When Knighthood Was in Flower Part 23

"How can that be?" asked Mary, in comical tribulation; "is not this a man's doublet and hose, and this hat--is it not a man's hat? They are all for a man; then why do I not look like one, I ask? Tell me what is wrong. Oh! I thought I looked just like a man; I thought the disguise was perfect."

"Well," returned Brandon, "if you will permit me to say so, you are entirely too symmetrical and shapely ever to pa.s.s for a man."

The flaming color was in her cheeks, as Brandon went on: "Your feet are too small, even for a boy's feet. I don't think you could be made to look like a man if you worked from now till doomsday."

Brandon spoke in a troubled tone, for he was beginning to see in Mary's perfect and irrepressible womanhood an insurmountable difficulty right across his path.

"As to your feet, you might find larger shoes, or, better still, jack-boots; and, as to your hose, you might wear longer trunks, but what to do about the doublet I am sure I do not know."

Mary looked up helpless and forlorn, and the hot face went into her bended elbow as a realization of the situation seemed to dawn upon her.

"Oh! I wish I had not come. But I wanted to grow accustomed so that I could wear them before others. I believe I could bear it more easily with any one else. I did not think of it in that way," and she s.n.a.t.c.hed her cloak from where it had fallen on the floor and threw it around her.

"What way, Mary?" asked Brandon gently, and receiving no answer. "But you will have to bear my looking at you all the time if you go with me."

"I don't believe I can do it."

"No, no," answered he, bravely attempting cheerfulness; "we may as well give it up. I have had no hope from the first. I knew it could not be done, and it should not. I was both insane and criminal to think of permitting you to try it."

Brandon's forced cheerfulness died out with his words, and he sank into a chair with his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands.

Mary ran to him at once. There had been a little moment of faltering, but there was no real surrender in her.

Dropping on her knee beside him, she said coaxingly: "Don't give up; you are a man; you must not surrender, and let me, a girl, prove the stronger. Shame upon you when I look up to you so much and expect you to help me be brave. I will go. I will arrange myself in some way. Oh!

why am I not different; I wish I were as straight as the queen," and for that first time in her life she bewailed her beauty, because it stood between her and Brandon.

She soon coaxed him out of his despondency, and we began again to plan the matter in detail.

The girls sat on Brandon's cloak and he and I on the camp-stool and a box.

Mary's time was well occupied in vain attempts to keep herself covered with the cloak, which seemed to have a right good will toward Brandon and me, but she kept track of our plans, which, in brief, were as follows: As to her costume, we would subst.i.tute long trunks and jack-boots for shoes and hose, and as to doublet, Mary laughed and blus.h.i.+ngly said she had a plan which she would secretly impart to Jane, but would not tell us. She whispered it to Jane, who, as serious as the Lord Chancellor, gave judgment, and "thought it would do." We hoped so, but were full of doubts.

This is all tame enough to write and read about, but I can tell you it was sufficiently exciting at the time. Three of us at least were playing with that comical old fellow, Death, and he gave the game interest and point to our hearts' content.

Through the thick time-layers of all these years, I can still see the group as we sat there, haloed by a hazy cloud of tear-mist. The figures rise before my eyes, so young and fair and rich in life and yet so pathetic in their troubled earnestness that a great flood of pity wells up in my heart for the poor young souls, so danger-bound and suffering, and withal so daring and so recklessly confident in the might and right of love, and the omnipotence of youth. Ah! If G.o.d had seen fit in his infinite wisdom to save just one treasure from the wreck of Eden, what a race of thankful hearts this earth would bear, had he saved us youth alone therewith to compensate us for every other ill.

As to the elopement, it was determined that Brandon should leave London the following day for Bristol, and make all arrangements along the line. He would carry with him two bundles, his own and Mary's clothing, and leave them to be taken up when they should go a-s.h.i.+pboard. Eight horses would be procured; four to be left as a relay at an inn between Berkeley Castle and Bristol, and four to be kept at the rendezvous some two leagues the other side of Berkeley for the use of Brandon, Mary and the two men from Bristol who were to act as an escort on the eventful night. There was one disagreeable little feature that we could not provide against nor entirely eliminate. It was the fact that Jane and I should be suspected as accomplices before the fact of Mary's elopement; and, as you know, to a.s.sist in the abduction of a princess is treason--for which there is but one remedy.

I thought I had a plan to keep ourselves safe if I could only stifle for the once Jane's troublesome and vigorous tendency to preach the truth to all people, upon all subjects and at all times and places.

She promised to tell the story I would drill into her, but I knew the truth would seep out in a thousand ways. She could no more hold it than a sieve can hold water. We were playing for great stakes, which, if I do say it, none but the bravest hearts, bold and daring as the truest knights of chivalry, would think of trying for. Nothing less than the running away with the first princess of the first blood royal of the world. Think of it! It appalls me even now. Discovery meant death to one of us surely--Brandon; possibly to two others--Jane and me; certainly, if Jane's truthfulness should become unmanageable, as it was so apt to do.

After we had settled everything we could think of, the girls took their leave; Mary slyly kissing Brandon at the door. I tried to induce Jane to follow her lady's example, but she was as cool and distant as the new moon.

