The Tangled Skein

When it was discovered that the naughty child had, on the very day following Her Majesty's coronation, visited East Molesey Fair, masked and veiled, and attended only by weak-willed, silly Margaret Cobham, Her Grace felt nigh to having the palsy. But even that unseemly escapade was nothing in comparison with the terrible revelations which had recently come to Her Grace's ears. One or two rumours had already gained currency that one of Her Majesty's maids-of-honour had been seen alone and at night outside the purlieus of the Palace. So far, fortunately, the Queen knew nothing of this, nor had it been talked about among the gentlemen of the Court.

Heavens above! if such a thing were to happen!.

"A scandal!" moaned the Duchess piteously, "a scandal in my department! Oh, I shall never survive it! If Her Majesty should hear of it, who is so austere, so pious!.. And with my lord Cardinal staying in the Palace just now… What would he think of the morals of an English Court!.. Oh! the naughty, wicked child, thus to bring disgrace upon us all."

Some of the rumours anent Lady Ursula's mysterious nightly wanderings had already reached her; she had placed the other girls under severe cross-examination, and finally elicited from them the confirmation of her worst fears.

"Nay, madam," rejoined Alicia, tardily smitten with remorse, "I feel sure she means no harm. Ursula is gay, a madcap, full of fun, but she is too proud to stoop to an intrigue."

"Aye! but, child, she hath vanity," said the Duchess, shaking her grey curls, "and vanity is an evil counsellor. And, remember, 'tis not the first time she has been seen alone, at night, outside the purlieus of the garden. The Lord protect us! I should never survive a scandal."

"An Your Grace would believe me," added Barbara consolingly, "I think 'tis but a bit of foolish curiosity on the Lady Ursula's part."

But Her Grace would not be consoled.

"Curiosity?" she said. "Alas! 'tis an evil moment when curiosity leads a maiden out of doors at night.. alone.. Oh!"

And she made a gesture of such horror, there was such a look of stern condemnation in her kind old face, that the two girls began to feel really afraid as to what might befall that madcap, Ursula Glynde.

No one had ever seen the Duchess actually angry.

They were all ready to take up the cudgels for the absent girl now.

"Nay! 'tis harmless curiosity enough," said Alicia hotly. "Ursula is being very badly treated."

"Badly treated!" exclaimed Her Grace.

"Aye! she is affianced to the Duke of Wessex."

"Well, and what of it, child?"

"What of it?" retorted the girl indignantly, "she is never allowed to see him. The moment His Grace is expected to arrive in the Queen's presence, 'tis – 'Lady Ursula, you may retire. I shall not need your services to-day.'"

And looking straight down her pretty nose, dainty Lady Alicia Wrenford pursed her lips and put on the starchy airs of a soured matron of forty.

The Duchess of Lincoln threw up her hands in horror.

"Fie on you, child!" she said sternly, "mimicking Her Majesty."

"'Tis quite true what Alicia says," here interposed Barbara, pouting; "everything is done to keep Ursula out of His Grace's way. And we, too, are made the scapegoats of this silly intrigue."

"Barbara, I forbid you to talk like that!"

"I mean nothing disrespectful, madam, yet 'tis patent to every one. Why are we relegated to this dreary old chamber this brilliant afternoon, when my lord the Cardinal and all the foreign ambassadors are at the Palace? Why are we not allowed to join the others at tennis, or watch the gentlemen at bowls? Why were Helen and Margaret kept from seeing the jousts? Why? Why? Why?"

She was stamping her little foot, eager, impatient, excited. The Duchess felt somewhat bewildered before this hurricane of girlish wrath.

"Because Her Majesty ordered it thus, child," she said in a more conciliatory spirit; "she hath not always need of all her maids-of-honour round her."

"Nay! that's not the reason," rejoined Barbara, "and Your Grace is too clever to believe it."

"You are a silly child and – "

"Then we are all silly, for 'tis patent to us all. 'Tis Ursula who is being kept wilfully away from the Court, or rather from seeing His Grace of Wessex, and in order not to make these machinations too obvious, some of us are also relegated in the background in her company."

