And he went on to explain that the scroll was a letter to the Abbess of Soissons, who was aunt to Queen Mary, as was well known, since an open correspondence was kept up through the French ambassador. This letter said that "our trusty Alison Hepburn" would tell how in secrecy and distress Queen Mary had given birth to this poor child in Lochleven, and how she had been conveyed across the lake while only a few hours old, after being hastily baptized by the name of Bride, one of the patron saints of Scotland. She had been nursed in a cottage for a few weeks till the Queen had made her first vain attempt to escape, after which Mary had decided on sending her with her nurse to Dumbarton Castle, whence Lord Flemyng would despatch her to France. The Abbess was implored to shelter her, in complete ignorance of her birth, until such time as her mother should resume her liberty and her throne. "Or if," the poor Queen said, "I perish in the hands of my enemies, you will deal with her as my uncles of Guise and Lorraine think fit, since, should her unhappy little brother die in the rude hands of yonder traitors, she may bring the true faith back to both realms."
"Ah!" cried Susan, with a sudden gasp of dismay, as she bethought her that the child was indeed heiress to both realms after the young King of Scots. "But has there been no quest after her? Do they deem her lost?"
"No doubt they do. Either all hands were lost in the Bride of Dunbar, or if any of the crew escaped, they would report the loss of nurse and child. The few who know that the little one was born believe her to have perished. None will ever ask for her. They deem that she has been at the bottom of the sea these twelve years or more."
"And you would still keep the knowledge to ourselves?" asked his wife, in a tone of relief.
"I would I knew it not myself!" sighed Richard. "Would that I could blot it out of my mind."
"It were far happier for the poor maid herself to remain no one's child but ours," said Susan.
"In sooth it is! A drop of royal blood is in these days a mere drop of poison to them that have the ill luck to inherit it. As my lord said the other day, it brings the headsman's axe after it."
"And our boy Humfrey calls himself contracted to her!"
"So long as we let the secret die with us that can do her no ill. Happily the wench favours not her mother, save sometimes in a certain lordly carriage of the head and shoulders. She is like enough to some of the Scots retinue to make me think she must take her face from her father, the villain, who, someone told me, was beetle-browed and swarthy."
"Lives he still?"
"So 'tis thought, but somewhere in prison in the north. There have been no tidings of his death; but my Lady Queen, you'll remember, treats the marriage as nought, and has made offer of herself for the misfortune of the Duke of Norfolk, ay, and of this Don John, and I know not whom besides."
"She would not have done that had she known that our Cis was alive."
"Mayhap she would, mayhap not. I believe myself she would do anything short of disowning her Popery to get out of prison; but as matters stand I doubt me whether Cis"
"The Lady Bride Hepburn," suggested Susan.
"Pshaw, poor child, I misdoubt me whether they would own her claim even to that name."
"And they might put her in prison if they did," said Susan.
"They would be sure to do so, sooner or later. Here has my lord been recounting in his trouble about my lady's fine match for her Bess, all that hath come of mating with royal blood, the very least disaster being poor Lady Mary Grey's! Kept in ward for life! It is a cruel matter. I would that I had known the cipher at first. Then she might either have been disposed of at the Queen's will, or have been sent safe to this nunnery at Soissons."
"To be bred a Papist! Oh fie, husband!"
"And to breed dissension in the kingdoms!" added her husband. "It is best so far for the poor maiden herself to have thy tender hand over her than that of any queen or abbess of them all."
"Shall we then keep all things as they are, and lock this knowledge in our own hearts?" asked Susan hopefully.
"To that am I mightily inclined," said Richard. "Were it blazed abroad at once, thou and I might be made out guilty of I know not what for concealing it; and as to the maiden, she would either be put in close ward with her mother, or, what would be more likely, had up to court to be watched, and flouted, and spied upon, as were the two poor ladiessisters to the Lady Janeere they made their lot hopeless by marrying. Nay, I have seen those who told me that poor Lady Katherine was scarce worse bested in the Tower than she was while at court."
"My poor Cis! No, no! The only cause for which I could bear to yield her up would be the thought that she would bring comfort to the heart of the poor captive mother who hath the best right to her."
"Forsooth! I suspect her poor captive mother would scarce be pleased to find this witness to her ill-advised marriage in existence."
"Nor would she be permitted to be with her."
"Assuredly not. Moreover, what could she do with the poor child?"
"Rear her in Popery," exclaimed Susan, to whom the word was terrible.
"Yea, and make her hand secure as the bait to some foreign prince or some English traitor, who would fain overthrow Queen and Church."
Susan shuddered. "Oh yes! let us keep the poor child to ourselves. I could not give her up to such a lot as that. And it might imperil you too, my husband. I should like to get up instantly and burn the scroll."
