The Fifth Queen Crowned Part 33

'No more!--And I have spoken to this woman to obtain no more than "no more."'

Again she closed her eyes, and she did not again speak, but hung her head forward as if she were thinking.

'Heaven help me!' the maid said.

'Why, think no more of Heaven,' the Lady Mary said, 'there is but the fire of h.e.l.l for such beasts as you.'

'Had you such a brother as mine----' Mary Hall began. But the Lady Mary cried out--

'Cease, dog! I have a worse father, but you have not found him force me to work vileness.'

'All the other Papists have done worse than I,' Mary Hall said, 'for they it was that forced us by threats to speak.'

'Not one was of the Queen's side?' the Lady Mary said.

'Not one,' Mary Hall answered. 'Gardiner was more fierce against her than he of Canterbury, the Duke of Norfolk than either.'

The Lady Mary said--

'Well! well!'

'Myself I did hear the Duke of Norfolk say, when I was drawn to give evidence, that he begged the King to let him tear my secrets from my heart. For so did he abhor the abominable deeds done by his two nieces, Anne Boleyn and Katharine Howard, that he could no longer desire to live. And he said neither could he live longer without some comfortable a.s.surance of His Highness's royal favour. And so he fell upon me----'

The woman fell to silence. Without, the rain had ceased, and, like heavy curtains trailing near the ground, the clouds began to part and sweep away. A horn sounded, and there went a party of men with pikes across the terrace.

'Well, and what said you?' the Lady Mary said.

'Ask me not,' Mary Lascelles said woefully. She averted her eyes to the floor at her side.

'By G.o.d, but I will know,' the Lady Mary snarled. 'You shall tell me.'

She had that of royal bearing from her sire that the woman was amazed at her words, and, awakening like one in a dream, she rehea.r.s.ed the evidence that had been threated from her.

She had told of the lascivious revels and partings, in the maid's garret at the old d.u.c.h.ess's, when Katharine had been a child there. She had told how Marnock the musicker had called her his mistress, and how Dearham, Katharine's cousin, had beaten him. And how Dearham had given Katharine a half of a silver coin.

'Well, that is all true,' the Lady Mary said. 'How did you perjure yourself?'

'In the matter of the Queen's age,' the woman faltered.

'How that?' the Lady Mary asked.

'The Duke would have me say that she was more than a young child.'

The Lady Mary said, 'Ah! ah! there is the yellow dog!' She thought for a moment.

'And you said?' she asked at last.

'The Duke threated me and threated me. And say I, "Your Grace must know how young she was." And says he, "I would swear that at that date she was no child, but that I do not know how many of these nauseous Howard brats there be. Nor yet the order in which they came. But this I will swear that I think there has been some change of the Queen with a whelp that died in the litter, that she might seem more young. And of a surety she was always learned beyond her a.s.sumed years, so that it was not to be believed."'

Mary Lascelles closed her eyes and appeared about to faint.

'Speak on, dog,' Mary said.

The woman roused herself to say with a solemn piteousness--

'This I swear that before this trial, when my brother pressed me and threated me thus to perjure myself, I abhorred it and spat in his face.

There was none more firm--nor one half so firm as I--against him. But oh, the Duke and the terror--and to be in a ring of so many villainous men....'

'So that you swore that the Queen's Highness, to your knowledge, was older than a child,' the Lady Mary pressed her.

'Ay; they would have me say that it was she that commanded to have these revels....'

She leaned forward with both her hands on the floor, in the att.i.tude of a beast that goes four-footed. She cried out--

'Ask me no more! ask me no more!'

'Tell! tell! Beast!' the Lady Mary said.

'They threated me with torture,' the woman panted. 'I could do no less.

I heard Margot Poins scream.'

'They have tortured her?' the Lady Mary said.

'Ay, and she was in her pains elsewise,' the woman said.

'Did she say aught?' the Lady Mary said.

'No! no!' the woman panted. Her hair had fallen loose in her coif, it depended on to her shoulder.

'Tell on! tell on!' the Lady Mary said.

'They tortured her, and she did not say one word more, but ever in her agony cried out, "Virtuous! virtuous!" till her senses went.'

Mary Hall again raised herself to her knees.

'Let me go, let me go,' she moaned. 'I will not speak before the Queen.

I had been as loyal as Margot Poins.... But I will not speak before the Queen. I love her as well as Margot Poins. But ... I will not----'

She cried out as the Lady Mary struck her, and her face was lamentable with its opened mouth. She scrambled to one knee; she got on both, and ran to the door. But there she cried out--

'My brother!' and fell against the wall. Her eyes were fixed upon the Lady Mary with a baleful despair, she gasped and panted for breath.

'It is upon you if I speak,' she said. 'Merciful G.o.d, do not bid me speak before the Queen!'

She held out her hands as if she had been praying.

'Have I not proved that I loved this Queen?' she said. 'Have I not fled here to warn her? Is it not my life that I risk? Merciful G.o.d! Merciful G.o.d! Bid me not to speak.'

'Speak!' the Lady Mary said.