XVIII

Not far from the palace, in a secluded place hidden by laburnum,

roses, box, and rhododendrons, there was a quaint and beautiful

retreat. High up on all sides of a circle of green the flowering

trees and shrubs interlaced their branches, and the grass, as smooth

as velvet, was of such a note as soothed the eye and quieted the

senses. In one segment of the verdant circle was a sort of open bower

made of poles, up which roses climbed and hung across in gay

festoons; and in two other segments mossy banks made resting-places.

Here, in days gone by, when Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, first

drew the eyes of his Queen upon him, Elizabeth came to listen to his

vows of allegiance which swam in floods of passionate devotion to

her person. Christopher Hatton, Sir Henry Lee, the Duke of Norfolk,

the Earl of Sussex, a race of gallants, had knelt upon this pleasant

sward. Here they had declared a devotion that, historically platonic,

had a personal passion which, if rewarded by no personal requital,

must have been an expensive outlay of patience and emotion.

But those days had gone. Robert Dudley had advanced far past his

fellows, had locked himself into the chamber of the Queen’s

confidence, had for long proved himself necessary to her, had mingled

deference and admiration with an air of monopoly, and had then

advanced to an air of possession, of suggested control. Then had

begun his decline. England and England’s Queen could have but one

ruler, and upon an occasion in the past Elizabeth made it clear by

the words she used: “God’s death, my lord! I have wished you well;

but my favor is not so locked up for you that others shall not

partake thereof; and, if you think to rule here, I will take a course

to see you forthcoming. I will have here but one mistress and no

master.”

In these words she but declared what was the practice of her life,

the persistent passion of her rule. The world could have but

one sun, and every man or woman who sought its warmth must be a

sun-worshipper. There could be no divided faith, no luminaries in the

sky save those which lived by borrowed radiance.

Here in this bright theatre of green and roses, poets had sung the

praises of this Queen to her unblushing and approving face; here

ladies thrice as beautiful as she had begged her to tell them the

secret of her beauty, so much greater than that of any living woman;

and she was pleased even when she knew they flattered but to gain her

smile--it was the tribute that power exacts. The place was a cenotaph

of past romance and pleasure. Every leaf of every tree and flower had

impressions of glories, of love, ambition, and intrigue, of tears and

laughter, of joyousness and ruin. Never a spot in England where so

much had been said and done, so far-reaching in effect and

influence. But its glory was departed, its day was done, it was a

place of dreams and memories: the Queen came here no more. Many years

had withered since she had entered this charmed spot; and that it

remained so fine was but evidence of the care of those to whom she

had given strict orders seven years past that in and out of season it

must be ever kept as it had erstwhile been. She had never entered the

place since the day the young Marquis of Wessex, whom she had

imprisoned for marrying secretly and without her consent, on his

release came here, and, with a concentrated bitterness and hate, had

told her such truths as she never had heard from man or woman since

she was born. He had impeached her in such cold and murderous terms

as must have made wince even a woman with no pride. To Elizabeth it

was gall and wormwood. When he at last demanded the life of the young

wife who had died in enforced seclusion, because she had married the

man she loved, Elizabeth was so confounded that she hastily left the

place, saying no word in response. This attack had been so violent,

so deadly, that she had seemed unnerved, and forbore to command him

to the Tower or to death.

“You, in whose breast love never stirred, deny the right to others

whom God blessed with it,” he cried. “Envious of mortal happiness

that dare exist outside your will or gift, you sunder and destroy.

You, in whose hands was power to give joy, gave death. What you have

sown you shall reap. Here, on this spot, I charge you with high

treason, with treachery to the people over whom you have power as a

trust, which trust you have made a scourge.”

With such words as these he had assailed her, and for the first time

in her life she had been confounded. In safety he had left the place

and taken his way to Italy, from which he had never returned, though

she had sent for him in kindness. Since that day Elizabeth had never

come hither; and by-and-by none of her court came save the Duke’s

Daughter, and her fool, who both made it their resort. Here the fool

came upon the Friday before Trinity Day, bringing with him Lemprière

and Buonespoir, to whom he had much attached himself.

