By What Authority? Part 40

The room was full of suns.h.i.+ne that poured in through two tall windows opposite, upon a motionless figure that sat in a high carved chair by the table, and watched the door. This figure dominated the whole room: the lad as he dropped on his knees, was conscious of eyes watching him from behind the chair, of tapestried walls, and a lute that lay on the table, but all those things were but trifling accessories to that scarlet central figure with a burnished halo of auburn hair round a shadowed face.

There was complete silence for a moment or two; a hound bayed in the court outside, and there came a far-away bang of a door somewhere in the palace. There was a rustle of silk that set every nerve of his body thrilling, and then a clear hard penetrating voice spoke two words.

"Well, sir?"

Anthony drew a breath, and swallowed in his throat.

"Your Grace," he said, and lifted his eyes for a moment, and dropped them again. But in the glimpse every detail stamped itself clear on his imagination. There she sat in vivid scarlet and cloth of gold, radiating light; with high puffed sleeves; an immense ruff fringed with lace. The narrow eyes were fixed on him, and as he now waited again, he knew that they were running up and down his figure, his dark splashed hose and his tumbled doublet and ruff.

"You come strangely dressed."

Anthony drew a quick breath again.

"My heart is sick," he said.

There was another slight movement.

"Well, sir," the voice said again, "you have not told us why you are here."

"For justice from my queen," he said, and stopped. "And for mercy from a woman," he added, scarcely knowing what he said.

Again Elizabeth stirred in her chair.

"You taught him that, you wicked girl," she said.

"No, madam," came Mary's voice from behind, subdued and entreating, "it is his heart that speaks."

"Enough, sir," said Elizabeth; "now tell us plainly what you want of us."

Then Anthony thought it time to be bold. He made a great effort, and the sense of constraint relaxed a little.

"I have been, your Grace, to Sir Francis Walsingham, and my lord Bishop of London, and I can get neither justice nor mercy from either; and so I come to your Grace, who are their mistress, to teach them manners."

"Stay," said Elizabeth, "that is insolence to my ministers."

"So my lord said," answered Anthony frankly, looking into that hard clear face that was beginning to be lined with age. And he saw that Elizabeth smiled, and that the face behind the chair nodded at him encouragingly.

"Well, insolence, go on."

"It is on behalf of one who has been p.r.o.nounced a felon and a traitor by your Grace's laws, that I am pleading; but one who is a very gallant Christian gentleman as well."

"Your friend lacks not courage," interrupted Elizabeth to Mary.

"No, your Grace," said the other, "that has never been considered his failing."

Anthony waited, and then the voice spoke again harshly.

"Go on with the tale, sir. I cannot be here all day."

"He is a popish priest, your Majesty; and he was taken at ma.s.s in his vestments, and is now in the Tower; and he hath been questioned on the rack. And, madam, it is piteous to think of it. He is but a young man still, but pa.s.sing strong and tall."

"What has this to do with me, sir?" interrupted the Queen harshly. "I cannot pardon every proper young priest in the kingdom. What else is there to be said for him?"

"He was taken through the foul treachery of a spy, who imposed upon me, his friend, and caused me all unknowing to say the very words that brought him into the net."

And then, more and more, Anthony began to lose his self-consciousness, and poured out the story from the beginning; telling how he had been brought up in the same village with James Maxwell; and what a loyal gentleman he was; and then the story of the trick by which he had been deceived. As he spoke his whole appearance seemed to change; instead of the shy and rather clumsy manner with which he had begun, he was now natural and free; he moved his hands in slight gestures; his blue eyes looked the Queen fairly in the face; he moved a little forward on his knees as he pleaded, and he spoke with a pa.s.sion that astonished both Mary and himself afterwards when he thought of it, in spite of his short and broken sentences. He was conscious all the while of an intense external strain and pressure, as if he were pleading for his life, and the time was short. Elizabeth relaxed her rigid att.i.tude, and leaned her chin on her hand and her elbow on the table and watched him, her thin lips parted, the pearl rope and crown on her head, and the pearl pendants in her ears moving slightly as she nodded at points in his story.