I saw Jane again that night and told her in plain terms what I thought of her treatment of me. I told her it was selfish and unkind to take advantage of my love for her and treat me so cruelly. I told her that if she had one drop of generous blood she would tell me of her love, if she had any, or let me know it in some way; and if she cared nothing for me she was equally bound to be honest and tell me plainly, so that I should not waste my time and energy in a hopeless cause. I thought it rather clever in me to force her into a position where her refusal to tell me that she did not care for me would drive her to a half avowal. Of course, I had little fear of the former, or perhaps I should not have been so anxious to precipitate the issue.

She did not answer me directly, but said: "From the way you looked at Mary to-day, I was led to think you cared little for any other girl's opinion."

"Ah! Mistress Jane!" cried I joyfully; "I have you at last; you are jealous."

"I give you to understand, sir, that your vanity has led you into a great mistake."

"As to your caring for me, or your jealousy? Which?" I asked seriously. Adroit, wasn't that?

"As to the jealousy, Edwin. There, now; I think that is saying a good deal. Too much," she said pleadingly; but I got something more before she left, even if it was against her will; something that made it almost impossible for me to hold my feet to the ground.

Jane pouted, gave me a sharp little slap and then ran away, but at the door she turned and threw back a rare smile that was priceless to me; for it told me she was not angry; and furthermore shed an illuminating ray upon a fact which I was blind not to have seen long before; that is, that Jane was one of those girls who must be captured _vi et armis_.

Some women cannot be captured at all; they must give themselves; of this cla.s.s pre-eminently was Mary. Others again will meet you half way and kindly lend a helping hand; while some, like Jane, are always on the run, and are captured only by pursuit. They are usually well worth the trouble though, and make docile captives. After that smile from the door I felt that Jane was mine; all I had to do was to keep off outside enemies, charge upon her defenses when the times were ripe and accept nothing short of her own sweet self as ransom.

The next day Brandon paid his respects to the king and queen, made his adieus to his friends and rode off alone to Bristol. You may be sure the king showed no signs of undue grief at his departure.

_CHAPTER XVI_

_A Hawking Party_

A few days after Brandon's departure, Mary, with the king's consent, organized a small party to go over to Windsor for a few weeks during the warm weather.

There were ten or twelve of us, including two chaperons, the old Earl of Hertford and the dowager d.u.c.h.ess of Kent. Henry might as well have sent along a pair of spaniels to act as chaperons--it would have taken an army to guard Mary alone--and to tell you the truth our old chaperons needed watching more than any of us. It was scandalous. Each of them had a touch of gout, and when they made wry faces it was a standing inquiry among us whether they were leering at each other or felt a twinge--whether it was their feet or their hearts, that troubled them.

Mary led them a pretty life at all times, even at home in the palace, and I know they would rather have gone off with a pack of imps than with us. The inducement was that it gave them better opportunities to be together--an arrangement connived at by the queen, I think--and they were satisfied. The earl had a wife, but he fancied the old dowager and she fancied him, and probably the wife fancied somebody else, so they were all happy. It greatly amused the young people, you may be sure, and Mary said, probably without telling the exact truth, that every night she prayed G.o.d to pity and forgive their ugliness.

One day the princess said she was becoming alarmed; their ugliness was so intense she feared it might be contagious and spread. Then, with a most comical seriousness, she added:

"Mon Dieu! Sir Edwin, what if I should catch it? Master Charles would not take me."

"No danger of that, my lady; he is too devoted to see anything but beauty in you, no matter how much you might change."

"Do you really think so? He says so little about it that sometimes I almost doubt."

Therein she spoke the secret of Brandon's success with her, at least in the beginning; for there is wonderful potency in the stimulus of a healthy little doubt.

We had a delightful canter over to Windsor, I riding with Mary most of the way. I was not averse to this arrangement, as I not only relished Mary's mirth and joyousness, which was at its height, but hoped I might give my little Lady Jane a twinge or two of jealousy perchance to fertilize her sentiments toward me.

Mary talked, and laughed, and sang, for her soul was a fountain of gladness that bubbled up the instant pressure was removed. She spoke of little but our last trip over this same road, and, as we pa.s.sed objects on the way, told me of what Brandon had said at this place and that. She laughed and dimpled exquisitely in relating how she had deliberately made opportunities for him to flatter her, until, at last, he smiled in her face and told her she was the most beautiful creature living, but that "after all, 'beauty was as beauty did!'"

"That made me angry," said she. "I pouted for a while, and, two or three times, was on the point of dismissing him, but thought better of it and asked him plainly wherein I did so much amiss. Then what do you think the impudent fellow said?"

"I cannot guess."

"He said: 'Oh, there is so much it would take a lifetime to tell it.'

"This made me furious, but I could not answer, and a moment later he said: 'Nevertheless I should be only too glad to undertake the task.'

"The thought never occurred to either of us then that he would be taken at his word. Bold? I should think he was; I never saw anything like it! I have not told you a tenth part of what he said to me that day; he said anything he wished, and it seemed that I could neither stop him nor retaliate. Half the time I was angry and half the time amused, but by the time we reached Windsor there never was a girl more hopelessly and desperately in love than Mary Tudor." And she laughed as if it were a huge joke on Mary.

She continued: "That day settled matters with me for all time. I don't know how he did it. Yes I do...." and she launched forth into an account of Brandon's perfections, which I found somewhat dull, and so would you.

We remained a day or two at Windsor, and then, over the objections of our chaperons, moved on to Berkeley Castle, where Margaret of Scotland was spending the summer.