It was a day of light and warmth, and the place was like a basket of

roses. Having seen the two serving-men dispose, in a convenient

place, the refreshment which Lemprière’s appetite compelled, the fool

took command of the occasion, and made the two sit upon a bank, while

he prepared the repast.

It was a notable trio; the dwarfish fool, with his shaggy, black

head, twisted mouth, and watchful, wandering eye, whose foolishness

was but the flaunting cover of shrewd observation and trenchant

vision. Going where he would, and saying what he listed, now in the

Queen’s inner chamber, then in the midst of the council,

unconsidered, and the butt of all, he paid for his bed and bounty by

shooting shafts of foolery, which as often made his listeners shrink

as caused their laughter. The Queen he called Delicio, and Leicester,

Obligato--as one who piped to another’s dance. He had taken to

Buonespoir at the first glance, and had frequented him, and

Lemprière had presently been added to his favor. He had again and

again been messenger between them, as also of late between Angèle and

Michel, whose case he viewed from a stand-point of great

cheerfulness, and treated as children playing on the sands--as,

indeed, he did the Queen and all near to her. But Buonespoir, the

pirate, was to him reality and the actual, and he called him Bono

Publico. At first Lemprière, ever jealous of his importance, was

inclined to treat him with elephantine condescension; but he could

not long hold out against the boon archness of the jester, and had

collapsed suddenly into as close a friendship as that between himself

and Buonespoir.

A rollicking spirit was his own fullest stock-in-trade, and it won

him like a brother.

So it was that here, in the very bosom of the forest, lured by the

pipe the fool played, Lemprière burst forth into song, in one hand a

bottle of canary, in the other a handful of comfits:

“Duke William was a Norman

(_Spread the sail to the breeze!_)

That did to England ride;

At Hastings by the Channel

(_Drink the wine to the lees!_)

Our Harold the Saxon died.

If there be no cakes from Normandy,

There’ll be more ale in England!”

“Well sung, nobility, and well said,” cried Buonespoir, with a rose

by the stem in his mouth, one hand beating time to the music, the

other clutching a flagon of muscadella; “for the Normans are kings in

England, and there’s drink in plenty at the court of our Lady

Duchess.”

“Delicio shall never want while I have a penny of hers to spend,”

quoth the fool, feeling for another tune.

“Should conspirators prevail, and the damnedest be, she hath yet the

Manor of Rozel and my larder,” urged Lemprière, with a splutter

through the canary.

“That shall be only when the fifth wind comes--it is so ordained,

Nuncio!” said the fool, blinking.

Buonespoir set down his flagon. “And what wind is the fifth wind?”

he asked, scratching his bullet-head, his childlike, wide-spread eyes

smiling the question.

“There be now four winds--the north wind, and his sisters, the east,

the west, and south. When God sends a fifth wind, then conspirators

shall wear crowns. Till then Delicio shall sow and I shall reap, as

is Heaven’s will.”

Lemprière lay back and roared with laughter. “Before Belial, there

never was such another as thou, fool. Conspirators shall die and not

prevail, for a man may not marry his sister, and the north wind shall

have no progeny. So there shall be no fifth wind.”

“Proved, proved!” cried the fool. “The north wind shall go whistle

for a mate--there shall be no fifth wind. So Delicio shall still sail

by the compass, and shall still compass all, and yet be compassed by

none; for it is written, Who compasseth Delicio existeth not.”

Buonespoir watched a lark soaring, as though its flight might lead

him through the fool’s argument clearly. Lemprière closed his eye

and struggled with it, his lips out-pursed, his head sunk on his

breast. Suddenly his eyes opened; he brought the bottle of canary

down with a thud on the turf. “‘Fore Michael and all angels, I have

it, fool; I travel, I conceive. De Carteret of St. Ouen’s must have

gone to the block ere conceiving so. I must conceive thus of the

argument. He who compasseth the Queen existeth not, for, compassing,

he dieth.”

“So it is by the hour-glass and the fortune told in the porringer.

You have conceived like a man, Nuncio.”

“And conspirators, I conceive, must die, so long as there be honest

men to slay them,” rejoined the seigneur.

“Must only honest men slay conspirators? Oh, Shadrach, Meshach, and

Abednego!” wheezed Buonespoir, with a grin. He placed his hand upon

his head in self-pity. “Buonespoir, art thou damned by muscadella?”

he murmured.

