“The peace that shall come!” the Lady Mary laughed. “Oh, God, what things we women are when a man rules us. The peace that shall come? By what means shall it have been brought on?”
“I will tell you,” she pursued after a moment. “All this is cogging and lying and feigning and chicaning. And you who are so upright will crawl before me to bring it about. Listen!”
And she closed her eyes the better to calm herself and to collect her thoughts, for she hated to appear moved.
“I am to feign a friendship to my father. That is a lie that you ask me to do, for I hate him as he were the devil. And why must I do this? To feign a smooth face to the world that his pride may not be humbled. I am to feign to receive the ambassadors of the Duke of Orleans. That is cogging that you ask of me. For it is not intended that ever I shall wed with a prince of the French house. But I must lead them on and on till the Emperor be affrighted lest your King make alliance with the French. What a foul tale! And you lend it your countenance!”
“I would well—” Katharine began.
“Oh, I know, I know,” Mary snickered. “Ye would well be chaste but that it must needs be other with you. It was the thief’s wife said that.
“Listen again,” she pursued, “anon there shall come the Emperor’s men, and there shall be more cogging and chicaning, and honours shall be given me that I may be bought dear, and petitioning that I should be set in the succession to make them eager. And then, perhaps, it shall all be cried off and a Schmalkaldner prince shall send ambassadors—”
“No, before God,” Katharine said.
“Oh, I know my father,” Mary laughed at her. “You will keep him tied to Rome if you can. But you could not save the venerable Lady of Salisbury, nor you shall not save him from trafficking with Schmalkaldners and Lutherans if it shall serve his monstrous passions and his vanities. And if he do not this yet he will do other villainies. And you will cosset him in them—to save his hoggish dignity and buttress up his heavy pride. All this you stand there and ask.”
“In the name of God I ask it,” Katharine said. “There is no other way.”
“Well then,” the Lady Mary said, “you shall ask it many times. I will have you shamed.”
“Day and night I will ask it,” Katharine said.
The Lady Mary sniffed.
“It is very well,” she said. “You are a proud and virtuous piece. I will humble you. It were nothing to my father to crawl on his belly and humble himself and slaver. He would do it with joy, weeping with a feigned penitence, making huge promises, foaming at the mouth with oaths that he repented, calling me his ever loved child—”
She stayed and then added—
“That would cost him nothing. But that you that are his pride, that you should do it who are in yourself proud—that is somewhat to pay oneself with for shamed nights and days despised. If you will have this thing you shall do some praying for it.”
“Even as Jacob served so will I,” Katharine said.
“Seven years!” the Lady Mary mocked at her. “God forbid that I should suffer you for so long. I will get me gone with an Orleans, a Kaiserlik, or a Schmalkaldner leaguer before that. So much comfort I will give you.” She stopped, lifted her head and said, “One knocks!”
They said from the door that a gentleman was come from the Archbishop with a letter to the Queen’s Grace.
VIII
There came in the shaven Lascelles and fell upon his knees, holding up the sheets of the letter he had copied.
The Queen took them from him and laid them upon the great table, being minded later to read them to the Lady Mary, in proof that the King very truly would make his submission to Rome, supposing only that his daughter would make submission to her.
When she turned, Lascelles was still kneeling before the doorway, his eyes upon the ground.
“Why, I thank you,” she said. “Gentleman, you may get you gone back to the Archbishop.”
She was thinking of returning to her duel of patience with the Lady Mary. But looking upon his blond and agreeable features she stayed for a minute.
“I know your face,” she said. “Where have I seen you?”
He looked up at her; his eyes were blue and noticeable, because at times of emotion he was so wide-lidded that the whites showed round the pupils of them.
“Certainly I have seen you,” the Queen said.
“It is a royal gift,” he said, “the memory of faces. I am the Archbishop’s poor gentleman, Lascelles.”
The Queen said—
“Lascelles? Lascelles?” and searched her memory.
“I have a sister, the spit and twin of me,” he answered; “and her name is Mary.”
The Queen said—
“Ah! ah!” and then, “Your sister was my bedfellow in the maid’s room at my grandmother’s.”
He answered gravely—
“Even so!”
And she—
“Stand up and tell me how your sister fares. I had some kindnesses of her when I was a child. I remember when I had cold feet she would heat a brick in the fire to lay to them, and such tricks. How fares she? Will you not stand up?”
“Because she fares very ill I will not stand upon my feet,” he answered.
“Well, you will beg a boon of me,” she said. “If it is for your sister I will do what I may with a good conscience.”
He answered, remaining kneeling, that he would fain see his sister. But she was very poor, having married an esquire called Hall of these parts, and he was dead, leaving her but one little farm where, too, his old father and mother dwelt.
“I will pay for her visit here,” she said; “and she shall have lodging.”
“Safe-conduct