"Ah! your Grace," he cried, lifting his open hands towards her a little, "you have a woman's heart; all your people say so. You cannot allow this man to be so trapped to his death! Treachery never helped a cause yet. If your men cannot catch these priests fairly, then a-G.o.d's name, let them not catch them at all! But to use a friend, and make a Judas of him; to make the very lips that have spoken friendly, speak traitorously; to bait the trap like that--it is devilish. Let him go, let him go, madam! One priest more or less cannot overthrow the realm; but one more foul crime done in the name of justice can bring G.o.d's wrath down on the nation. I hold that a trick like that is far worse than all the disobedience in the world; nay--how can we cry out against the Jesuits and the plotters, if we do worse ourselves? Madam, madam, let him go! Oh! I know I cannot speak as well in this good cause, as some can in a bad cause, but let the cause speak for itself. I cannot speak, I know."

"Nay, nay," said Elizabeth softly, "you wrong yourself. You have an honest face, sir; and that is the best recommendation to me.

"And so, Minnie," she went on, turning to Mary, "this was your pet.i.tion, was it; and this your advocate? Well, you have not chosen badly. Now, you speak yourself."

Mary stood a moment silent, and then with a swift movement came round the arm of the Queen's chair, and threw herself on her knees, with her hands upon the Queen's left hand as it lay upon the carved boss, and her voice was as Anthony had never yet heard it, vibrant and full of tears.

"Oh! madam, madam; this poor lad cannot speak, as he says; and yet his sad honest face, as your Grace said, is more eloquent than all words. And think of the silence of the little cell upstairs in the Tower; where a gallant gentleman lies, all rent and torn with the rack; and,--and how he listens for the footsteps outside of the tormentors who come to drag him down again, all aching and heavy with pain, down to that fierce engine in the dark. And think of his gallant heart, your Grace, how brave it is; and how he will not yield nor let one name escape him. Ah! not because he loves not your Grace nor desires to serve you; but because he serves your Grace best by serving and loving his G.o.d first of all.--And think how he cannot help a sob now and again; and whispers the name of his Saviour, as the pulleys begin to wrench and twist.--And,--and,--do not forget his mother, your Grace, down in the country; how she sits and listens and prays for her dear son; and cannot sleep, and dreams of him when at last she sleeps, and wakes screaming and crying at the thought of the boy she bore and nursed in the hands of those harsh devils. And--and, you can stop it all, your Grace, with one little word; and make that mother's heart bless your name and pray for you night and morning till she dies;--and let that gallant son go free, and save his racked body before it be torn asunder;--and you can make this honest lad's heart happy again with the thought that he has saved his friend instead of slaying him.

Look you, madam, he has come confessing his fault; saying bravely to your Grace that he did try to do his friend a service in spite of the laws, for that he held love to be the highest law. Ah! how many happy souls you can make with a word; because you are a Queen.--What is it to be a Queen!--to be able to do all that!--Oh! madam, be pitiful then, and show mercy as one day you hope to find it."

Mary spoke with an intense feeling; her voice was one long straining sob of appeal; and as she ended her tears were beginning to rain down on the hand she held between her own; she lifted it to her streaming face and kissed it again and again; and then dropped her forehead upon it, and so rested in dead silence.

Elizabeth swallowed in her throat once or twice; and then spoke, and her voice was a little choked.

"Well, well, you silly girl.--You plead too well."

Anthony irresistibly threw his hands out as he knelt.

"Oh! G.o.d bless your Grace!" he said; and then gave a sob or two himself.

"There, there, you are a pair of children," she said; for Mary was kissing her hand again and again. "And you are a pretty pair, too," she added. "Now, now, that is enough, stand up."

Anthony rose to his feet again and stood there; and Mary went round again behind the chair.

"Now, now, you have put me in a sore strait," said Elizabeth; "between you I scarcely know how to keep my word. They call me fickle enough already. But Frank Walsingham shall do it for me. He is certainly at the back of it all, and he shall manage it. It shall be done at once. Call a page, Minnie."

Mary Corbet went to the back of the room into the shadow, opened a door that Anthony had not noticed, and beckoned sharply; in a moment or two a page was bowing before Elizabeth.

"Is Sir Francis Walsingham in the palace?" she asked,--"then bring him here," she ended, as the boy bowed again.

"And you too," she went on, "shall hear that I keep my word,"--she pointed towards the door whence the page had come.--"Stand there," she said, "and leave the door ajar."

Mary gave Anthony her hand and a radiant smile as they went together.

"Aha!" said Elizabeth, "not in my presence."

Anthony flushed with fury in spite of his joy.