"And 'tis small wonder that Ursula should wish to catch sight of the man whom her father vowed she should wed or else enter into a convent," concluded Alicia defiantly.

Her Grace was at her wits' ends. Too clever not to have noticed the intrigue to which the girls now made reference, she would sooner have died than owned that her Queen was acting wrongfully or even pettily.

However, for the moment she was spared the further discussion of this unpleasant topic, for a long, merry, girlish laugh was suddenly heard echoing through the great chambers beyond.

"Hush!" said the Duchess with reassumed severity, "'tis that misguided child herself. Now remember, ladies, not a word of all this. I must learn the truth on this scandal, and will set a watch to-night. But not a word to her."

The next moment the subject of all this animated conversation threw open the heavy oak door of the room. She came running in, with her fair hair flying in a deliriously mad tangle round her shoulders, her eyes dancing with glee, whilst above her head she was, with one small hand, flourishing a small piece of paper, the obvious cause of this apparently uncontrollable fit of girlish merriment.

CHAPTER XI

THE FAIREST OF THEM ALL

The Duchess was frowning for all she was worth. Alicia and Barbara tried to look serious, but were obviously only too ready to join in any frolic which happened to be passing in Ursula Glynde's lively little head.

"Oh!" said the latter, as soon as she had partially recovered her breath. "Oh! I vow 'tis the best of the bunch."

With the freedom of a spoilt child, who knows how welcome are its caresses, Ursula sidled up to the Duchess of Lincoln and sat down upon the arm of her chair.

"Your Grace, a share of your seat I entreat," she said gaily, heedless of stern looks. "Nay! I'll die of laughing unless you let me read you this."

"Child! child!" admonished the Duchess, still trying to look severe, "this loud laughter is most unseemly – and your cheeks all ablaze! What is it now?"

"What is it, sweet Grace?" responded the young girl. "A poem! Listen!"

She smoothed out the piece of paper, spread it out upon her knee and began reading solemnly: —

"If all the world were sought so farreWho could find such a wight?Her beauty twinkleth like a starreWithin the frosty night.Her roseall colour comes and goesWith such a comely grace,More ruddier too than doth the rose,Within her lively face."

"And beneath this sonnet," she continued, "a drawing – see! – a heart pierced by a dagger. His heart —my beauty which twinkleth like a starre!"

Who could resist the joy and gladness, the freshness, the youth, the girlishness which emanated from Ursula's entire personality? The two other girls pressed closely round her, giggling like school-children at sight of the rough, sentimental device affixed to the love poem.

The Duchess vainly endeavoured to keep up a semblance of sternness, but she could not meet those laughing eyes, now dark, now blue, now an ever-changing grey, alive with irrepressible mischief, yet full of loving tenderness. She felt that her wrath would soon melt in the sunshine of that girlish smile.

"Lady Ursula, this is most unseemly," she said as coldly as she could. "How came you by this poem?"

Ursula threw her arms round the feebly-resisting old dame.

"Hush!" she whispered, "in your dear old ears! I found it, sweet Duchess.. beside my stockings.. when I came out of my bath!"

"Horror!"

"Now, Duchess! dear, sweet, darling, beautiful Duchess, tell me, who think you wrote this poem? And who —who think you placed it near my stockings?"

The Duchess was almost speechless, partly through genuine horror, but chiefly because a sweet, fresh face was pressed closely to her old cheek.

"'Twas not the Earl of Norfolk," continued Ursula meditatively. She seemed quite unconscious of the enormity of her offence, and sought the eyes of her young friends in confirmation of these various surmises. "He cannot write verses. Nor could it be my lord of Overcliffe, for he would not know where to find my stockings."

"The vanity of the child!" sighed Her Grace. "Think you these great gentlemen would write verses to a chit of a girl like you?"

But her kind eyes, resting with obvious pride on the dainty figure beside her, belied the severity of her words.

"Yes," replied Ursula decisively, "bad ones! – not such beautiful verses as these."

