The Tangled Skein Part 44

"Did I not say that I would attempt the impossible?" said the Cardinal, unperturbed.

"The impossible indeed, an you wish to appeal to that wench," retorted Mary drily.

"Have I Your Majesty's permission to speak to the lady?" persisted the Cardinal blandly.

Mary shrugged her shoulders impatiently. She was terribly disappointed.

All her hopes had been built on the clever machinations of this man, on some tortuous means which his brain would surely evolve if she held out a sufficiently tempting bait to him. She had half endowed him with supernatural powers . . . and now . . . an empty scheme to make an appeal to that heartless coward, who might save Wess.e.x, yet refused to do it!

But the Cardinal was smiling: he looked a rare picture of benevolence and dignity, with those white hands of his which seemed ever ready for a caress. He looked triumphant too, his eyes were eagerly fixed upon her as if her consent to the useless interview was of great and supreme moment. To her the appeal to Ursula did not even seem to be a last straw, but something far more ephemeral, intangible, a breath from some mocking demon. Yet the Cardinal looked so satisfied. She shrugged her shoulders again, as if dismissing all hope, all responsibility, all interest, but she said nevertheless--

"When does Your Eminence desire to see her?"

"To-morrow in the Lord Chancellor's Court," he replied, "half an hour before the arrival of the Lord High Steward. Can that be done?"

"It shall be, since Your Eminence wishes it."

"And to-night I will announce the joyful news by special messenger to the King of Spain," he added significantly.

"Is Your Eminence so sure of success then?"

"As sure as I am of the fact that the Queen of England is the most gracious lady in Europe," he replied, with all the courtly grace which he knew so well how to a.s.sume. "I pray you then to trust in G.o.d," he concluded earnestly, "and in the devotion of Your Majesty's humble servant."

He took his leave ceremoniously, with pompous dignity, as was his wont.

She did not care to prolong the interview, and nodded listlessly when he prepared to go. She felt more than ever hopeless and angered with herself for having clinched a bargain with that man.

But His Eminence the Cardinal de Moreno left the presence of the Queen of England with a smile of satisfaction and a sigh of antic.i.p.ated triumph.

It was not an appeal which he meant to address to the Lady Ursula Glynde.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

IN THE LORD CHANCELLOR'S COURT

The great Hall at Westminster was already thronged with people at an early hour of the morning, and the servants of the Knight Marshal and the Lord Warden of the Fleet had much ado to keep the crowd back with their tipstaves.

All London was taking a holiday to-day: an enforced holiday as far as the workers and merchants were concerned, for there surely would be no business doing in the City when such great goings-on were occurring at Westminster.

The trial of His Grace the Duke of Wess.e.x on a charge of murder! A trial which, seeing that the accused had confessed to the crime, could but end in a sentence of death.

It is not every day that it is given to humbler folk to see so proud a gentleman arraigned as any common vagabond might be, and to note how a great n.o.bleman may look when threatened with the hangman's rope.

Is there aught in the world half so cruel as a crowd?

And His Grace had been very popular: always looked upon, even by the meanest in the land, as the most perfect embodiment of English pride and English grandeur, he had always had withal that certain graciousness of manner which the populace will love, and which disarms envy.

But with the exception of his own friends, people of his own rank and station, who knew him and his character intimately, the people at large never for a moment questioned his guilt.

He had confessed! surely that was enough! The loutish brains of the lower proletariat did not care to go beyond that obvious self-evident fact. The meaner the nature of a man, the more ready is he to acknowledge evil, he seeks it out, recognizes it under every garb. Who, among the majority of people, cared to seek for sublime self-sacrifice in an ordinary confession of crime?

The wiseacres and learned men, the more wealthy burgesses, and people of more consideration, were content with a few philosophical reflections anent the instability of human nature and the evil influences of Court life and of great wealth.

No one cared about the man! it was the pageant they all liked. What thought had the mob of the agonizing rack to which a proud soul would necessarily be subjected during the course of a wearisome and elaborate trial? They only wanted to see a show, the robes of the judges, the a.s.sembly of peers, and that one central figure, the first gentleman in England, once almost a king--now a felon!

A fine sight, my masters! His Grace of Wess.e.x in a criminal dock!

