Gardiner's man is back to Dr. Gardiner with news full true and particulars of all of us, and we get a chosen instrument in his place. You may call it the end of the prologue.”
Bedingfield grew angry with him, and getting nothing by that stamped off to see if any miracle had happened to derange Elizabeth. He found her yawning herself to distraction, from which she sought relief in scolding him for everything that she could invent to find fault with. The while Chrysostom had gone to his dairymaid, who was pleased to be fanatically busy with her butter. So that when the two gentlemen met again for supper they were morose.
On the next day the new steward came. Chrysostom took occasion to survey him and pronounced to Bedingfield that the creature looked the ideal servant, having no sign of excessive intelligence and a proper pompous humility of bearing. Certainly he understood his trade. He took up the steward's duty as if he had studied it from his cradle. A day's experience proved him never in the way and never out of the way. Taking the air with his cousin, Bedingfield boasted what a treasure he had caught.
When they came back to the palace, somewhat worn by this exercise, they found upon the table of the hall a covered basket. “What is this gear?” quoth Bedingfield.
The new steward, approaching, eyed it with disdain as one who would own no part in it. “By your leave, sir. Two horsemen brought it, a present from the French Ambassador to the Princess Elizabeth, which I dared not take to madam without your command.”
“The French Ambassador!” Chrysostom repeated in an awful whisper. His eyes were upon the steward, who saw it and bowed to him.
Bedingfield cut off the lid. “It's nought but a parcel of fruit,” said he and exhibited some rows of fine peaches. The steward craned his neck to look at them.
Then Chrysostom, who had been whistling a dance, said to him: “Sir Henry gives you leave to go.” The man looked natural surprise a moment, and bowed and slid away. Chrysostom approached the peaches with fantastic steps. “Give me your dairymaid, not your princess,” said he. “Give me your onion and not your peach. They hold no mysteries.” He took up one of the peaches delicately, and, holding it in the sunlight, turned it round and round.
“What folly are you at now?” growled Bedingfield.
“I have been in Italy, genial mother of all the arts, where they put poison in a gillyflower, or in a grape, ay, in a filbert nut, and—and I fear Mr. Wotton hath been in Italy, too. These peaches have been handled. See the bloom is gone there, and there, and—and
There was a man of Mitylene
Always wore his toe-nails clean. He
Fell in love with the Queen of Samos,
Whose sky-blue legs were widely famous.
Who goes there?”
From behind the screen at the door the steward advanced. “If it please you, Sir Henry, we make ready for dinner,” he said with dignity.
Bedingfield nodded. Chrysostom broke in, “By my advice, Sir Henry, you'll give Madam Elizabeth no love tokens from France. Let the peaches go to the serving men. Here, good fellow”; he tossed one to the steward, whose offended dignity let it fall and smash on the floor. “Nay, no matter, here is another;” he thrust it upon the steward, who recoiled.
“I thank you, sir, I have no stomach for fruit,” he said with austerity.
“Oh, but I insist.” Chrysostom put it to his lips.
The steward's hand swiftly intervened. “If you will forgive me, sir, I should be very unwell.”
“Why, look you, there's a reason. You could amuse me with the colic. Aroint thee for a funless fellow.” He whirled round and gathered up the peaches swiftly and tucked the basket under one arm and took Bedingfield by the other. “Come, coz, let's seek a humorist.” When they were outside: “Have you a pig of no morals?”
“What madcap nonsense is this?”
“Oh, sanity, silly sanity! Man, the things are poisoned, and master steward knows it. I saw pinholes in them. You saw how he would not bite. But, to make surety sure, try them upon a tailed pig.”
Bedingfield was startled and contemptuous; but he surrendered a pig to the test, and that evening the pig died unpleasantly, and Bedingfield was not much less horrified than the pig.
Chrysostom, at least, had never seen him with such stormy emotions. He even condescended to ask advice. “What's a man to do, Chrys? Shall I send the rascal packing? The vile Italianate knave! Shall I hang him? My power will”
“Softly, softly. Never take trouble. Let him hang himself.” Bedingfield asked passionately whether he was to sit still and see the girl poisoned. “Why, no. Appoint master steward her taster, and we'll have all her messes wholesome as milk. But handle him delicately like the treasure he is.”
Bedingfield swore perdition upon all filthy plots. “This murk of slimy tricks makes me sick. And you, Chrys—ugh, you laugh and thrive on it.”
“'Tis my innocence that enjoys everything.”
