'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 she must have too,' he answered; 'for none cometh within
seven miles of this court without your permit and approval.'
'Well, I will send horses of my own, and men to safeguard her,' the
Queen said. 'For, sure, I am beholden to her in many little things. I
think she sewed the first round gown that ever I had.'
He remained kneeling, his eyes still upon the floor.
'We are your very good servants, my sister and I,' he said. 'For she did
marry one--that Esquire Hall--that was done to death upon the gallows
for the old faith's sake. And it was I that wrote the English of most of
this letter to his Holiness, the Archbishop being ill and keeping his
bed.'
'Well, you have served me very well, it is true,' the Queen answered.
'What would you have of me?'
'Your Highness,' he answered, 'I do well love my sister and she me. I
would have her given a place here at the Court. I do not ask a great
one; not one so high as about your person. For I am sure that you are
well attended, and places few there are to spare about you.'
And then, even as he willed it, she bethought her that Margot Poins was
to go to a nunnery. That afternoon she had decided that Mary Trelyon,
who was her second maid, should become her first, and others be moved up
in a rote.
'Why,' she said, 'it may be that I shall find her an occupation. I will
not have it said--nor yet do it--that I have ever recompensed them that
did me favours in the old times, for there are a many that have served
well in the Court that then I was outside of, and those it is fitting
first to reward. Yet, since, as you say you have writ the English of
this letter, that is a very great service to the Republic, and if by
rewarding her I may recompense thee, I will think how I may come to do
it.'
He stood up upon his feet.
'It may be,' he said, 'that my sister is rustic and unsuited. I have not
seen her in many years. Therefore, I will not pray too high a place for
her, but only that she and I may be near, the one to the other, upon
occasions, and that she be housed and fed and clothed.'
'Why, that is very well said,' the Queen answered him. 'I will bid my
men to make inquiries into her demeanour and behaviour in the place
where she bides, and if she is well fitted and modest, she shall have a
place about me. If she be too rustic she shall have another place. Get
you gone, gentleman, and a good-night to ye.'
He bent himself half double, in the then newest courtly way, and still
bent, pivoted through the door. The Queen stayed a little while musing.
'Why,' she said, 'when I was a little child I fared very ill, if now I
think of it; but then it seemed a little thing.'
'Y'had best forget it,' the Lady Mary answered.
'Nay,' the Queen said. 'I have known too well what it was to go
supperless to my bed to forget it. A great shadowy place--all shadows,
where the night airs crept in under the rafters.'
She was thinking of the maids' dormitory at her grandmother's, the old
Duchess.
'I am climbed very high,' she said; 'but to think----'
She was such a poor man's child and held of only the littlest account,
herding with the maids and the servingmen's children. At eight by the
clock her grandmother locked her and all the maids--at times there were
but ten, at times as many as a score--into that great dormitory that
was, in fact, nothing but one long attic or grange beneath the bare
roof. And sometimes the maids told tales or slept soon, and sometimes
their gallants, grooms and others, came climbing through the windows
with rope ladders. They would bring pasties and wines and lights, and
coarsely they would revel.
'Why,' she said, 'I had a gallant myself. He was a musician, but I have
forgot his name. Aye, and then there was another, Dearham, I think; but
I have heard he is since dead. He may have been my cousin; we were so
many in family, I have a little forgot.'
She stood still, searching her memory, with her eyes distant. The Lady
Mary surveyed her face with a curious irony.
'Why, what a simple Queen you are!' she said. 'This is something
rustic.'
The Queen joined her hands together before her, as if she caught at a
clue.
'I do remember me,' she said. 'It was a make of a comedy. This Dearham,
calling himself my cousin, beat this music musician for calling himself
my gallant. Then goes the musicker to my grandam, bidding the old
Duchess rise up again one hour after she had sought her bed. So comes my
grandam and turns the key in the padlock and looketh in over all the
gallimaufrey of lights and pasties and revels.
'Why,' she continued. 'I think I was beaten upon that occasion, but I
could not well tell why. And I was put to sleep in another room. And
later came my father home from some war. And he was angry that I had
consorted so with false minions, and had me away to his own poor house.
And there I had Udal for my Magister and evil fare and many beatings.
But this Mary Lascelles was my bed-fellow.'
'Why, forget it,' the Lady Mary said again.
'Other teachers would bid me remember it that I might remain humble,'
Katharine answered.
'Y'are humble enow and to spare,' the Lady Mary said. 'And these are not
good memories for such a place as this. Y'had best keep this Mary
Lascelles at a great distance.'