Then she went on with her conjectures.

"And there's my lord of Everingham, and the Marquis of Taunton, and – "

"His Grace of Wessex," suggested Alicia archly, despite the Duchess's warning frown.

"Alas, no!" sighed Ursula, "for he has never been allowed to see me."

"Ursula!" came in ever-recurring feeble protests from the old dowager.

But the young girl was wholly unabashed.

"But he will see me – before to-night," she said.

The others exchanged significant glances.

"To-night?"

"Yes! What have I said? Why do you all look like that?"

"Because your conduct, child, is positively wanton," said the Duchess.

But Ursula only hugged the kind old soul all the more closely.

"Now – now," she coaxed, "don't be angry, darling. There! – look!" she added with mock horror, "your coif is all awry."

With deft fingers she rearranged the delicate lace cap over Her Grace's white curls.

"So," she said, "now you look pretty again – and your nice, fat cheeks have the sweetest of dimples. Nay, I vow, all these young gallants only sigh with love for me because you frown on them so!"

"What a madcap!" sighed the Duchess, mollified.

"You won't be angry with me?" queried the girl earnestly.

"Nay! that depends what mad pranks you have been after."

"Sh – sh! – sh! – 'tis a deadly secret. Barbara, Alicia, come a little closer."

She paused a moment, whilst all three of them crowded round Her Grace of Lincoln's chair.

Then Ursula said solemnly —

"The Queen is in love with my future husband!"

The Duchess of Lincoln nearly fell backwards in a faint.

"Ursula!" she gasped.

"Nay, that's not the secret," continued Ursula, quite unperturbed, "for that is town-talk, and every one at Court knows that she won't let him see me for fear he should fall in love with me. And my lord Cardinal is furious because he wants the Queen to marry Philip of Spain, and he is wishing His Grace of Wessex down there, where all naughty Cardinals go."

"Child!.. child!."

"But the days are slipping by, darling," added the young girl, with just a shade of seriousness in her eyes. "All these intriguers may fight as much as they like, but if I do not wed His Grace of Wessex, if he should be inveigled into marrying the Queen, I must to the convent. My dear father made me swear it on his deathbed, when I was beside myself with grief, and scarce knew what I did. 'There is but one true gentleman to whom I would trust my child,' he said to me; 'swear to me, Ursula, that if Wessex claims you not, that you will never marry any one else, but spend your days in happy singleness in a convent. Swear it, little one.' He was so ill, so dear, I swore and – "

"The convent is the proper place for such a feather-brain as yourself," concluded the Duchess with as gruff a voice as she could command.

"But I do not wish to be a nun," protested Ursula, as tears began to gather in her eyes, "and I do want to wed Wessex, who is handsome – and gallant – and witty – and – and," she added coquettishly, "when he sees me – I vow he'll not let me go to a convent either, so – "

She leant closer to the kind dowager and once more whispered confidentially in her ear.

"So, as the Queen is engaged in prayers for at least half an hour, I've sent His Grace word by one of the pages that the Duchess of Lincoln desired his presence in this chamber – here!"

But this was really past bearing.

"I!." exclaimed the Duchess in horror. "I?.. desire his presence?.. Merciful heavens! what will His Grace think?"

Once more Ursula, like the veritable child that she was, was dancing like mad round the room, now alone, clapping her tiny hands together, then seizing one of her companions by the waist, she whirled with her, round and round, until she fell back breathless against the Duchess's chair. And all the while her tongue went prattling on, now talking at top speed, anon singing out the words in the madness of her glee.

"And he is coming, dear Duchess," she said. "'He'll attend upon Her Grace at once!' these were his words to that pet of a page, and he'll see me – and – and – "

Now she paused, kneeling beside her old friend, putting coaxing arms round the bulky figure of the kind soul.

"But don't tell him my name all at once, Duchess darling," she whispered entreatingly; "let him fall in love with me without knowing that I am his affianced bride – for that might prejudice him against me. Just mumble something when he asks my name, and let me do the rest. Give me another kiss, darling. Alicia – Alicia," she cried in feverish anxiety, "is my kerchief straight at the back? and – and – oh, my hair!"

