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CHAPTER XXI
A TANGLE

It was a rainy November afternoon. Dinner was over, the great wood fire had been made up, and Mistress Talbot was presiding over the womenfolk of her household and their tasks with needle and distaff. She had laid hands on her unwilling son Edward to show his father how well he could read the piece de resistance of the family, Fabyan's Chronicle; and the boy, with an elbow firmly planted on either side of the great folio, was floundering through the miseries of King Stephen's time; while Mr. Talbot, after smoothing the head of his largest hound for some minutes, had leant back in his chair and dropped asleep. Cicely's hand tardily drew out her thread, her spindle scarcely balanced itself on the floor, and her maiden meditation was in an inactive sort of way occupied with the sense of dulness after the summer excitements, and wonder whether her greatness were all a dream, and anything would happen to recall her once more to be a princess. The kitten at her feet took the spindle for a lazily moving creature, and thought herself fascinating it, so she stared hard, with only an occasional whisk of the end of her striped tail; and Mistress Susan was only kept awake by her anxiety to adapt Diccon's last year's jerkin to Ned's use.

Suddenly the dogs outside bayed, the dogs inside pricked their ears, Ned joyfully halted, his father uttered the unconscious falsehood, "I'm not asleep, lad, go on," then woke up as horses' feet were heard; Ned dashed out into the porch, and was in time to hold the horse of one of the two gentlemen, who, with cloaks over their heads, had ridden up to the door. He helped them off with their cloaks in the porch, exchanging greetings with William Cavendish and Antony Babington.

"Will Mrs. Talbot pardon our riding-boots?" said the former. "We have only come down from the Manor-house, and we rode mostly on the grass."

Their excuses were accepted, though Susan had rather Master William had brought any other companion. However, on such an afternoon, almost any variety was welcome, especially to the younger folk, and room was made for them in the circle, and according to the hospitality of the time, a cup of canary fetched for each to warm him after the ride, while another was brought to the master of the house to pledge them in—a relic of the barbarous ages, when such a security was needed that the beverage was not poisoned.

Will Cavendish then explained that a post had come that morning to his stepfather from Wingfield, having been joined on the way by Babington (people always preferred travelling in companies for security's sake), and that, as there was a packet from Sir Ralf Sadler for Master Richard, he had brought it down, accompanied by his friend, who was anxious to pay his devoirs to the ladies, and though Will spoke to the mother, he smiled and nodded comprehension at the daughter, who blushed furiously, and set her spindle to twirl and leap so violently, as to make the kitten believe the creature had taken fright, and was going to escape. On she dashed with a sudden spring, involving herself and it in the flax. The old watch-dog roused himself with a growl to keep order. Cicely flung herself on the cat, Antony hurried to the rescue to help her disentangle it, and received a fierce scratch for his pains, which made him start back, while Mrs. Talbot put in her word. "Ah, Master Babington, it is ill meddling with a cat in the toils, specially for men folk! Here, Cis, hold her fast and I will soon have her free. Still, Tib!"

Cicely's cheeks were of a still deeper colour as she held fast the mischievous favourite, while the good mother untwisted the flax from its little claws and supple limbs, while it winked, twisted its head about sentimentally, purred, and altogether wore an air of injured innocence and forgiveness.

"I am afraid, air, you receive nothing but damage at our house," said Mrs. Talbot politely. "Hast drawn blood? Oh fie! thou ill-mannered Tib! Will you have a tuft from a beaver to stop the blood?"

"Thanks, madam, no, it is a small scratch. I would, I would that I could face truer perils for this lady's sake!"

"That I hope you will not, sir," said Richard, in a serious tone, which conveyed a meaning to the ears of the initiated, though Will Cavendish only laughed, and said,

"Our kinsman takes it gravely! It was in the days of our grandfathers that ladies could throw a glove among the lions, and bid a knight fetch it out for her love."

"It has not needed a lion to defeat Mr. Babington," observed Ned, looking up from his book with a sober twinkle in his eye, which set them all laughing, though his father declared that he ought to have his ears boxed for a malapert varlet.

Will Cavendish declared that the least the fair damsel could do for her knight-errant was to bind up his wounds, but Cis was too shy to show any disposition so to do, and it was Mrs. Talbot who salved the scratch for him. She had a feeling for the motherless youth, upon whom she foreboded that a fatal game might be played.

When quiet was restored, Mr. Talbot craved license from his guests, and opened the packet. There was a letter for Mistress Cicely Talbot in Queen Mary's well-known beautiful hand, which Antony followed with eager eyes, and a low gasp of "Ah! favoured maiden," making the good mother, who overheard it, say to herself, "Methinks his love is chiefly for the maid as something appertaining to the Queen, though he wots not how nearly. His heart is most for the Queen herself, poor lad."