“Innocence!” Bedingfield was irritated. “I hope I am no more of a saint than a man should be; but I am not tough enough for this business. I've a mind to write to the Queen and tell her, if she means murder, she may find another house for the filth.”
“Æquam memento rebus in arduis servare mentem, which is to say keep your head when the fiend would have you lose it. Let be; madam is safe here, for I am here, and if we have luck we will make her safe everywhere, which will be a palsy for Spain—a country I hate, a vile country that fries your pork with oil.”
By such modest consolation Chrysostom beguiled him till nightfall and bedtime.
They had not been long abed when there were shrieks and alarms. Chrysostom awoke to see the courtyard lit by flames and the household half-naked screaming of fire and scurrying to an fro. While he hauled on his hose he saw Bedingfield rush into the midst of the distraught throng storming for news of Madam Elizabeth.
Elizabeth, according to the regular order of the place, was locked in her apartments by the gatehouse. Chrysostom arrived in the courtyard and saw the flames leaping out from the rooms below hers. Through the lurid tongues of fire he saw her face white. She was at her window waving her arms, and her voice rang clear. Bedingfield ran off shouting for ladders. The mob of servants screamed folly and swayed without purpose to and fro. Only the steward had kept his head. He stood as near the flames as he dared, shouting: “Jump, madam, I pray you; jump down! 'Tis your one safety!”
From her window it was a jump of forty feet down upon a pavement of kidney stones. Chrysostom relieved his feelings with a vehement kick at the steward's rear. “Get to your master, knave, ere I rip you,” and he kicked again, and the steward saw his face and ran.
Then Chrysostom ran too, away back into the palace. At the porter's lodge he stayed to snatch the keys. But the keys were gone. A moment he hesitated, and then dashed on up the stone stairs. At the top a rush of burning smoke met him. He plunged into it, and found the door to Elizabeth's lodging undone, and by it some two or three servants, choking and arguing wildly: “I'm none for it—nor me neither—the maid be crazed sure—where a maid's gone a man can go, bullies”
“What maid's gone?” Chrysostom shouted.
“'Tis Nell, dairymaid, your honour. The wench”
Chrysostom's yell of an oath staggered them. He plunged on into the scorching fog. No flame met him. He longed even for flame in the darkness that tortured his eyes. The pulses in his temples beat like blows. His veins swelled in him, and all his lungs were smarting like a raw wound. Still he thrust on, stumbling from wall to wall, and at last saw like the sun through a mist a glow of copper red. Then he struck something soft that fell down before him. He stooped and clutched at a woman's body. At that moment hot, damp hands felt about his face. Another woman cast her arms about his neck. “Save me! Come! Come! Save me!” Elizabeth gasped.
He dragged at the body prone before his feet. “Nell, Nell, I am here for you! Come in God's name.”
The big woman raised herself, panting: “Go'e on, my dear, go on. I be coming, for sure.”
Elizabeth clung close about him as though she were fainting. Chrysostom choked with an oath and began a stumbling run through a lifetime of effort and agony. When his throbbing ears heard voices and he felt some clear air he flung her away from him and turned back to the torturing smoke again. Something wet struck his face. He clutched at Nell's groping hands and gave a wild, sobbing cry.
When they stumbled out to the living air and sank down together with bodies heaving and loosened limbs, their smarting eyes woke to see Elizabeth smiling and giving gracious words to a little company who waited on her. Chrysostom started to his feet and dragged the big woman after him away. She was given into women's charge. Chrysostom came back to the courtyard and found the steward working like a horse and managing like a general a chain of men with buckets. Bedingfield was still madly trying to get a ladder through the flames to Elizabeth's window.
To him quoth Chrysostom: “Let be, let be. All she wants now is a petticoat.” Bedingfield turned upon him, leapt upon him, shouting incoherently for news, and, when it was briefly told, dashed off to Elizabeth. Chrysostom strolled off to the zealous steward and patted him on the back. “Lusty fellow!” said he. “Art a very epitome of life.”
The steward gazed at him a moment panting, and turned again to his labour of quenching the fire he had kindled.
Chrysostom sauntered away to preserve Bedingfield from making a fool of himself. They met by the lodge. “She is safe in bed in my own chamber,” cried Bedingfield. “She asked for you and bade me give you a maiden's thanks.”
“Accursed insolence!” Chrysostom cried.
“What's the matter?”
Chrysostom composed himself. “A maiden's thanks are what no man should have to carry till he is fool enough to ask for them.”
“Bah!” quoth Bedingfield. “Come now, let me lay my hands on that vile knave, the steward.”
