She immediately sent for Jacques and Bessie.
“This letter has come to my notice,” she said coldly. “And I must confess I am deeply shocked.”
When Jacques saw what it was he turned pale.
“It is an answer to one which you wrote to Sir Henry Pierpont,” Mary told him. “You are not going to deny you wrote such a letter?”
“I do not deny it,” answered Jacques with dignity. “Bessie and I wish to marry. It was natural that I should ask her father’s permission.”
“I should have thought it would have been more natural if you had asked mine.”
“I did not expect the same favor as Your Majesty bestows on Gilbert Curle.”
“You are insolent,” said Mary. “I will not speak to you until you have recovered your good manners. Please go now.”
Jacques bowed, and as he was retiring Bessie prepared to follow him.
“Not you,” commanded Mary. “You will stay.”
Bessie stood sullenly looking at the Queen.
“Why did you not tell me?” asked Mary reproachfully.
“Because you were determined to make me marry Lord Percy.”
“Of course you must marry Lord Percy. It was not I who arranged the match—but it is a good one.”
Bessie said: “I shall never marry Lord Percy.” And as she spoke all the affection she had been wont to give Mary seemed to have disappeared, and it was almost as though her grandmother stood there.
“Bessie, you are very young . . . ” began Mary tolerantly.
“I am a woman. I love Jacques. I have always loved Jacques. I love him more than anyone in the world. I always shall. I am going to marry Jacques . . . .”
“Now, Bessie, my dear, you know that a girl in your position must obey her guardians.”
“I care nothing for my guardians.”
“Bessie! You can say that!”
Mary was deeply wounded. She was thinking of the day she had become this child’s godmother, how she had told her stories as they lay in bed, how they had taken their meals together and how, when Bessie was little more than a baby, rather terrified of her overbearing grandmother, she had run to Mary for comfort. Bessie thought of nothing but her passionate love for Jacques; and she was ready to hate anyone who came between her and its fulfilment.
“I can say it, and I will say it. I love Jacques. I want Jacques, and I hate . . . hate, hate anyone who tries to stop our marriage.”
“You are a foolish child,” said Mary. “You are not being reasonable.”
“I care not for reason. I care for nothing but Jacques!”
“Bessie, I think you should think what you are saying.”
“I have thought of nothing else for months. I am going to marry Jacques and no one on Earth is going to stop me! You are an old woman—you don’t understand . . . . Or have you forgotten!”
Bessie suddenly burst into angry tears and ran from the room. Mary looked after her bewildered.
MARY WAS ENTIRELY PREOCCUPIED with the affair of Bessie and Jacques. Hatred for her had looked out of Bessie’s eyes when the girl had stood before her so defiantly proclaiming her love, and Mary was hurt.
Had the lovers come to her and told her of their feelings for each other before the Countess had expressed her desire for a marriage with Lord Percy, she would have done all she could to help them. Now it seemed that she could not, since to do so would be deliberately to oppose the wishes of the girl’s family.
Her little Skye terrier seemed to sense her grief and jumped onto her lap and licked her hands.
She stroked him tenderly for she took great joy in the little creature and since he had been sent to her he had not left her side.
She wondered what she would do about the defiant lovers; and eventually she believed that she should send Bessie away.
If Elizabeth would have the girl at Court it might be that, with all the splendor of that life, Bessie would forget Jacques. Mary was of the opinion that the girl, living the sheltered life which had necessarily been hers, had imagined she was in love with the first handsome man who had noticed her. Bessie was too young to understand this; if she went away, met other people, she might learn that her affection for the secretary was not the grande passion she had imagined it was.
Eventually Mary wrote to Sir Henry and Lady Pierpont telling them that she thought it was time they took their daughter into their home.
IN AN INN PARLOR not far from St. Giles’s-in-the-Fields a priest sat waiting for a visitor. His outstanding features were his burning fanatical eyes, and as he waited he drummed his fingers on the table impatiently. Eventually he was joined by a man in the uniform of a soldier.
“Pray be seated,” said the priest.
The soldier obeyed, drawing his chair close.
“I know we can trust each other,” went on the priest. “My name is John Ballard and we have mutual friends. I know you to be John Savage and that we hold similar views.”
“I believe Thomas Morgan has recommended me to you,” Savage murmured.
“That is so. You are the one who is ready to give his life for the Faith. That is all that matters. Danger lies ahead of us, my friend. Are you afraid of danger?”
“I am not afraid to die for my faith.”
“That is what I understood. Believe me, my friend, all of those who are ready to work in this project must hold those views.”
“Will you enlighten me?”
“With pleasure. I believe—and I am sure you as a good Catholic will agree with me—that no good can come to England while we have a Protestant bastard on the throne.”
“I believe with all my heart that no good can come to England until she returns to the Catholic Faith.”
“Then, my friend, we are in accord. It is our endeavor to bring back the Catholic Faith and, as we can only do so by removing Elizabeth, we plan to do exactly that and set Catholic Mary in her place.”
“Who else is with you in this enterprise?”
“Certain gentlemen whom you shall meet without delay. Do you wish to go further?”
“I wish it with all my heart,” replied John Savage.
IT WAS GROWING DARK when the two men made their way to a house in Fetter Lane. Ballard gave three slow knocks on the door which after a while was opened.
He stepped into a dark passage, and Savage followed him. The man who had opened the door, recognizing Ballard, nodded an acknowledgment, and they followed him down a flight of stairs and along a corridor. When they reached a certain door, this was quietly opened by Ballard, and Savage saw that he was about to enter a dimly lighted room which, it soon became apparent, had been made into a chapel; he saw the altar and, standing about it, several men.
Ballard announced: “John Savage. He is one of us.”
An unusually handsome man stepped forward and grasped Savage’s hand.
“My name is Anthony Babington,” he said quietly. “Welcome to our band. We were about to hear Mass. You will join us?”
“With all my heart.”
“Afterward we will go to my house in the Barbican and there you will become acquainted with my friends.”
Savage bowed his head, and the Mass began.
When they had left Fetter Lane for the house in the Barbican, Anthony Babington entertained his friends with food and wine, and after they had been served he bolted the doors and assured himself that nothing which was said in the room could be heard by anyone outside it.
Babington, Savage realized, was a man in his middle twenties. He was somewhat flamboyant in dress as he was in manner and his handsome features glowed with an enthusiasm which was infectious. Babington believed wholeheartedly in his plot; he could not visualize failure, and such was his personality that everyone around that table caught his fervor.