"I doubt me whether that were expedient," said Richard. "Suppose it were in the course of providence that the young King of Scots should not live, then would this maid be the means of uniting the two kingdoms in the true and Reformed faith! Heaven forefend that he should be cut off, but meseemeth that we have no right to destroy the evidence that may one day be a precious thing to the kingdom at large."
"No chance eye could read it even were it discovered?" said Susan.
"No, indeed. Thou knowest how I strove in vain to read it at first, and even now, when Frank Talbot unwittingly gave me the key, it was days before I could fully read it. It will tell no tales, sweet wife, that can prejudice any one, so we will let it be, even with the baby clouts. So now to sleep, with no more thoughts on the matter."
That was easy to say, but Susan lay awake long, pondering over the wonder, and only slept to dream strange dreams of queens and princesses, ay, and worse, for she finally awoke with a scream, thinking her husband was on the scaffold, and that Humfrey and Cis were walking up the ladder, hand in hand with their necks bared, to follow him!
There was no need to bid her hold her tongue. She regarded the secret with dread and horror, and a sense of something amiss which she could not quite define, though she told herself she was only acting in obedience to her husband, and indeed her judgment went along with his.
Often she looked at the unconscious Cis, studying whether the child's parentage could be detected in her features. But she gave promise of being of larger frame than her mother, who had the fine limbs and contour of her Lorraine ancestry, whereas Cis did, as Richard said, seem to have the sturdy outlines of the Borderer race from whom her father came. She was round-faced too, and sunburnt, with deep gray eyes under black straight brows, capable of frowning heavily. She did not look likely ever to be the fascinating beauty which all declared her mother to bethough those who saw the captive at Sheffield, believed the charm to be more in indefinable grace than in actual features,in a certain wonderful smile and sparkle, a mixed pathos and archness which seldom failed of its momentary effect, even upon those who most rebelled against it. Poor little Cis, a sturdy girl of twelve or thirteen, playing at ball with little Ned on the terrace, and coming with tardy steps to her daily task of spinning, had little of the princess about her; and yet when she sat down, and the management of distaff and thread threw her shoulders back, there was something in the poise of her small head and the gesture of her hand that forcibly recalled the Queen. Moreover, all the boys around were at her beck and call, not only Humfrey and poor Antony Babington, but Cavendishes, Pierrepoints, all the young pages and grandsons who dwelt at castle or lodge, and attended Master Sniggius's school. Nay, the dominie himself, though owning that Mistress Cicely promoted idleness and inattention among his pupils, had actually volunteered to come down to Bridgefield twice a week himself to prevent her from forgetting her Lilly's grammar and her Caesar's Commentaries, an attention with which this young lady would willingly have dispensed.
Stewart, Lorraine, Hepburn, the blood of all combined was a perilous inheritance, and good Susan Talbot's instinct was that the young girl whom she loved truly like her own daughter would need all the more careful and tender watchfulness and training to overcome any tendencies that might descend to her. Pity increased her affection, and even while in ordinary household life it was easy to forget who and what the girl really was, yet Cis was conscious that she was admitted to the intimacy and privileges of an elder daughter, and made a companion and friend, while her contemporaries at the Manor-house were treated as children, and rated roundly, their fingers tapped with fans, their shoulders even whipped, whenever they transgressed. Cis did indeed live under equal restraint, but it was the wise and gentle restraint of firm influence and constant watchfulness, which took from her the wish to resist.
CHAPTER IX
UNQUIET
Bridgefield was a peaceable household, and the castle and manor beyond might envy its calm.
From the time of the marriage of Elizabeth Cavendish with the young Earl of Lennox all the shreds of comfort which had remained to the unfortunate Earl had vanished. First he had to clear himself before Queen Elizabeth from having been a consenting party, and then he found his wife furious with him at his displeasure at her daughter's aggrandisement. Moreover, whereas she had formerly been on terms of friendly gossiphood with the Scottish Queen, she now went over to the Lennox side because her favourite daughter had married among them; and it was evident that from that moment all amity between her and the prisoner was at an end.
She was enraged that her husband would not at once change his whole treatment of the Queen, and treat her as such guilt deserved; and with the illogical dulness of a passionate woman, she utterly scouted and failed to comprehend the argument that the unhappy Mary was, to say the least of it, no more guilty now than when she came into their keeping, and that to alter their demeanour towards her would be unjust and unreasonable.
"My Lady is altogether beyond reason," said Captain Talbot, returning one evening to his wife; "neither my Lord nor her daughter can do ought with her; so puffed up is she with this marriage! Moreover, she is hotly angered that young Babington should have been sent away from her retinue without notice to her, and demands our Humfrey in his stead as a page."
"He is surely too old for a page!" said his mother, thinking of her tall well-grown son of fifteen.
"So said I," returned Richard. "I had sooner it were Diccon, and so I told his lordship."