“That will not I.” Chrysostom linked his arm tight. “What can you do with him? Some peaches are sent to Madam Elizabeth which he would not take to her, and we find them poisoned. A fire breaks out and he is zealous to save her and most forward to put it out. Why, he might be her most trusty friend.”
“Bah!” Bedingfield exploded again, “do you tell me he did not set fire to my house?”
“But see how nobly he is putting it out,” said Chrysostom sweetly.
You may pardon Bedingfield for swearing at him. There was long argument, while the steward laboured magnificently, and the fire was quenched. At the end, Bedingfield, with Chrysostom at his elbow, made an angry oration to the weary, dripping mob and master steward, its leader. He would hold strict search into the cause of the fire and when he found it he would spare no man, no, not one. They slunk grumbling to rest, and over the sodden courtyard and the charred wall broke a pale dawn.
When they came to seek the next day, it was plain that the fire had broken out where the great kitchen chimney passed behind the panels of an old wainscot. Of foul play there was no sign. “What did I say? The good man is innocent as death,” said Chrysostom.
“Ay, he'll always be innocent. That is what makes me rage,” Bedingfield growled.
Chrysostom wrestled with him again. “To drive the varlet out is nought. We should have all our trouble again. I want to strike the palsy into them that sent him, the most high and mighty Prince Philip of Spain”—such was the burden of his speech, and Bedingfield knew his world enough to see reason in it. So they waited still.
In the afternoon Elizabeth sent a woman to pray Mr. Bagpuize to wait upon her. He was some time coming, being in attendance in the dairy upon Nell, who was about her business as though to be in the grip of death and hardly win away was no matter. Elizabeth sat, the more beautiful for pallor, her hair flowing in ripples of bronze and gold over the delicate green of a loose gown that betrayed her form with artful modesty. Her eyes glowed for him, something of a blush came upon her cheek. “Ah, sir, I cannot thank you,” she said, and with a pretty, impulsive movement held out both her hands.
He bowed low over each and let them fall. “Madam, you say very well and should say no more.”
But she was not to be so baulked. “To peril life for a woman—that is a man's high honour; but you perilled for me what you held dearer than life.”
“Therefore I do not expect to forgive you at any time,” said Chrysostom gravely, and she laughed as if it were a jest.
“What can I give you for that?” she said softly.
“Your contempt, if you please,” quoth Chrysostom. At which moment he was rejoiced by a servant who begged that madam would permit Mr. Bagpuize to speak with Sir Henry Bedingfield.
Bedingfield was agitated by reason of a letter in this manner:
“To Sir Henry Bedingfield, at Woodstock.
- “Inasmuch as it is rumoured that certain heretics and traitors do conspire together to steal Madam Elizabeth from your guard, you are charged to take such order as this may be well prevented, for that if she should escape alive to lead rebellion against our most Sovereign Lady the Queen your own life shall answer it. “S. Winton.”
Chrysostom whistled. “If she should escape alive—go to, hang yourself. And I am your Right Reverend Father in God.”
“It is Gardiner's own hand,” said Bedingfield, “and I know the man that brought it.”
“It is Gardiner's hand, and the voice is Spain's, crying 'good pussy, pull the chestnuts out of the fire for me.' Faith, we see life at Woodstock, good coz.”
“What do you mean? Gardiner is hard enough, but no murderer.”
“Not if he can find another to do his murders decently, some blameless old virtue like Harry Bedingfield. Come, we approach the grand moment, the peripetia of Dan Aristoteles, which is, being interpreted, the cat's jumping out of the bag.”
“A curse on your Hebrew! What is it? Shall we be attacked? I have men enough to”
“Oh, we shall be attacked, never fear; and, if you do not kill Madam Elizabeth to keep her from escaping, she will be properly killed in the escape.”
Bedingfield swore passionately. But he was a soldier. He was more at ease with alarms of this note. Together they made plans of skill, and none of the household knew them.
But that day nothing happened, nor that night, nor the next day, and the palace was easy and comfortable in the care of the admirable steward. Bedingfield had given him no matter for suspicion. On the next night no more guards were set. There was no change in the order of the household.
The night was windy, with flashes of bright moonlight breaking the darkness again and again. Something after midnight Chrysostom, watching from his window, heard vague sounds that seemed to come from everywhere. The courtyard was bathed in silvery light and empty. But the sounds murmured on. When the hurrying clouds brought blind darkness again the sounds Were nearer. He peered in vain. He stole away to his door, and waited. With the hilt of his sword he tapped lightly on the wall thrice.
