The Tangled Skein Part 40

Not a queen now, not a proud and wilful Tudor, pa.s.sionate, cruel, or capricious, but only a middle-aged, broken-hearted woman, with eyes swollen with weeping, and brain heavy with eternally reiterated desires.

To save him! to save him!

But how?

That he had committed so foul a crime as to stab an enemy in the back, this in the very face of his own confession Mary still obstinately refused to believe. The rumours anent the presence of a woman in that part of the Palace and at that fatal hour had of course reached her ears. Jealousy and hatred, which had raged within her, had readily fastened on Ursula Glynde as the cause, if not the actual perpetrator of the dastardly crime.

That a woman was somehow or other connected with the terrible events of that night, every one was of course ready to admit, but in what manner no one was able to conjecture.

A murder had been committed. Of that there could be no doubt. Don Miguel de Suarez had been stabbed in the back! Not in fair fight, but brutally, callously stabbed! and he a guest at the English Court!

Of this barbarous, abominable act the Duke of Wess.e.x stood self-convicted.

Impossible, of course! Preposterous! p.r.o.nounced his friends. He! the first gentleman in England, brave to a fault, fastidious, artistic, and a perfect swordsman to boot! The very accusation was ridiculous.

Yet he stood self-convicted.

Why? in the name of Heaven! Why?

"To shield a woman," said His Grace's friends.

"What woman?" retorted his enemies.

The name of Lady Ursula Glynde had been faintly whispered, yet it seemed almost as preposterous to suppose that a beautiful young girl--refined, gentle, poetic, scarce out of her teens--would have the physical strength to commit so foul a deed, as to think of His Grace in connection with it.

Yet, in spite of that, the idea had gained ground, that the Lady Ursula Glynde could, an she would, throw some light on the mystery which surrounded the events of that terrible night, and no one brooded over that idea more determinedly than did Mary Tudor.

The young girl had of course denied all knowledge of what had or had not occurred. There was not a single definite fact that might even remotely connect her with the supposed enmity between Wess.e.x and Don Miguel.

The Cardinal was not likely to speak, for the present turn of events suited his own plans to perfection.

My lord of Everingham was away in Scotland, and news travelled slowly these days. As for the Queen, she had nothing on which to found her suspicions, save her own hatred of the girl and the firm conviction that on that same night, an hour or two before the murder, Ursula and Wess.e.x had met. She had then seen and upbraided the girl in the presence of my lord Cardinal and the ladies; His Grace was not there then, but what happened immediately afterwards?

Had she but dared, Mary Tudor would have submitted her rival to mental and bodily torture, until she had extracted a confession from her. All she could do was to confine her to her own room in the Palace; she would not lose sight of her, although the young girl had begged for permission to quit the Court and retire to a convent, for the silence and peace of which she felt an unutterable longing.

The Duke's trial by his peers was fixed for the morrow.

It was but a fortnight since that fateful evening. His Grace had been in the Tower since then, and by virtue of his high influence and of his exceptional position had demanded and readily obtained a speedy trial.

Twenty-four hours in which a queen might perchance still save the man she loved from a shameful and ignominious death. And she had thought and schemed and suffered during fourteen days, as perhaps no other woman had ever thought and suffered before. She was queen, yet felt herself powerless to accomplish the one desire of her life, which she would have bartered her kingdom to obtain: the life of the man she loved.

But to-day she had pluckily dried her tears. The whole morning she had spent at her toilette, carefully selecting--with an agitation which would have been ridiculous, considering her age and appearance, had it not been so intensely pathetic--the raiment which she thought would become her most. She had a burning desire to appear attractive.

Earnestly she studied the lines of her face, covered incipient wrinkles and faded cheeks with cosmetics, spent nigh on an hour in the arrangement of her coif. Then she repaired to a small room, which was hung with tapestry of a dull red, and into which the fading afternoon light would only peep very gently and discreetly.

Since then she had paced that narrow room incessantly and impatiently.

Every few moments she rang a handbell, and to the stolid page or servitor in attendance she repeated the same anxious query--

"Is the guard in sight yet?"

"Not yet, Your Majesty," reiterated the page for the tenth time that day.