Before Richard could speak for them, the two boys came in, eager and breathless. "Father!" cried Humfrey, "who think you is at Hull? Why, none other than your old friend and shipmate, Captain Frobisher!"
"Ha! Martin Frobisher! Who told thee, Humfrey?"
"Faithful Ekins, sir, who had it from the Doncaster carrier, who saw Captain Frobisher himself, and was asked by him if you, sir, were not somewhere in Yorkshire, and if so, to let you know that he will be in Hull till May-day, getting men together for a voyage to the northwards, where there is gold to be had for the pickingand if you had a likely son or two, now was the time to make their fortunes, and show them the world. He said, any way you might ride to see an old comrade."
"A long message for two carriers," said Richard Talbot, smiling, "but Martin never was a scribe!"
"But, sir, you will let me go," cried Humfrey, eagerly. "I mean, I pray you to let me go. Dear mother, say nought against it," entreated the youth. "Cis, think of my bringing thee home a gold bracelet like mother's."
"What," said his father, "when my Lady has just craved thee for a page."
"A page!" said Humfrey, with infinite contempt"to hear all their tales and bickerings, hold skeins of silk, amble mincingly along galleries, be begged to bear messages that may have more in them than one knows, and be noted for a bear if one refuses."
The father and Cis laughed, the mother looked unhappy.
"So Martin is at Hull, is he?" said Richard, musingly. "If my Lord can give me leave for a week or fortnight, methinks I must ride to see the stout old knave."
"And oh, sweet father! prithee take me with you," entreated Humfrey, "if it be only to come back again. I have not seen the sea since we came here, and yet the sound is in my ears as I fall asleep. I entreat of you to let me come, good my father."
"And, good father, let me come," exclaimed Diccon; "I have never even seen the sea!"
"And dear, sweet father, take me," entreated little Ned.
"Nay," cried Cis, "what should I do? Here is Antony Babington borne off to Cambridge, and you all wanting to leave me."
"I'll come home better worth than he!" muttered Humfrey, who thought he saw consent on his father's brow, and drew her aside into the deep window.
"You'll come back a rude sailor, smelling of pitch and tar, and Antony will be a well-bred, point-device scholar, who will know how to give a lady his hand," said the teasing girl.
"And so the playful war was carried on, while the father, having silenced and dismissed the two younger lads, expressed his intention of obtaining leave of absence, if possible, from the Earl."
"Yea," he added to his wife, "I shall even let Humfrey go with me. It is time he looked beyond the walls of this place, which is little better than a prison."
"And will you let him go on this strange voyage?" she asked wistfully, "he, our first-born, and our heir."
"For that, dame, remember his namesake, my poor brother, was the one who stayed at home, I the one to go forth, and here am I now! The lad's words may have set before thee weightier perils in yonder park than he is like to meet among seals and bears under honest old Martin."
"Yet here he has your guidance," said Susan.
"Who knows how they might play on his honour as to talebearing? Nay, good wife, when thou hast thought it over, thou wilt see that far fouler shoals and straits lie up yonder, than in the free open sea that God Almighty made. Martin is a devout and godly man, who hath matins and evensong on board each day when the weather is not too foul, and looks well that there be no ill-doings in his ship; and if he have a berth for thy lad, it will be a better school for him than where two-thirds of the household are raging against one another, and the third ever striving to corrupt and outwit the rest. I am weary of it all! Would that I could once get into blue water again, and leave it all behind!"
"You will not! Oh! you will not!" implored Susan. "Remember, my dear, good lord, how you said all your duties lay at home."
"I remember, my good housewife. Thou needst not fear for me. But there is little time to spare. If I am to see mine old friend, I must get speech of my Lord to-night, so as to be on horseback to-morrow. Saddle me Brown Dumpling, boys."
And as the boys went off, persuading Cis, who went coyly protesting that the paddock was damp, yet still following after them, he added, "Yea, Sue, considering all, it is better those two were apart for a year or so, till we see better what is this strange nestling that we have reared. Ay, thou art like the mother sparrow that hath bred up a cuckoo and doteth on it, yet it mateth not with her brood."
"It casteth them out," said Susan, "as thou art doing now, by your leave, husband."
"Only for a flight, gentle mother," he answered, "only for a flight, to prove meanwhile whether there be the making of a simple household bird, or of a hawk that might tear her mate to pieces, in yonder nestling."
Susan was too dutiful a wife to say more, though her motherly heart was wrung almost as much at the implied distrust of her adopted daughter as by the sudden parting with her first-born to the dangers of the northern seas. She could better enter into her husband's fears of the temptations of page life at Sheffield, and being altogether a wife, "bonner and boughsome," as her marriage vow held it, she applied herself and Cis to the choosing of the shirts and the crimping of the ruffs that were to appear in Hull, if, for there was this hope at the bottom of her heart, my Lord might refuse leave of absence to his "gentleman porter."