Still in that same madly-excited mood, she ran to a small oval mirror which hung on one of the walls, close to the great bay window.

The Duchess during that brief moment's respite tried to collect her scattered wits.

"But oh! what shall I say to His Grace?" she moaned distractedly. "Child! child! to your folly there is no end!"

A quickly smothered shriek from Ursula now brought the other girls to her side in the embrasure. She was pointing across the court to the gateway beneath the clock tower.

"He is coming!" she cried, with a slightly nervous tremor in her voice. "It is he, with my lord Everingham; they are laughing and talking together… Oh, how handsome he looks!" she added enthusiastically. "My future husband, my lord, not the Queen's – mine own, mine own! Alicia, tell me, hast ever seen a more goodly sight than that of my future husband in that beautiful silken doublet and with that dear, dear dog of his walking so proudly behind him? Harry Plantagenet, thou'rt a lucky dog, and I'll kiss thee first, and – and – "

Then she ran back to the Duchess.

"Two minutes to mount the stairs, two more to cross the Great Hall, then the watching chamber, the presence chamber… In six minutes he will be here – hush! – I hear a footstep!.. Holy Virgin, how my heart beats!"

There had come a discreet knock at the door. All four women were too excited to respond, but the next moment the door was opened and a young page, dressed in the same gorgeous livery which Henry VIII had originally prescribed, entered and bowed to the ladies.

Then he turned to the Duchess of Lincoln.

"Her Majesty the Queen desires the immediate presence of Her Grace and of her maids-of-honour in the Oratory."

There was dead silence in the room whilst the page once more bowed in the elaborate manner ordained by Court etiquette; then he walked backwards to the door, and stood there, holding it open ready for the ladies to pass.

"No, no, no!" whispered Ursula excitedly, as the Duchess immediately rose to obey.

"Ladies!" commanded Her Grace.

"One minute, darling," entreated Ursula, "just one short little minute!"

But where the Queen's commands were concerned Her Grace of Lincoln was adamant.

"Ladies!" she ordered once more.

Alicia and Barbara, though terribly disappointed at the failure of the exciting conspiracy, were ready enough to obey. Ursula wildly ran back to the window.

"I can see his silhouette and that of my lord Everingham slowly moving across the Great Hall," she said.

"Oh! why is he so slow?"

The Duchess turned to the page.

"Precede!" she commanded. "We'll follow."

She then pointed to the door. Alicia and Barbara, endeavouring to look grave, walked out with becoming dignity.

Her Grace went up to Ursula, who was still clinging to the window embrasure with passionate obstinacy.

"Lady Ursula Glynde," she said sternly, "if you do not obey Her Majesty's commands instantly, you'll be dismissed the Court this very day."

And while His Grace of Wessex was slowly wending his way towards the chamber where he had been so eagerly expected, Lady Ursula, defiant and rebellious, was being peremptorily marshalled off in an opposite direction.

CHAPTER XII

INTRIGUES

When Wessex, accompanied by his friend, reached the room which so lately was echoing with merry girlish laughter, he was met by a page, deputed by the Duchess of Lincoln to present her excuses to His Grace for her non-appearance.

"Nay! marry, this is the bravest comedy ever witnessed," laughed the Duke, when the boy had gone.

"What, my lord?" asked Everingham with seeming unconcern.

"A comedy, friend, in which the Queen, Her Grace of Lincoln, you, and His Eminence the Cardinal, all play leading rôles."

"I don't understand."

"Well done, man! Nay! I know not yet which of you will win; but this I know, that whilst I do my best to whisper sweet nothings in Her Majesty's ear, you are pleased, the Cardinal is furious, and the Duchess of Lincoln discreetly keeps my affianced bride out of my way."

"For this at least Your Grace should be grateful," rejoined his friend with a smile.