Places in the Hall were at a premium. The 'prentices were well to the fore as usual; like so many eel-like creatures, they had slipped into the front rank as soon as the great doors had been opened. Some few waifs and vagrants--acute and greedy of gain--were making good trade with small wooden benches, which they sold at threepence the piece to those who desired a better view.

The women were all wearing becoming gowns, sombre of hue as befitted the occasion. His Grace of Wess.e.x was noted for his avowed admiration for the beautiful s.e.x. They had all brought large white kerchiefs, for they antic.i.p.ated some exquisite emotions. His Grace was so handsome! there was sure to be an occasion for tears.

But only as a pleasurable sentiment! Like one feels at the play, where the actor expresses feelings, yet is himself cold and unimpa.s.sioned.

What His Grace himself would feel was never considered. The crowd had come to see, some had paid threepence for a clearer sight of the accused, and all meant to enjoy themselves this day.

Proud Wess.e.x! thou hast sunk to this, a spectacle for a common holiday!

Thy face will be scanned lest one twitch escape! thy shoulders if they stoop, thy neck if it bend! A thousand eyes will be fixed upon thee in curiosity, in derision--perchance in pity!

Ye G.o.ds, what a fall!

The Lord High Steward of England was expected to arrive at ten o'clock.

In the centre of the great court a large scaffold had been erected, not far from the Lord Chancellor's Court. In the middle of this there was placed a chair higher than the rest and covered with a cloth, which bore the royal arms embroidered at the four corners.

This was for my Lord High Steward.

Each side of him were the seats for the peers who were to be the triers.

Great names were whispered, as the servants of the Knight Marshal arranged these in their respective places. There was the chair for the Earl of Kent, and my lord of Suss.e.x, the Earl of Hertford, and Lord Saint John of Basing, and a score of others, for there were twenty-four triers in all.

On a lower form were the seats for the judges, and in a hollow place cut in the scaffold itself, and immediately at the feet of my Lord High Steward, the Clerk of the Crown would sit with his secondary.

And facing the judges and the peers was the bar, where presently the exalted prisoner would stand.

No one was here yet of the greater personages, the servants were still busy putting everything to right, but some gentlemen of the Queen's household had already arrived, and several n.o.ble lords who would be mere spectators. His Grace's friends could easily be distinguished by the sombreness of their garb and the air of grief upon their faces. Mr.

Thomas Norton, the Queen's printer, was sorting his papers and cutting his pens, and two gentlemen ushers were receiving final instructions from Garter King-at-Arms.

There was indeed plenty for the idlers to see. Great ropes had been drawn across the further portions of the Hall, leaving a wide pa.s.sage from the main entrance right down the centre and up to the Lord High Steward's seat. Behind these ropes the crowd was forcibly kept back. And the gossip and the noise went on apace. Laughter too and merry jests, for this was a holiday, my masters, presently to be brought to a close--after the death sentence had been pa.s.sed and every one dispersed--with lively jousts and copious sacks of ale.

But of all this excitement and bustle not a sound penetrated within the precincts of the Lord Chancellor's Court, where His Eminence the Cardinal de Moreno sat patiently waiting.

Desirous above all things of escaping observation, he had driven over from Hampton Court in the early dawn, and wrapped in a flowing black cloak, which effectually hid his purple robes, he had slipped into the Hall and thence into the Inner Court, even before the crowd had begun to collect. Since then he had sat here quietly buried in thoughts, calmly looking forward to the interview, which was destined finally to unravel the tangled skein of his own diplomacy. Once more the destinies of Europe were hanging on a thread: a girl's love for a man.

Well! so be it! His Eminence loved these palpitating situations, these hairbreadth escapes from perilous positions which were the wine and salt of his existence. He was ready to stake his whole future career upon a woman's love! He, who had scoffed all his life at sentimental pa.s.sions, who had used every emotion of the human heart, aye! and its every suffering, merely as so many a.s.sets in the account of his far-reaching policy, he now saw his whole future depending on the strength of a girl's feelings.

That she would certainly come, he never for a moment held in doubt. In these days the commands of a sovereign were akin to the dictates of G.o.d; to disobey was a matter of treason. Aye! she would come, sure enough!

not only because of her allegiance to the Queen, but because of her intense, vital interest in the great trial of the day.

So His Eminence waited patiently in the Lord Chancellor's Court, which gave straight into the great Hall itself, until the appointed time.