The maiden did not show any great haste to open the letter, being aware that the true gist of it could only be discovered in private, and her father was studying his own likewise in silence. It was from Sir Ralf Sadler to request that Mistress Cicely might be permitted to become a regular member of the household. There was now a vacancy since, though Mrs. Curll was nearly as much about the Queen as ever, it was as the secretary's wife, not as one of the maiden attendants; and Sir Ralf wrote that he wished the more to profit by the opportunity, as he might soon be displaced by some one not of a temper greatly to consider the prisoner's wishes. Moreover, he said the poor lady was ill at ease, and much dejected at the tenor of her late letters from Scotland, and that she had said repeatedly that nothing would do her good but the presence of her pretty playfellow. Sir Ralf added assurances that he would watch over the maiden like his own daughter, and would take the utmost care of the faith and good order of all within his household. Curll also wrote by order of his mistress a formal application for the young lady, to which Mary had added in her own hand, "I thank the good Master Richard and Mrs. Susan beforehand, for I know they will not deny me."

Refusal was, of course, impossible to a mother who had every right to claim her own child; and there was nothing to be done but to fix the time for setting off: and Cicely, who had by this time read her own letter, or at least all that was on the surface, looked up tremulous, with a strange frightened gladness, and said, "Mother, she needs me."

"I shall shortly be returning home," said Antony, "and shall much rejoice if I may be one of the party who will escort this fair maiden."

"I shall take my daughter myself on a pillion, sir," said Richard, shortly.

"Then, sir, I may tell my Lord that you purpose to grant this request," said Will Cavendish, who had expected at least some time to be asked for deliberation, and knew his mother would expect her permission to be requested.

"I may not choose but do so," replied Richard; and then, thinking he might have said too much, he added, "It were sheer cruelty to deny any solace to the poor lady."

"Sick and in prison, and balked by her only son," added Susan, "one's heart cannot but ache for her."

"Let not Mr. Secretary Walsingham hear you say so, good madam," said Cavendish, smiling. "In London they think of her solely as a kind of malicious fury shut up in a cage, and there were those who looked askance at me when I declared that she was a gentlewoman of great sweetness and kindness of demeanour. I believe myself they will not rest till they have her blood!"

Cis and Susan cried out with horror, and Babington with stammering wrath demanded whether she was to be assassinated in the Spanish fashion, or on what pretext a charge could be brought against her. "Well," Cavendish answered, "as the saying is, give her rope enough, and she will hang herself. Indeed, there's no doubt but that she tampered enough with Throckmorton's plot to have been convicted of misprision of treason, and so she would have been, but that her most sacred Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, would have no charge made against her.

"Treason from one sovereign to another, that is new law!" said Babington.

"So to speak," said Richard; "but if she claim to be heiress to the crown, she must also be a subject. Heaven forefend that she should come to the throne!"

To which all except Cis and Babington uttered a hearty amen, while a picture arose before the girl of herself standing beside her royal mother robed in velvet and ermine on the throne, and of the faces of Lady Shrewsbury and her daughter as they recognised her, and were pardoned.

Cavendish presently took his leave, and carried the unwilling Babington off with him, rightly divining that the family would wish to make their arrangements alone. To Richard's relief, Babington had brought him no private message, and to Cicely's disappointment, there was no addition in sympathetic ink to her letter, though she scorched the paper brown in trying to bring one out. The Scottish Queen was much too wary to waste and risk her secret expedients without necessity.

To Richard and Susan this was the real resignation of their foster-child into the hands of her own parent. It was true that she would still bear their name, and pass for their daughter, but that would be only so long as it might suit her mother's convenience; and instead of seeing her every day, and enjoying her full confidence (so far as they knew), she would be out of reach, and given up to influences, both moral and religious, which they deeply distrusted; also to a fate looming in the future with all the dark uncertainty that brooded over all connected with Tudor or Stewart royalty.

How much good Susan wept and prayed that night, only her pillow knew, not even her husband; and there was no particular comfort when my Lady Countess descended on her in the first interval of fine weather, full of wrath at not having been consulted, and discharging it in all sorts of predictions as to Cis's future. No honest and loyal husband would have her, after being turned loose in such company; she would be corrupted in morals and manners, and a disgrace to the Talbots; she would be perverted in faith, become a Papist, and die in a nunnery beyond sea; or she would be led into plots and have her head cut off; or pressed to death by the peine forte et dure.

Susan had nothing to say to all this, but that her husband thought it right, and then had a little vigorous advice on her own score against tamely submitting to any man, a weakness which certainly could not be laid to the charge of the termagant of Hardwicke.

Cicely herself was glad to go. She loved her mother with a romantic enthusiastic affection, missed her engaging caresses, and felt her Bridgefield home eminently dull, flat, and even severe, especially since she had lost the excitement of Humfrey's presence, and likewise her companion Diccon. So she made her preparations with a joyful alacrity, which secretly pained her good foster-parents, and made Susan almost ready to reproach her with ingratitude.

They lectured her, after the fashion of the time, on the need of never forgetting her duty to her God in her affection to her mother, Susan trusting that she would never let herself be led away to the Romish faith, and Richard warning her strongly against untruth and falsehood, though she must be exposed to cruel perplexities as to the right— "But if thou be true to man, thou wilt be true to God," he said. "If thou be false to man, thou wilt soon be false to thy God likewise."

"We will pray for thee, child," said Susan. "Do thou pray earnestly for thyself that thou mayest ever see the right."