"Grateful that other people should guide my destiny for me? Well, perhaps! 'Twould certes have been ungallant to flee from danger, when danger takes the form of a future wife. I cannot picture myself saying to a lady: 'Madam, honour demands that I should wed you, and thus hath put it out of my power ever to love you.' But since the Lady Ursula is so unapproachable, marry! – methinks I am almost free!"

"Perchance it is the lady herself who avoids Your Grace."

"Nay! undoubtedly she does. Poor girl! how she must hate the very thought of me. Her dear father, I fear me, was wont to sing my praises in her childish ears; now that she hath arrived at years of discretion, my very name must have become an obsession to her. Obviously even a convent must be preferable. Then why this mad desire to keep us apart? Mutual understanding would do that soon enough."

The two men had once more turned to go back the way they came; slowly they strolled across the vast and lofty rooms and through the Great Hall, which, deserted at this time of day, was the scene of so much gaiety and magnificence during the evening hours.

"Your Grace, methinks, must be mistaken," said Everingham after a while; "there is, at any rate on the part of your friends, no desire to keep you and the Lady Ursula apart; you are best judge of your own honour, my lord, and no one would presume to dictate to you; but the most sensitive conscience in England could but hold the opinion that, whilst the lady may feel bound by her promise to her father, you are as free as air – free to wed whom you choose."

"By the mass! what an anomaly, friend! Free to wed! free to wear fetters! the most terrible chains ever devised by the turpitude of man."

"Marriage is a great institution – "

"Nay! 'tis an evil one, contrived out of malice by priests and old maids to enchain a woman who would rather be free to a man who speedily becomes bored."

"Nay! but when that woman is a queen?"

"Take off her crown and what is she, friend?" rejoined His Grace lightly. "A woman.. to be desired, of course, to be loved, by all means – but at whose feet we should only recline long enough to make all other men envious, and one woman jealous."

Everingham frowned. He hated this flippant, careless mood of his friend. He did not understand it. To him the idea of such a possibility as a union with the Queen of England was so great, so wonderful, so superhuman almost, that he felt that the man who deserved such incommensurate honour should spend half his days on his knees, thanking God for such a glorious destiny.

That Wessex hung back when Mary herself was holding out her hand to him seemed to this enthusiast almost a sacrilege.

"But surely you have ambition, my lord?" he said at last.

"Ambition?" replied Wessex with characteristic light-heartedness. "Yes, one! – to be a boy again."

"Nay! an you were that now, you could not understand all that England expects of you. The Queen is harassed by the Cardinal and the Spanish ambassador. Philip but desires her hand in order to lay the iron heel of Spain upon the neck of submissive England. Your Grace can save us all. Mary loves you, would wed you to-morrow."

"And send me to the block for my infidelities – supposed or real – the day after, and be free to wed Philip or the Dauphin after all."

"I'll not believe it."

"Friend! do you know what you ask of me? To marry – that is to say to give up all that makes life poetic, beautiful, amusing, the love which lasts a day, the delights which live one hour, woman in her most alluring aspect, the unattainable; and in exchange what do you offer me – the smaller half of a crown."

"The gratitude of a nation." protested Everingham.

"Ah! A woman, however fickle she may be, is more constant than a nation.. As for gratitude?.. nay, my lord.. let us not speak of the gratitude of nations."

"This is not your last word, friend," pleaded Lord Everingham earnestly.

They had reached the foot of the stairs, and were once more under the gateway of the clock tower, where Lady Ursula Glynde had caught sight of them from the great bay-window opposite.

It was a glorious afternoon. October, always lovely in England, was more beautiful and mellow this year than it had ever been. Wessex paused a moment, with his slender hand placed affectionately on his friend's shoulder. He looked round him – at the great windows of the hall, the vast enclosure of the Base Court beyond, the distant tower of the chapel visible above the fantastic roofs and gables of Henry VIII's chambers, the massive, imposing grandeur of the great pile which had seen so many tragedies, witnessed so many sorrows, so many downfalls, such treachery and such horrible deaths. A shudder seemed to go through his powerful frame, a look of resolution, of pride, and of absolute disdain crept into his lazy, deep-set eyes. Then he said quietly —

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