Cicely would fain have resisted, but was forced to obey, though protesting that she should not sleep; and she lay awake for a long time watching the Queen writing, until unawares slumber overpowered her eyes. When she awoke, the Queen was standing over her saying, "It is time thou wert astir, little one!"
"Oh! and have I lost all these hours of you?" cried Cicely, as her senses awoke to the remembrance of the situation of affairs. "Mother, why did you not let me watch with you?"
Mary only smiled and kissed her brow. The time went by in the preparations, in all of which the Queen took an active part. Her money and jewels had been restored to her by Elizabeth's orders during her daughter's absence, and she had put twenty gold pieces in the silken and pearl purse which she always used. "More I may not give thee," she said. "I know not whether I shall be able to give my poor faithful servants enough to carry them to their homes. This thou must have to provide thee. And for my jewels, they should be all thine by right, but the more valuable ones, which bear tokens, might only bring thee under suspicion, poor child."
She wished Cicely to choose among them, but the poor girl had no heart for choice, and the Queen herself put in her hand a small case containing a few which were unobtrusive, yet well known to her, and among them a ring with the Hepburn arms, given by Bothwell. She also showed her a gold chain which she meant to give to Humfrey. In this manner time passed, till a message came in that Master Richard Talbot was ready.
"Who brought it?" asked the Queen, and when she heard that it was Humfrey himself who was at the door, she bade him be called in.
"Children," she said, "we were interrupted last night. Let me see you give your betrothal kiss, and bless you."
"One word, my mother," said Cicely. "Humfrey will not bear me ill- will if I say that while there can still be any hope that Queen Elizabeth will accept me for her prisoner in your stead, I neither can nor ought to wed him."
"Thou mayst safely accept the condition, my son," said Mary.
"Then if these messengers should come to conduct my mother abroad, and to take me as her hostage, Humfrey will know where to find me."
"Yea, thou art a good child to the last, my little one," said Mary.
"You promise, Humfrey?" said Cicely.
"I do," he said, knowing as well as the Queen how little chance there was that he would be called on to fulfil it, but feeling that the agony of the parting was thus in some degree softened to Cicely.
Mary gave the betrothal ring to Humfrey, and she laid her hands on their clasped ones. "My daughter and my son," she said, "I leave you my blessing. If filial love and unshaken truth can bring down blessings from above, they will be yours. Think of your mother in times to come as one who hath erred, but suffered and repented. If your Church permits you, pray often for her. Remember, when you hear her blamed, that in the glare of courts, she had none to breed her up in godly fear and simple truth like your good mother at Bridgefield, but that she learnt to think what you view in the light of deadly sin as the mere lawful instruments of government, above all for the weaker. Condemn her not utterly, but pray, pray with all your hearts that her God and Saviour will accept her penitence, and unite her sufferings with those of her Lord, since He has done her the grace of letting her die in part for His Church. Now," she added, kissing each brow, and then holding her daughter in her embrace, "take her away, Humfrey, and let me turn my soul from all earthly loves and cares!"
CHAPTER XLIV. ON THE HUMBER.
Master Talbot had done considerately in arranging that Cicely should at least begin her journey on a pillion behind himself, for her anguish of suppressed weeping unfitted her to guide a horse, and would have attracted the attention of any serving-man behind whom he could have placed her, whereas she could lay her head against his shoulder, and feel a kind of dreary repose there.
He would have gone by the more direct way to Hull, through Lincoln, but that he feared that February Filldyke would have rendered the fens impassable, so he directed his course more to the north-west. Cicely was silent, crushed, but more capable of riding than of anything else; in fact, the air and motion seemed to give her a certain relief.
He meant to halt for the night at a large inn at Nottingham. There was much stir in the court, and it seemed to be full of the train of some great noble. Richard knew not whether to be glad or sorry when he perceived the Shrewsbury colours and the silver mastiff badge, and was greeted by a cry of "Master Richard of Bridgefield!" Two or three retainers of higher degree came round him as he rode into the yard, and, while demanding his news, communicated their own, that my Lord was on his way to Fotheringhay to preside at the execution of the Queen of Scots.
He could feel Cicely's shudder as he lifted her off her horse, and he replied repressively, "I am bringing my daughter from thence."
"Come in and see my Lord," said the gentleman. "He is a woeful man at the work that is put on him."
Lord Shrewsbury did indeed look sad, almost broken, as he held out his hand to Richard, and said, "This is a piteous errand, cousin, on which I am bound. And thou, my young kinswoman, thou didst not succeed with her Majesty!"
"She is sick with grief and weariness," said Richard. "I would fain take her to her chamber."
The evident intimacy of the new-comers with so great a personage as my Lord procured for them better accommodation than they might otherwise have had, and Richard obtained for Cicely a tiny closet within the room where he was himself to sleep. He even contrived that she should be served alone, partly by himself, partly by the hostess, a kind motherly woman, to whom he committed her, while he supped with the Earl, and was afterwards called into his sleeping chamber to tell him of his endeavours at treating with Lord and Lady Talbot, and also to hear his lamentations over the business he had been sent upon. He had actually offered to make over his office as Earl Marshal to Burghley for the nonce, but as he said, "that of all the nobles in England, such work should fall to the lot of him, who had been for fourteen years the poor lady's host, and knew her admirable patience and sweet conditions, was truly hard."
Moreover, he was joined in the commission with the Earl of Kent, a sour Puritan, who would rejoice in making her drink to the dregs of the cup of bitterness! He was sick at heart with the thought. Richard represented that he would, at least, be able to give what comfort could be derived from mildness and compassion.
"Not I, not I!" said the poor man, always weak. "Not with those harsh yoke-fellows Kent and Paulett to drive me on, and that viper Beale to report to the Privy Council any strain of mercy as mere treason. What can I do?"
"You would do much, my Lord, if you would move them to restore-for these last hours-to her those faithful servants, Melville and De Preaux, whom Paulett hath seen fit to seclude from her. It is rank cruelty to let her die without the sacraments of her Church when her conscience will not let her accept ours."
"It is true, Richard, over true. I will do what I can, but I doubt me whether I shall prevail, where Paulett looks on a Mass as mere idolatry, and will not brook that it should be offered in his house. But come you back with me, kinsman. We will send old Master Purvis to take your daughter safely home."
Richard of course refused, and at the same time, thinking an explanation necessary and due to the Earl, disclosed to him that Cicely was no child of his, but a near kinswoman of the Scottish Queen, whom it was desirable to place out of Queen Elizabeth's reach for the present, adding that there had been love passages between her and his son Humfrey, who intended to wed her and see some foreign service. Lord Shrewsbury showed at first some offence at having been kept in ignorance all these years of such a fact, and wondered what his Countess would say, marvelled too that his cousin should consent to his son's throwing himself away on a mere stranger, of perilous connection, and going off to foreign wars; but the good nobleman was a placable man, and always considerably influenced by the person who addressed him, and he ended by placing the Mastiff at Richard's disposal to take the young people to Scotland or Holland, or wherever they might wish to go.