“But thou art purged of the past, Bono Publico,” answered the fool.

“Since Delicio hath looked upon thee she hath shredded the Tyburn

lien upon thee--thou art flushed like a mountain spring; and

conspirators shall fall down by thee if thou, passant, dost fall by

conspirators in the way. Bono Publico, thou shalt live by good

company. Henceforth contraband shall be spurned and the book of grace

opened.”

Buonespoir’s eyes laughed like a summer sky, but he scratched his

head and turned over the rose-stem in his mouth reflectively. “So be

it, then, if it must be; but yesterday the Devon sea-sweeper, Francis

Drake, overhauled me in my cottage, coming from the Queen, who had

infused him of me. ‘I have heard of you from a high mast-head,’ said

he. ‘If the Spanish main allure you, come with me. There be galleons

yonder still; they shall cough up doubloons.’ ‘It hath a sound of

piracy,’ said I. ‘I am expurgated. My name is written on clean paper

now, blessed be the name of the Queen!’ ‘Tut, tut, Buonesperado,’

laughed he, ‘you shall forget that Tyburn is not a fable if you care

to have doubloons reminted at the Queen’s mint. It is meet Spanish

Philip’s head be molted to oblivion, and Elizabeth’s raised, so that

good silver be purged of Popish alloy.’ But that I had sworn by the

little finger of St. Peter, when the moon was full, never to leave

the English seas, I also would have gone with Drake of Devon this

day. It is a man and a master of men, that Drake of Devon.”

“’Tis said that when a man hath naught left but life, and hath

treated his honor like a poor relation, he goes to the Spanish main

with Drake and Grenville,” said Lemprière.

“Then must Obligato go, for he hath such credentials,” said the fool,

blowing thistledown in the air. “Yesterday was no Palm Sunday to

Leicester. Delicio’s head was high. ‘Imperial Majesty,’ quoth

Obligato, his knees upon the rushes, ‘take my life, but send me not

forth into darkness where I shall see my Queen no more. By the light

of my Queen’s eyes have I walked, and pains of hell are my Queen’s

displeasure.’ ‘Methinks thy humbleness is tardy,’ quoth Delicio. ‘No

cock shall crow by my nest,’ said she. ‘And, by the mantle of Elijah,

I am out with sour faces and men of phlegm and rheum. I will be gay

once more. So get thee gone to Kenilworth, and stray not from it on

thy peril. Take thy malaise with thee, and I shall laugh again.’ And

he goeth. So that was the end of Obligato, and now cometh another

tune.”

“She hath good cheer?” asked Lemprière, eagerly.

“I have never seen Delicio smile these seven years as she smiled

to-day; and when she kissed Amicitia I sent for my confessor and made

my will. Delicio hath come to spring-time, and the voice of the

turtle is in her ear.”

“Amicitia--and who is Amicitia?” asked Lemprière, well flushed with

wine.

“She who hath brought Obligato to the diminuendo and finale,”

answered the fool; “even she who hath befriended the Huguenottine of

the black eyes.”

“Ah, she, the Duke’s Daughter--ah, that is a flower of a lady! Did

she not say that my jerkin fitted featly when I did act as butler to

her adorable Majesty three months syne? She hath no mate in the

world save Mademoiselle Aubert, whom I brought hither to honor and to

fame.”

“To honor and fame, was it--but by the hill of desperandum, Nuncio,”

said the fool, prodding him with his stick of bells.

“‘Desperandum!’ I know not Latin, it amazes me,” said Lemprière,

waving a lofty hand.

“She--the Huguenottine--was a-mazed, also, and from the maze was

played by Obligato.”

“How so! how so!” cried the seigneur, catching at his meaning. “Did

Leicester waylay and siege? ’Sblood, had I known this I’d have

broached him and swallowed him even on crutches!”

“She made him raise the siege, she turned his own guns upon him, and

in the end hath driven him hence.”

By rough questioning Lemprière got from the fool, by snatches, the

story of the meeting in the maze, which had left Leicester standing

with the jester’s ribboned bells in his hand. Then the seigneur got

to his feet and hugged the fool, bubbling with laughter.