It was nigh on three o'clock in the afternoon when the d.u.c.h.ess of Lincoln at last came with the welcome news.

"The captain of the guard desires to report to Your Majesty that the Tower Guard, with His Grace the Duke of Wess.e.x, are at the gates of the Palace."

Mary, with her usual characteristic gesture, pressed her hand to her heart, unable to speak with the sudden emotion which had sent the blood throbbing in her veins. The kind old d.u.c.h.ess, her wrinkled face expressive of the deepest sorrow and the most respectful sympathy, waited patiently until the Queen had recovered herself.

"'Tis well," said Mary, after a while. "I pray you. d.u.c.h.ess, to see that His Grace is introduced in here at once."

When she was alone she fell upon her knees, a great sob shook her delicate frame. She took her rosary from her girdle and with pa.s.sionate fervour kissed the jewelled beads.

"Holy Mary, Mother of G.o.d!" she murmured amidst her tears, "make him listen to me! . . . pray for me . . . intercede for me, Queen of Heaven, mystic rose, tower of ivory, holy virgin, our mother . . . pray for me now . . . I would save him, and I would make him King. . . . Queen of Heaven, aid me . . . Mother of G.o.d, make him to love me . . . make him . . . to love me! . . ."

After that she rose, and carefully wiped her tears. She cast a glance at a small mirror which stood on the table, smoothed her hair and coif and forced her lips to smile.

The next moment there was a knock at the door, a clash of arms, the sound of voices, and two minutes later His Grace of Wess.e.x was in the presence of the Queen.

She held out her hand to him and he stooped to kiss it. This gave her time to recover outward composure. Her fond heart ached at sight of him, for he seemed so altered. All the gaiety, the joy of life, that buoyancy of youth and ever-ready laughter which had always been his own peculiar charm, had completely gone from him: he looked older too, she thought, whilst his step even had lost its elasticity.

Mary motioned him to a seat close beside her. She herself had wisely chosen so to place her chair that the light from the window, whilst falling full on him, left her own figure in shadow.

"I trust, my lord," she began with a trembling voice, "that my guard at the Tower are showing you all the deference and doing you all the honour which I have commanded, and that your every comfort in that abode of evil hath been well looked to?"

"Your Majesty is ever gracious," replied Wess.e.x, "far more than I deserve. The kindness shown me by every one at the Tower hath been a source of the deepest happiness to me."

"Nay! if I could . . ." began Mary impulsively.

Then she checked herself, determined not to let emotion get the better of her, ere she had told him all that she wished to say.

"My lord of Wess.e.x," she resumed more firmly, "will you try to think that you are before a sincere and devoted friend; not before your Queen, but beside a woman who hath naught so much at heart as . . . your happiness? . . . Will you try?"

"The effort will not be great," he replied with a smile. "Your Majesty's kindness hath oft shamed me ere this."

"Then, if you value my friendship, my lord," rejoined Mary vehemently, "give me some a.s.surance that to-morrow, before your judges and your peers, you will refute this odious charge which is brought against you."

"I crave Your Majesty's most humble pardon," said Wess.e.x. "I have made confession of the crime imputed to me and can refute nothing."

"Nay, my lord, this is madness. You, the most gallant gentleman in England, you, to have done a deed so foul as would shame the lowest churl! Bah!" she added, with a bitter laugh, "'twere a grim farce, if it were not so terrible a tragedy!"

"Nay! not a tragedy, Your Majesty. Better men than I have made a failure of their lives. So I pray you, think no more of me."

"Think no more of you, dear lord," said Mary, with an infinity of reproach in her voice. "Ah me, I think of naught else since that awful night when they came and told me that you . . ."

There was a catch in her throat and perforce she had to pause. Oh! the irony of fate! The bitter satire of that wanton G.o.d, called Love!

Wess.e.x looked at this proud Tudor Queen with a deep reverence, in which there was almost a thought of pity. This lonely, middle-aged woman, pa.s.sionate, self-willed, who loved him with all the tenderness of pent-up motherhood! yet, try how he might! he could only respond to her true affection with cold respect and deep but unimpa.s.sioned grat.i.tude!

Yet was not her worth ten thousandfold more great than that of the wanton, whose image still filled his heart?