Outside his door was a soft scurry of feet, and then silence again. He stole out, his sword bare in his hand. Suddenly the moonlight broke again through the windows of the corridor. He saw the steward standing by the turn to Elizabeth's chamber, and saw him draw away into shadow. Then a heavier sound rose, and men came bearing a white burden in their midst. The steward muttered something as they passed him, and there was a mutter in answer. The men came on, and as they came Chrysostom hurled himself upon them and snatched their white prey from them to their amazement, and flung the girl into an embrasure behind him.
At once the steward gave tongue. “Alarm, alarm, the Princess is escaping! Alarm!”
The men turned upon Chrysostom; there was a moment's medley of blind darting steel. Then they ran, and ran full upon Bedingfield and his men.
The steward fled hither and thither yelling alarm. Chrysostom drew aside and was hidden behind an open door. In his wild zeal the steward drew nearer and nearer Elizabeth, and he had a dagger in his hand. He stopped shouting. He crept close. He bent over her, the dagger was raised to strike, and he cried out: “Alack, alack, madam is dead!”
Chrysostom hurled him down, and, with a knee upon him and sword point at his throat cried hoarsely: “Villain, I have thee now!”
The man writhed, trying to avoid the steel, and screamed: “You dare not, you dare not! You know not what you do. I am—I have my commission. I—ah!”
The sword pierced his throat. “Now we know what we needed to know,” said Chrysostom placidly.
By this time all the household were scurrying to the corridor, and tapers and lanthorns aided the fitful moonlight. Chrysostom, his foot still on the breast of his prey, shouted for women. “Take up madam there, and bear her back to bed.”
A cluster of them came fluttering to Elizabeth, and one wise mouth screamed out: “Good lack, she is dead!”
“Take out her gag, fool, and you'll know better!” quoth Chrysostom.
And, indeed, when her lips were free, though she still lay bound, she cried out: “I charge you! What infamy is this? What”
“Take her away, take her away!” Chrysostom shouted; and they bore her, still demanding reason, from that ugly scene.
Then Chrysostom fell upon the dead steward and ravaged in his clothes. He came first to a fat purse, and shed it over the floor. Then a lanthorn's gleam revealed Spanish dollars, and he swept them up again. The pockets gave him nothing else of account, but in the man's doublet he felt a stiffness, and ripping the stitches drew out papers. One glance was enough. He jumped away to Bedingfield, who was busy trying to bring to life the other men of the plot.
“How's all with you?” said Chrysostom.
“The beasts be all dead,” growled Bedingfield. “Out on it, I would have given a hundred pounds to make them talk.”
“I have what will talk better,” quoth Chrysostom, and showed his papers. “Get you to Madam Elizabeth and ask her pardon of all this mess, and hie back to your cabinet. We'll need horsemen that you can trust.”
For among what he had found on the steward was a commission of Renard's in the common form issued by the ambassadors to their servants as a safe conduct against English justice. There was a promise in Renard's hand to pay one thousand Flemish guilders “on the day that King Philip should become the heir of the English realm.” Most potent of all, there was a letter from Renard with advice concerning the peaches.
Through the rest of that night and all the next day three men rode hard for London to bear these damning papers and a letter in Bedingfield's hand from Chrysostom's brain to my Lord Admiral. That honest gentleman read and was aghast. The Italian methods of politics were not yet familiar in England. He had the wit to see that the matter needed more wit than his. He sought a friend, Paget, an old diplomatist, suspected by no one of friendship for Elizabeth or any other human soul, but bred in the tradition of Henry VIII. that England must admit no foreign rule. He expected sane help. He was surprised by Paget's obvious pleasure. He did not understand the diplomatist's professional delight in a strong case.
Together they asked audience of Philip, and were received very graciously. Philip had schooled himself to be amiable to every Englishman of power. After the compliments, “I regret that we have to acquaint your Majesty with a grave offence against your person,” said Paget sadly.
Philip, who was coward enough by nature, and in a land where everyone but his wife hated him had much excuse for being a coward, showed agitation.
“We come to advise your Majesty of action on the part of your ambassador, Master Simon Renard, which must expose you to instant daily peril.”
“You are very loyal, gentlemen. Speak out, I pray you.” Philip's loose under-lip was twitching.
“It hath been noised abroad that the ambassador of Spain was hiring men to murder Madam Elizabeth. This the common people bear so hard that they talk traitorous threats against your Majesty's life.”
There was something in the tone that irritated Philip's pride. “Sir, do you bring me the lies of malignant knaves?”
