Читать книгу A Queen of Nine Days - Margaret Wright Brown - Страница 7

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I slept soundly that first night of my stay at Woodleigh Castle, being altogether worn out and in the utmost need of Nature's kind restorer, and it was very late on the following day when I awoke to find Betsy at my side with hot broth and bread and sundry other articles of food.

'Mistress,' said my woman, 'you must eat and drink, for there are great happenings here, and you will need your strength, aye and your wits about you, too. Timothy says he does not like you to be alone amongst strange leaders of whom your father may not approve, and he hopes that you will not be led to feelings which will unfit you for being the companion of the high and noble lady to whom your father is sending you, though indeed I think he might have come with you himself if he had known how dangerous it was.'

I could not help smiling at Betsy's speech, as I sat up to take the refreshment she brought me. The first part of her speech was laboured and unnatural, as if she were the unwilling mouthpiece of poor old Timothy, but the last bit was certainly her own, for it bore Betsy stamped all over it.

'Yes, mistress, you can smile now that the danger is over,' said my maid, much aggrieved, 'but I can tell you we have had a narrow escape, a very narrow escape indeed. The people here say that we might have been all killed, as likely as not, by the highwaymen whom Sir Claudius consorts with and leads. They say that he got knighted by mistake, and that he is to be unknighted again—the knowledge of which makes him desperate. And they say, too, which indeed our men and I think also, that you brought all our misfortunes upon us, mistress, by interposing to save those witches, which was directly interfering with Providence that was about to send them back to where they came from.'

'I never did think you were wise, Betsy,' said I, 'but now I know you are most foolish. And I will not listen to you any more.' And with that I turned my back upon her, and took my food looking the other way, with the vague feeling that I would not cast the pearls of my wiser thoughts before the swine of Betsy's foolishness.

Betsy, however, was not to be suppressed. She went on talking as she looked over my dress, repairing it in places where it had been torn and making it ready for me to put on. And, by-and-by I heard her say words which caused me to turn round and ask, 'What is that? What did the men say Sir Claudius cried as he rode off?'

'He vowed,' she cried, 'he vowed that he would have you yet. Aye, he said that he would never rest until he had won you for his own, that he might vanquish your proud and haughty spirit!'

I was rather frightened, but endeavoured not to show it.

''Tis a little cock,' I said, 'that crows the loudest.'

Then Betsy approached the bed, and fell down on her knees before me.

'Mistress,' she said imploringly, 'promise me that you will not interfere with witches and such like again. It is that which gives the Evil One power over you, and makes you take rank with his creatures——'

'Fie upon you, Betsy!' I exclaimed indignantly. 'I know what you are thinking. In your naughty thoughts you are limiting the power of our Heavenly Father to take care of me His child, and you are believing that Satan is as mighty, or mightier than He.' Then, as she was silent, I went on, 'Don't you remember that Master Montgomery used to say, "There are no people common or unclean now, since the Gentiles are called to salvation, and our Heavenly Father cares for us all with the utmost tenderness." You know, Betsy, even those poor old women you despised were His dear children. And Master Montgomery said, too, which indeed we know well, that, strong though Satan may be, there is One who is stronger than he.'

Betsy was silenced then. She arose, wiped her eyes and turned meekly away to her work, and I saw it was better to instruct and teach her right notions than to be so contemptuous as at first I was in heart, and told myself I must remember that Master Montgomery said, 'A Christian should always be gentle and "apt to teach."'

Scarcely had I settled that in my mind, when the door opened to admit Lady Caroline Wood, who approached me with great kindness, asking how I had slept and if I were recovered from my fatigue.

When I had answered that my night's sleep was good and my health as well as usual, she asked if my woman might withdraw as she wished to converse with me in private.

'Certainly,' I replied, a little wonderingly, and then I bade Betsy leave the room; and Lady Caroline, who was not much older than myself—though by wearing a large head-dress and elaborate garments she looked so—sat down on the edge of my bed, and talked long with me.

'I have heard,' she began—'Sir Hubert has told us—what a brave girl you were yesterday in withstanding alone, with your few servants, the cruelties a crowd of men and boys were practising on two old women. It was noble of you, Mistress Margaret, and I honour you for it with all my heart.'

Thereupon she took up my right hand and pressed it for a moment to her lips.

'You are a heroine,' she said, 'and I admire and love you.'

'Indeed it was nothing,' I rejoined; 'moreover I was powerless to avert their cruel death,' and the tears rose to my eyes as I thought of what those poor old women endured.

But Lady Caroline, stooping over me, kissed my tears away.

'You did your best,' she said, 'and may well trust that the good God would receive them through that painful—if haply short—gate into His glorious kingdom.'

She was silent for a moment or two, and my heart warmed to her, for I recognized that she loved Him whom I served, and thought not small things of Him, but the very best.

Then she began again—

'They were taken away from the evil, and your precious life was saved for further and it may be greater work. You are going, I hear, to attend the noble lady who has married Guildford Dudley, the Duke of Northumberland's fourth son?'

'Yes,' replied I, 'Lady Jane Grey, to call her by her maiden name. Do you know aught about her, Lady Caroline?' and there was some anxiety in my tone, for indeed it mattered much to me what sort of a lady that was to whom I was making so long and hazardous a journey.

'Indeed I do. She is a very, very great lady. Some think she will even become queen when our King Edward dies.'

'Queen!' exclaimed I, 'but the king has sisters. Princess Mary will be our sovereign after him.'

Lady Caroline sighed deeply.

'That would be very sad for England were it to happen,' she said. 'Princess Mary is a Papist, you know, and if she became queen she would plunge the kingdom into papistry and persecutions, so that rivers of blood would flow——'

'And the good curates, and Master Montgomery,' I asked, 'what would become of them?' For my thoughts had flown to the limited circle in which I had been brought up and the good old man from whose teachings I was fresh.

'They would be martyred—perchance he would be burned at the stake,' said Lady Caroline.

'No, no,' I cried. 'God would not allow it.'

'God often works by means of man,' the lady answered solemnly, 'and it may be in the power of the more enlightened of the people of England to prevent those calamities from happening.'

'May it? But how?' I asked, my eyes opening wide with wonder. 'What power in the world can prevent Princess Mary from becoming queen upon the death of our young king?'

'Some of the wisest of our nobility, and our poor sick king himself, have thought upon a way,' replied Lady Caroline, adding, 'Mistress Brown, it may be in your power to help to bring it about.'

'How? How?' I cried. 'Explain. Explain.'

Then Lady Caroline explained. She said that to save the country from horrors innumerable, which would fall upon it in the event of a Papist succeeding to the throne, it was deemed expedient that the king should be induced to make a will, or sign letters patent, to appoint that after his death the crown should be placed upon the head of his young relative, Lady Jane Grey, in which case the Princesses Mary and Elizabeth would be pronounced illegitimate and would therefore be passed over.

I did not know what to say to that. It did not seem to me to be quite right, and yet Lady Caroline said it in such a manner as showed that she was completely convinced it was so.

'The king is very ill now,' she continued, after a slight pause, 'and the Duke of Northumberland is with him.'

'Is the duke one of those who favour Lady Jane Grey's being made queen?' I asked.

'Yes. And I will tell you why. He sees so clearly what devastation and woe will come upon this kingdom if a Papist is again upon the throne; and on the other hand how blessed and prosperous it will become under good Protestant governance.'