“By all the blood of all the saints, I will give thee burial in my

own grave when all’s done,” he spluttered; “for there never was such

fooling, never such a wise fool come since Confucius and the Khan.

Good be with you, fool, and thanks be for such a lady. Thanks be also

for the Duke’s Daughter. Ah, how she laid Leicester out! She washed

him up the shore like behemoth, and left him gaping.”

Buonespoir intervened. “And what shall come of it? What shall be the

end? The _Honeyflower_ lies at anchor--there be three good men in

waiting, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and--”

The seigneur interrupted. “There’s little longer waiting. All’s well!

Her high, hereditary Majesty smiled on me, when she gave Leicester

congé and fiery quittance. She hath me in favor, and all shall be

well with Michel and Angèle. O fool, fool, fantastic and flavored

fool, sing me a song of good content, for if this business ends not

with crescendo and bell-ringing, I am no butler to the Queen nor keep

good company!”

Seating themselves upon the mossy bank, their backs to the westward

sun, the fool peered into the green shadows and sang with a soft

melancholy an ancient song that another fool had sung to the first

Tudor:

“When blows the wind and drives the sleet,

And all the trees droop down;

When all the world is sad, ’tis meet

Good company be known:

And in my heart good company

Sits by the fire and sings to me.

“When warriors return, and one

That went returns no more;

When dusty is the road we run,

And garners have no store;

One ingle-nook right warm shall be

Where my heart hath good company.

“When man shall flee and woman fail,

And folly mock and hope deceive,

Let cowards beat the breast and wail,

I’ll homeward hie; I will not grieve:

I’ll draw the blind, I’ll there set free

My heart’s beloved boon company.

“When kings shall favor, ladies call

My service to their side;

When roses grow upon the wall

Of life, with love inside;

I’ll get me home with joy to be

In my heart’s own good company!”

“Oh, fool, oh, beneficent fool, well done! ’Tis a song for a

man--’twould shame De Carteret of St. Ouen’s to his knees,” cried

Lemprière.

“Oh, benignant fool, well done!--’twould draw me from my meals,” said

a voice behind the three, and turning hastily about they saw, smiling

and applausive, the Duke’s Daughter. Beside her was Angèle.

The three got to their feet, and each made obeisance after his

kind--Buonespoir ducking awkwardly, his blue eyes bulging with

pleasure, Lemprière swelling with vanity and spreading wide

acknowledgment of their presence, the fool condescending a wave of

welcome.

“Oh, abundant Amicitia!” cried the fool to the Duke’s Daughter, “thou

art saved by so doing. So get thee to thanksgiving and God’s mercy.”

[Illustration: “THEY SAW, SMILING AND APPLAUSIVE, THE DUKE’S DAUGHTER

AND ANGÈLE”]

“Wherefore am I saved by being drawn from my meals by thy music,

fool?” she asked, linking her arm in Angèle’s.

“Because thou art more enamoured of lampreys than of man; and it is

written that thou shalt love thy fellow-man, and he that loveth not

is lost; therefore, thou art lost if thou lingerest at meals.”

“Is it so, then? And this lady--what thinkest thou? Must she also

abstain and seek good company?”

“No, verily, Amicitia, for she is good company itself, and so she may

sleep in the larder and have no fear.”

“And what think you--shall she be happy? Shall she have gifts of

fate?”

“Discriminately so, Amicitia. She shall have souvenirs and no

suspicions of fate. But she shall not linger here, for all lingerers

in Delicio’s court are spied upon--not for their souls’ good. She

shall go hence, and--”

“Ay, princely lady, she shall go hence,” interposed Lemprière, who

had panted to speak and could bear silence no longer. “Her high

Majesty will kiss her on the brow, and in Jersey Isle she shall

blossom and bloom and know bounty--or never more shall I have

privilege and perquage.”

He lumbered forward and kissed Angèle’s hand as though conferring

distinction, but with great generosity. “I said that all should go

well, and so it shall. Rozel shall prevail. The Queen knows on what

rock to build, as I made warrant for her, and will still do so.”

His vanity was incorrigible, but through it ran so childlike a spirit

that it bred friendship and repulsed not. The Duke’s Daughter pressed

the arm of Angèle, who replied:

“Indeed, it has been so according to your word, and we are--I

am--shall ever be beholden. In storm you have been with us, so true a

pilot and so brave a sailor; and if we come to port and the quiet

shore, there shall be spread a feast of remembrance which shall never

grow cold, seigneur.”

