Richard shook his head. "Give a woman a hint of a seminary priest in disguise, and she would take a new-born baby for one. I tell thee I heard that Cuthbert was safe in Paris. But, be that as it may, I trust thou hast been discreet."
"So I strove to be," said Susan. "Mrs. Kennedy questioned me, and I told her."
"What?" sharply demanded her husband.
"Nought but truth," she answered, "save that I showed no knowledge who the maid really is, nor let her guess that you had read the scroll."
"That is well. Frank Talbot was scarce within his duty when he gave me the key, and it were as much as my head were worth to be known to have been aware of the matter." To this Susan could only assent, as they were interrupted by the serving-man coming to ask directions about the bestowal of the goods.
She was relieved by this short colloquy, but it was a sad and wakeful night for her as Cicely slept by her side. Her love was too truly motherly not to be deeply troubled at the claim of one of differing religion and nation, and who had so uncertain and perilous a lot in which to place her child. There was also the sense that all her dearest, including her eldest son, were involved in the web of intrigue with persons far mightier and more unscrupulous than themselves; and that, however they might strive to preserve their integrity, it would be very hard to avoid suspicion and danger.
In this temporary abode, the household of the Queen and of the Earl ate together, in the great hall, and thus while breaking their fast in the morning Jean Kennedy found opportunity to examine Richard Talbot on all the circumstances of the wreck of the Bride of Dunbar, and the finding of the babe. She was much more on her guard than the day before, and said that she had a shrewd suspicion as to who the babe's parents might be, but that she could not be certain without seeing the reliquary and the scroll. Richard replied that they were at home, but made no offer of sending for them. "Nor will I do so," said he to his wife, "unless I am dealt plainly with, and the lady herself asks for them. Then should I have no right to detain them."
M. Gorion would not allow his patient to leave her room that day, and she had to remain there while Susan was in attendance on the Queen, who did not appear to her yet to have heard of the discovery, and who was entering with zest into the routine of the place, where Dr. Jones might be regarded as the supreme legislator.
Each division of the great bath hall was fitted with drying and dressing room, arranged commodiously according to the degree of those who were to use them. Royalty, of course, enjoyed a monopoly, and after the hot bath, which the Queen took immediately after rising, she breakfasted in her own apartments, and then came forth, according to the regimen of the place, by playing at Trowle Madame. A board with arches cut in, just big enough to permit the entrance of the balls used in playing at bowls was placed on the turf at a convenient distance from the player. Each arch was numbered, from one to thirteen, but the numbers were irregularly arranged, and the game consisted in rolling bowls into the holes in succession, each player taking a single turn, and the winner reaching the highest number first,-being, in fact, a sort of lawn bagatelle. Dr. Jones recommended it as good to stretch the rheumatic joints of his patients, and Queen Mary, an adept at all out-of-door games, delighted in it, though she had refused an offer to have the lawn arranged for it at Sheffield, saying that it would only spoil a Buxton delight. She was still too stiff to play herself, but found infinite amusement in teaching the new-comers the game, and poor Susan, with her thoughts far away, was scarcely so apt a pupil as befitted a royal mistress, especially as she missed Mrs. Kennedy.
When she came back, she found that the dame had been sitting with the patient, and had made herself very agreeable to the girl by drawing out from her all she knew of her own story from beginning to end, having first shown that she knew of the wreck of the Bride of Dunbar.
"And, mother," said Cis, "she says she is nearly certain that she knows who my true parents were, and that she could be certain if she saw the swaddling clothes and tokens you had with me. Have you, mother? I never knew of them."
"Yes, child, I have. We did not wish to trouble and perturb your mind, little one, while you were content to be our daughter."
"Ah, mother, I would fain be yours and father's still. They must not take me from you. But suppose I was some great and noble lord's daughter, and had a great inheritance and lordship to give Humfrey!"
"Alas, child! Scottish inheritances are wont to bring more strife than wealth."
Nevertheless, Cis went on supposing and building castles that were pain and grief to her foreboding auditor. That evening, however, Richard called his wife. It was late, but the northern sunset was only just over, and Susan could wander out with him on the greensward in front of the Earl's house.
"So this is the tale we are to be put off with," he said, "from the Queen herself, ay, herself, and told with such an air of truth that it would almost make me discredit the scroll. She told me with one of her sweetest smiles how a favourite kinswoman of hers wedded in secret with a faithful follower of hers, of the clan Hepburn. Oh, I assure you it might have been a ballad sung by a harper for its sadness. Well, this fellow ventured too far in her service, and had to flee to France to become an archer of the guard, while the wife remained and died at Lochleven Castle, having given birth to our Cis, whom the Queen in due time despatched to her father, he being minded to have her bred up in a French nunnery, sending her to Dunbar to be there embarked in the Bride of Dunbar."
"And the father?"
"Oh, forsooth, the father! It cost her as little to dispose of him as of the mother. He was killed in some brawl with the Huguenots; so that the poor child is altogether an orphan, beholden to our care, for which she thanked me with tears in her eyes, that were more true than mayhap the poor woman could help."
"Poor lady," said Susan. "Yet can it not be sooth indeed?"
"Nay, dame, that may not be. The cipher is not one that would be used in simply sending a letter to the father."
"Might not the occasion have been used for corresponding in secret with French friends?"
"I tell thee, wife, if I read one word of that letter, I read that the child was her own, and confided to the Abbess of Soissons! I will read it to thee once more ere I yield it up, that is if I ever do. Wherefore cannot the woman speak truth to me? I would be true and faithful were I trusted, but to be thus put off with lies makes a man ready at once to ride off with the whole to the Queen in council."
"Think, but think, dear sir," pleaded Susan, "how the poor lady is pressed, and how much she has to fear on all sides."
"Ay, because lies have been meat and drink to her, till she cannot speak a soothfast word nor know an honest man when she sees him."
"What would she have ?"
"That Cis should remain with us as before, and still pass for our daughter, till such time as these negotiations are over, and she recover her kingdom. That is-so far as I see-like not to be till latter Lammas-but meantime what sayest thou, Susan? Ah! I knew, anything to keep the child with thee! Well, be it so-though if I had known the web we were to be wound into, I'd have sailed for the Indies with Humfrey long ago!"
CHAPTER XV. MOTHER AND CHILD.
Cicely was well enough the next day to leave her room and come out on the summer's evening to enjoy the novel spectacle of Trowle Madame, in which she burned to participate, so soon as her shoulder should be well. It was with a foreboding heart that her adopted mother fell with her into the rear of the suite who were attending Queen Mary, as she went downstairs to walk on the lawn, and sit under a canopy whence she could watch either that game, or the shooting at the butts which was being carried on a little farther off.