The Fifth Queen Crowned Part 27

'Why, so it is,' he said, 'as now day pa.s.seth to day.' The clock ceased.

'Every day shall be glad,' he said, 'and gladder than the rest.'

At her chamber door he made a bustle. He would have the Queen's women come to untire her, a leech to see to Culpepper's recovery. He was willing to drink mulled wine before he slept. He was afraid to talk with his wife of delaying his letter to Rome. That was why he had told the news before her to his lords.

He fell upon the Lady Rochford that stood, not daring to go, within the Queen's room. He bade her sit all night by the bedside of T. Culpepper; he reviled her for a craven coward that had discountenanced the Queen.

She should pay for it by watching all night, and woe betide her if any had speech with T. Culpepper before the King rose.

III

Down in the lower castle, the Archbishop was accustomed, when he undressed, to have with him neither priest nor page, but only, when he desired to converse of public matters--as now he did--his gentleman, Lascelles. He knelt above his kneeling-stool of black wood; he was telling his beads before a great crucifix with an ivory Son of G.o.d upon it. His chamber had bare white walls, his bed no curtains, and all the other furnishing of the room was a great black lectern whereto there was chained a huge Book of the Holy Writ that had his Preface. The tears were in his eyes as he muttered his prayers; he glanced upwards at the face of his Saviour, who looked down with a pallid, uncoloured face of ivory, the features shewing a great agony so that the mouth was opened.

It was said that this image, that came from Italy, had had a face serene, before the Queen Katharine of Aragon had been put away. Then it had cried out once, and so remained ever lachrymose and in agony.

'G.o.d help me, I cannot well pray,' the Archbishop said. 'The peril that we have been in stays with me still.'

'Why, thank G.o.d that we are come out of it very well,' Lascelles said.

'You may pray and then sleep more calm than ever you have done this sennight.'

He leant back against the reading-pulpit, and had his arm across the Bible as if it had been the shoulder of a friend.

'Why,' the Archbishop said, 'this is the worst day ever I have been through since Cromwell fell.'

'Please it your Grace,' his confidant said, 'it shall yet turn out the best.'

The Archbishop faced round upon his knees; he had taken off the jewel from before his breast, and, with his chain of Chaplain of the George, it dangled across the corner of the fald-stool. His coat was unb.u.t.toned at the neck, his robe open, and it was manifest that his sleeves of lawn were but sleeves, for in the opening was visible, harsh and grey, the shirt of hair that night and day he wore.

'I am weary of this talk of the world,' he said. 'Pray you begone and leave me to my prayers.'

'Please it your Grace to let me stay and hearten you,' Lascelles said, and he was aware that the Archbishop was afraid to be alone with the white Christ. 'All your other gentry are in bed. I shall watch your sleep, to wake you if you cry out.'

And in his fear of Cromwell's ghost that came to him in his dreams, the Archbishop sighed--

'Why stay, but speak not. Y'are over bold.'

He turned again to the wall; his beads clicked; he sighed and remained still for a long time, a black shadow, huddled together in a black gown, sighing before the white and lamenting image that hung above him.

'G.o.d help me,' he said at last. 'Tell me why you say this is _dies felix_?'

Lascelles, who smiled for ever and without mirth, said--

'For two things: firstly, because this letter and its sending are put off. And secondly, because the Queen is--patently and to all people--proved lewd.'

The Archbishop swung his head round upon his shoulders.

'You dare not say it!' he said.

'Why, the late Queen Katharine from Aragon was accounted a model of piety, yet all men know she was over fond with her confessor,' Lascelles smiled.

'It is an approved lie and slander,' the Archbishop said.

'It served mightily well in pulling down that Katharine,' his confidant answered.

'One day'--the Archbishop shivered within his robes--'the account and retribution for these lies shall be to be paid. For well we know, you, I, and all of us, that these be falsities and cozenings.'

'Marry,' Lascelles said, 'of this Queen it is now sufficiently proved true.'

The Archbishop made as if he washed his hands.

'Why,' Lascelles said, 'what man shall believe it was by chance and accident that she met her cousin on these moors? She is not a compa.s.s that pointeth, of miraculous power, true North.'

'No good man shall believe what you do say,' the Archbishop cried out.

'But a mult.i.tude of indifferent will,' Lascelles answered.

'G.o.d help me,' the Archbishop said, 'what a devil you are that thus hold out and hold out for ever hopes.'

'Why,' Lascelles said, 'I think you were well helped that day that I came into your service. It was the Great Privy Seal that bade me serve you and commended me.'

The Archbishop shivered at that name.

'What an end had Thomas Cromwell!' he said.

'Why, such an end shall not be yours whilst this King lives, so well he loves you,' Lascelles answered.

The Archbishop stood upon his feet; he raised his hands above his head.

'Begone! Begone!' he cried. 'I will not be of your evil schemes.'

'Your Grace shall not,' Lascelles said very softly, 'if they miscarry.

But when it is proven to the hilt that this Queen is a very lewd woman--and proven it shall be--your Grace may carry an accusation to the King----'

Cranmer said--

'Never! never! Shall I come between the lion and his food?'

'It were better if your Grace would carry the accusation,' Lascelles uttered nonchalantly, 'for the King will better hearken to you than to any other. But another man will do it too.'

'I will not be of this plotting,' the Archbishop cried out. 'It is a very wicked thing!' He looked round at the white Christ that, upon the dark cross, bent anguished brows upon him. 'Give me strength,' he said.

'Why, your Grace shall not be of it,' Lascelles answered, 'until it is proven in the eyes of your Grace--ay, and in the eyes of some of the Papist Lords--as, for instance, her very uncle--that this Queen was evil in her life before the King took her, and that she hath acted very suspicious in the aftertime.'

'You shall not prove it to the Papist Lords,' Cranmer said. 'It is a folly.'

He added vehemently--

'It is a wicked plot. It is a folly too. I will not be of it.'

'This is a very fortunate day,' Lascelles said. 'I think it is proven to all discerning men that that letter to him of Rome shall never be sent.'