"My queen mother is a right pious woman. She is ever praying and reading holy books," said Cis. "Mother Susan, I marvel you, who know her, can speak thus."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"As far as the Manor gates, madam."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER XXII
TUTBURY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Her mother sometimes saw her weariness, and would try to enliven her by setting her to dance, but here poor Cicely's untaught movements were sure to incur reproof; and even if they had been far more satisfactory to the beholders, what refreshment were they in comparison with gathering cranberries in the park, or holding a basket for Ned in the apple-tree? Mrs. Kennedy made no scruple of scolding her roundly for fretting in a month over what the Queen had borne for full eighteen years.

"Ah!" said poor Cicely, "but she had always been a queen, and was used to being mewed up close!"

And if this was the case at Wingfield, how much more was it so at Tutbury, whither Mary was removed in January. The space was far smaller, and the rooms were cold and damp; there was much less outlet, the atmosphere was unwholesome, and the furniture insufficient. Mary was in bed with rheumatism almost from the time of her arrival, but she seemed thus to become the more vigilant over her daughter, and distressed by her shortcomings. If the Queen did not take exercise, the suite were not supposed to require any, and indeed it was never desired by her elder ladies, but to the country maiden it was absolute punishment to be thus shut up day after day. Neither Sir Ralf Sadler nor his colleague, Mr. Somer, had brought a wife to share the charge, so that there was none of the neutral ground afforded by intercourse with the ladies of the Talbot family, and at first the only variety Cicely ever had was the attendance at chapel on the other side of the court.

It was remarkable that Mary discouraged all proselytising towards the Protestants of her train, and even forbore to make any open attempt on her daughter's faith. "Cela viendra," she said to Marie de Courcelles. "The sermons of M. le Pasteur will do more to convert her to our side than a hundred controversial arguments of our excellent Abbe; and when the good time comes, one High Mass will be enough to win her over."

"Alas! when shall we ever again assist at the Holy Sacrifice in all its glory!" sighed the lady.

"Ah, my good Courcelles! of what have you not deprived yourself for me! Sacrifice, ah! truly you share it! But for the child, it would give needless offence and difficulty were she to embrace our holy faith at present. She is simple and impetuous, and has not yet sufficiently outgrown the rude straightforward breeding of the good housewife, Madam Susan, not to rush into open confession of her faith, and then! oh the fracas! The wicked wolves would have stolen a precious lamb from M. le Pasteur's fold! Master Richard would be sent for! Our restraint would be the closer! Moreover, even when the moment of freedom strikes, who knows that to find her of their own religion may not win us favour with the English?"

So, from whatever motive, Cis remained unmolested in her religion, save by the weariness of the controversial sermons, during which the young lady contrived to abstract her mind pretty completely. If in good spirits she would construct airy castles for her Archduke; if dispirited, she yearned with a homesick feeling for Bridgefield and Mrs. Talbot. There was something in the firm sober wisdom and steady kindness of that good lady which inspired a sense of confidence, for which no caresses nor brilliant auguries could compensate.

Weary and cramped she was to the point of having a feverish attack, and on one slightly delirious night she fretted piteously after "mother," and shook off the Queen's hand, entreating that "mother, real mother," would come. Mary was much pained, and declared that if the child were not better the next day she should have a messenger sent to summon Mrs. Talbot. However, she was better in the morning; and the Queen, who had been making strong representations of the unhealthiness and other inconveniences of Tutbury, received a promise that she should change her abode as soon as Chartley, a house belonging to the young Earl of Essex, could be prepared for her.

The giving away large alms had always been one of her great solaces—not that she was often permitted any personal contact with the poor: only to sit at a window watching them as they flocked into the court, to be relieved by her servants under supervision from some officer of her warders, so as to hinder any surreptitious communication from passing between them. Sometimes, however, the poor would accost her or her suite as she rode out; and she had a great compassion for them, deprived, as she said, of the alms of the religious houses, and flogged or branded if hunger forced them into beggary. On a fine spring day Sir Ralf Sadler invited the ladies out to a hawking party on the banks of the Dove, with the little sparrow hawks, whose prey was specially larks. Pity for the beautiful soaring songster, or for the young ones that might be starved in their nests, if the parent birds were killed, had not then been thought of. A gallop on the moors, though they were strangely dull, gray, and stony, was always the best remedy for the Queen's ailments; and the party got into the saddle gaily, and joyously followed the chase, thinking only of the dexterity and beauty of the flight of pursuer and pursued, instead of the deadly terror and cruel death to which they condemned the created creature, the very proverb for joyousness.

It was during the halt which followed the slaughter of one of the larks, and the reclaiming of the hawk, that Cicely strayed a little away from the rest of the party to gather some golden willow catkins and sprays of white sloe thorn wherewith to adorn a beaupot that might cheer the dull rooms at Tutbury.

She had jumped down from her pony for the purpose, and was culling the branch, when from the copsewood that clothed the gorge of the river a ragged woman, with a hood tied over her head, came forward with outstretched hand asking for alms.

"Yon may have something from the Queen anon, Goody, when I can get back to her," said Cis, not much liking the looks or the voice of the woman.