“I would not so weary your Majesty. A villain who was taken in the act to stab Madam Elizabeth had upon him letters in the Señor Simon Renard's hand advising the manner of her murder and promising a price for it.”
Philip swore in Spanish, and in Spanish he cried: “The blundering fool.”
Paget smiled. “I would advise other words, sir. But your Majesty was not aware that I have the honour to understand your language.”
“Sir, sir, this tale is an impudent lie!”
“Villain, I have thee now!”
Paget bowed. “I have myself seen the papers, sir. That, indeed, need not have disturbed your Majesty's pleasure, but that others have seen them, too. Sir, such is the malignity of the common people that they bruit about desperate, malice against your Majesty. 'Tis now unhappily true that if any accident should befall Madam Elizabeth it would be accounted of the policy of Spain, and should she die I could not venture to be surety for your Majesty's life. Such is the brute malice of the commonalty.”
Philip stared, his hands trembling, his loose lip quivering and dribbling. At last he stammered: “You have leave to go.” When they were gone he staggered across the room to his oratory.
Over supper Paget was philosophical. “There is no warranty in the world like a coward's. While Master Philip is in England Mistress Elizabeth will be safe as a milkmaid. You will also remark, my lord, that there is no enemy less dangerous than a very careful man. If Master Renard had not made so many plans for his rascals they might have succeeded. It's the worst thing in the world to see too far.”
The Admiral, who was in no danger of that kind, admired him excessively.
But at Woodstock the affair was not so smoothly finished. On the day after the steward met his end Chrysostom was in the dairy labouring to make terms with an obdurate and very busy maid, when he was surprised by Bedingfield, who was harassed and hot.
“I might have known I should find you at some folly,” he growled. “Come away!”
Chrysostom followed him leisurely. “What has warmed you?”
“The wench. She must needs know all about it, and when I tell her there is nought to tell she racks me with questions.”
“Nay, when a poor soul hath all but died, she may well desire to know why she hath not. Tell her plain truth—that master steward was a knave who planned her murder—and for the rest bid her trust God and me.”
“Faith she asks for you all the time,” Bedingfield admitted.
“Tell her”—Chrysostom turned back to his dairymaid—“tell her that I am at my devotions.” But he found the big woman more resolutely impregnable than ever.
In a little while Bedingfield was back again. “She will have you,” he announced with a grin.
“Here's a wench of no modesty. Did you not tell her my message?”
“I told her what you were at; and now she asks for Nell, dairymaid, too.”
Chrysostom shook his head. “That were a scene with no humour.”
The big woman's shoulders quivered. She flung round upon them with flaming cheeks. “I'm not for you to mock neither. Do you leave me be and—and” she turned passionately upon her butter.
“Why here's a pother!” Bedingfield laughed. “Madam only wants to make you a present for hauling her out of the fire.”
“I want none of her presents,” Nell muttered, and the butter suffered.
Chrysostom took his cousin by the arm. “The truth is, Harry, you have no soul, nor madam either. I will go tell her so.”
When he appeared before Elizabeth he found her again in artistic disarray; but now her glorious hair was half bound up, and the loose dress that betrayed her was of silver grey. “Ah, sir, how shall I thank you now?” she cried. “For generous daring sacrifice, for knightly prowess, for lithe mastery of wit. 'Tis a perfection of manhood that comes to be my true knight.”
“Madam”—Chrysostom bowed—“in as many words as you please.”
“What is the woman who adds not deeds to words?” she said with an arch smile and held out her hand.
“Wise, madam,” said Chrysostom, and stood still aloof and bowed again.
“Do you think I have nothing to give because I am a king's daughter?” she said in a low voice. “Master Chrysostom, I give you warning, I am very woman, too.”
“I condole with you, madam.”
“Out upon caution!” she laughed. “I owe you a debt, sir. Have I nought that can pay it?”
“Madam, a gentleman who wants nothing in the world is ever poor company for those who want everything.”
Her face changed and grew hard and scornful. “Want nothing—is that a man's creed? Bethink you, sir, there will come a time when nothing in England of honour or power will be too much for me to give such a man as you.”
“I will remember to pity you, madam, as I sit beside my fire with my onion. Have I leave to go?”
“Back to the dairy?” she sneered.
Chrysostom bowed low, and back to the dairy he went. There Nell was busy still; she looked up an instant as he came in, and then made herself busier. He stood silent watching, and after a while saw tears glisten on her red cheeks. Then he smiled and gathered her in his arms.