“One ingle-nook right warm shall be

Where my heart hath good company,”

sang the fool, and catching by the arm Buonespoir, who ducked his

head in farewell, ran him into the greenwood. Angèle came forward as

if to stay Buonespoir, but stopped short reflectively. As she did so

the Duke’s Daughter whispered quickly into Lemprière’s ear.

Swelling with pride he nodded, and said, “I will reach him and

discover myself to him, and bring him, if he stray, most undoubted

and infallible lady,” and with an air of mystery he made a heavily

respectful exit.

Left alone, the two ladies seated themselves in the bower of roses

and for a moment were silent. Presently the Duke’s Daughter laughed

aloud.

“In what seas of dear conceit swims your leviathan seigneur,

heart’s-ease?”

Angèle stole a hand into the cool palm of the other.

“He was builded for some lonely sea all his own. Creation cheated

him. But God give me ever such friends as he, and I shall, indeed,

‘have good company’ and fear no issue.” She sighed.

“Remains there still a fear? Did you not have good promise in the

Queen’s words _that night_?”

“Ay, so it seemed, and so it seemed before--on May Day, and yet--”

“And yet she banished you, and tried you, and kept you heart-sick?

Sweet, know you not how bitter a thing it is to owe a debt of love to

one whom we have injured? So it was with her. The Queen is not a

saint, but very woman. Marriage she hath ever contemned and hated;

men she hath desired to keep her faithful and impassioned servitors.

So does power blind us. And the braver the man, the more she would

have him in her service, at her feet, the centre of the world.”

“I had served her in a crisis, an hour of peril. Was naught due me?”

The Duke’s Daughter drew her close. “She never meant but that all

should be well. And because you had fastened on her feelings as never

I have seen another of your sex, so for the moment she resented it;

and because De la Forêt was yours--ah, if you had each been naught to

the other, how easy it would have run! Do you not understand?”

“Nay, then, and yea, then--and I put it from me. See, am I not happy

now? Upon your friendship I build.”

“Sweet, I did what I could. Leicester filled her ears with poison

every day, mixed up your business with great affairs with France,

sought to convey that you both were not what you are, until at last I

counter-marched him.” She laughed merrily. “Ay, I can laugh now, but

it was all hanging by a thread, when my leech sent his letter that

brought you to the palace. It had grieved me that I might not seek

you or write to you in all those sad days; but the only way to save

you was by keeping the Queen’s command; for she had known of

Leicester’s visits to you, of your meeting in the maze, and she was

set upon it that alone, all alone, you should be tried to the last

vestige of your strength. If you had failed--”

“If I had failed--” Angèle closed her eyes and shuddered. “I had not

cared for myself, but Michel--”

“If you had _failed_ there had been no need to grieve for Michel. He

had not grieved for thee. But see, the wind blows fair, and in my

heart I have no fear of the end. You shall go hence in peace. This

morning the Queen was happier than I have seen her these many years:

a light was in her eye brighter than showeth to the court. She talked

of this place, recalled the hours spent here, spoke even softly of

Leicester. And that gives me warrant for the future. She has relief

in his banishment, and only recalls older and happier days when, if

her cares were no greater, they were borne by the buoyancy of

girlhood and youth. Of days spent here she talked until mine own eyes

went blind. She said it was a place for lovers, and if she knew any

two lovers who were true lovers, and had been long parted, she would

send them here.”

“There be two true lovers, and they have been long parted,” murmured

Angèle.

“But she commanded these lovers not to meet till Trinity Day, and she

brooks not disobedience even in herself. How could she disobey her

own commands? But”--her eyes were on the greenwood and the path that

led into the circle--“but she would shut her eyes to-day and let the

world move on without her, let lovers thrive and birds be nesting

without heed or hap. Disobedience shall thrive when the Queen

connives at it--and so I leave you to your disobedience, sweet.”

With a laugh she sprang to her feet and ran. Amazed and bewildered,

Angèle gazed after her. As she stood looking she heard her name

called softly.

Turning, she saw Michel. They were alone.