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.
'So, our bonnie maiden,' said Mary, brightening as she caught sight of the young girl, 'thou art come forth once more to rejoice mine eyes, a sight for sair een, as they say in Scotland,' and she kissed the fresh cheeks with a tenderness that gave Susan a strange pang. Then she asked kindly after the hurt, and bade Cis sit at her feet, while she watched a match in archery between some of the younger attendants, now and then laying a caressing hand upon the slender figure.
'Little one,' she said, 'I would fain have thee to share my pillow. I have had no young bed-fellow since Bess Pierrepoint left us. Wilt thou stoop to come and cheer the poor old caged bird?'
'Oh, madam, how gladly will I do so if I may!' cried Cicely, delighted.
'We will take good care of her, Mistress Talbot,' said Mary, 'and deliver her up to you whole and sain in the morning,' and there was a quivering playfulness in her voice.
'Your Grace is the mistress,' answered Susan, with a sadness not quite controlled.
'Ah! you mock me, madam. Would that I were!' returned the Queen. 'It is my Lord's consent that we must ask. How say you, my Lord, may I have this maiden for my warder at night?'
Lord Shrewsbury was far from seeing any objection, and the promise was given that Cis should repair to the Queen's chamber for at least that night. She was full of excitement at the prospect.
'Why look you so sadly at me, sweet mother?' she cried, as Susan made ready her hair, and assisted her in all the arrangements for which her shoulder was still too stiff; 'you do not fear that they will hurt my arm?'
'No, truly, my child. They have tender and skilful hands.'
'May be they will tell me the story of my parents,' said Cis; 'but you need never doubt me, mother. Though I were to prove to be ever so great a lady, no one could ever be mine own mother like you!'
'Scarcely in love, my child,' said Susan, as she wrapped the little figure in a loose gown, and gave her such a kiss as parents seldom permitted themselves, in the fear of 'cockering' their children, which was considered to be a most reprehensible practice. Nor could she refrain from closely pressing Cicely's hand as they passed through the corridor to the Queen's apartments, gave the word to the two yeomen who were on guard for the night at the head of the stairs, and tapped at the outmost door of the royal suite of rooms. It was opened by a French valet; but Mrs. Kennedy instantly advanced, took the maiden by the hand, and with a significant smile said: 'Gramercy, madam, we will take unco gude tent of the lassie. A fair gude nicht to ye.' And Mrs. Talbot felt, as she put the little hand into that of the nurse, and saw the door shut on them, as if she had virtually given up her daughter, and, oh! was it for her good?
Cis was led into the bedchamber, bright with wax tapers, though the sky was not yet dark. She heard a sound as of closing and locking double doors, while some one drew back a crimson, gold-edged velvet curtain, which she had seen several times, and which it was whispered concealed the shrine where Queen Mary performed her devotions. She had just risen from before it, at the sound of Cis's entrance, and two of her ladies, Mary Seaton and Marie de Courcelles, seemed to have been kneeling with her. She was made ready for bed, with a dark-blue velvet gown corded round her, and her hair, now very gray, braided beneath a little round cap, but a square of soft cambric drapery had been thrown over her head, so as to form a perfectly graceful veil, and shelter the features that were aging. Indeed, when Queen Mary wore the exquisite smile that now lit up her face as she held out her arms, no one ever paused to think what those lineaments really were. She held out her arms as Cis advanced bashfully, and said: 'Welcome, my sweet bed-fellow, my little Scot- one more loyal subject come to me in my bondage.'
Cis's impulse was to put a knee to the ground and kiss the hands that received her. 'Thou art our patient,' continued Mary. 'I will see thee in bed ere I settle myself there.' The bed was a tall, large, carved erection, with sweeping green and silver curtains, and a huge bank of lace-bordered pillows. A flight of low steps facilitated the ascent; and Cis, passive in this new scene, was made to throw off her dressing-gown and climb up.
'And now,' said the Queen, 'let me see the poor little shoulder that hath suffered so much.'
'My arm is still bound, madam,' said Cis. But she was not listened to; and Mrs. Kennedy, much to her discomfiture, turned back her under-garment. The marks were, in fact, so placed as to be entirely out of her own view, and Mrs. Susan had kept them from the knowledge or remark of any one. They were also high enough up to be quite clear from the bandages, and thus she was amazed to hear the exclamation, 'There! sooth enough.'
'Monsieur Gorion could swear to them instantly.'
'What is it? Oh, what is it, madam?' cried Cis, affrighted; 'is there anything on my back? No plague spot, I hope;' and her eyes grew round with terror.
The Queen laughed. 'No plague spot, sweet one, save, perhaps, in the eyes of you Protestants, but to me they are a gladsome sight-a token I never hoped to see.'
And the bewildered girl felt a pair of soft lips kiss each mark in turn, and then the covering was quickly and caressingly restored, and Mary added, 'Lie down, my child, and now to bed, to bed, my maids. Patent the lights.' Then, making the sign of the cross, as Cis had seen poor Antony Babington do, the Queen, just as all the lights save one were extinguished, was divested of her wrapper and veil, and took her place beside Cis on the pillows. The two Maries left the chamber, and Jean Kennedy disposed herself on a pallet at the foot of the bed.
'And so,' said the Queen, in a low voice, tender, but with a sort of banter, 'she thought she had the plague spot on her little white shoulders. Didst thou really not know what marks thou bearest, little one?'
'No, madam,' said Cis. 'Is it what I have felt with my fingers?'
'Listen, child,' said Mary. 'Art thou at thine ease; thy poor shoulder resting well? There, then, give me thine hand, and I will tell thee a tale. There was a lonely castle in a lake, grim, cold, and northerly; and thither there was brought by angry men a captive woman. They had dealt with her strangely and subtilly; they had laid on her the guilt of the crimes themselves had wrought; and when she clung to the one man whom at least she thought honest, they had forced and driven her into wedding him, only that all the world might cry out upon her, forsake her, and deliver her up into those cruel hands.'
There was something irresistibly pathetic in Mary's voice, and the maiden lay gazing at her with swimming
