GERVASE and Anne had been taken the previous evening from Richmond to
the Tower. They were placed in a prison as dismal as on that occasion
of their first meeting, which now seemed so far away in the past. But
Gervase was better able now to prepare himself for the grim fate that
too surely awaited him.
Both these children of destiny had had many weeks in which to make
ready for that which was now to befall them. Their souls were numb.
Long ago, they had given up all hope of life. Indeed, they had almost
given up all desire of it, such had been their sufferings. The only
boon they now craved of Providence was that they might be allowed to
die together.
In the course of the afternoon of the first day of their imprisonment,
word was brought to them that the Queen desired to see them at once,
that they were to be carried before her immediately, and that she
herself would there and then decide their fate.
They looked for no clemency. Unknown to each other, the prisoners
were borne again to the palace at Richmond, each in a separate closed
carriage, jealously guarded by soldiers with drawn swords. The gorgeous
sunlight streamed in through the windows of their coaches, the dust
of midsummer whirled around the wheels, but their minds were withdrawn
from all outward and visible things. They felt they were going to their
death. God grant that it be given to them to embrace it together!
On their arrival at the palace, shortly after six o’clock, they were
taken at once to an antechamber, which was next the Queen’s own
apartment. Here they met again. And the solemn-faced, harsh-looking men
who had them in their care had enough humanity to stand apart, while
Anne yielded herself to the arms of Gervase.
“Have you the dagger?” she whispered, shaking convulsively.
“Alas! they have found it,” said Gervase. “If only I had it now, I
would plunge it into your heart ... my life!”
“Oh, if only you had it!”
They had not long to wait for the dread summons to the Queen. All too
soon appeared the Lord Treasurer. At once, he ushered them into the
room where the Queen sat.
Gervase had cast off his disguise. No longer was he the aged and
bearded Italian music master, but a trim and rather fine young man,
dressed very soberly, to be sure, yet affecting a style not out of
place at that Court, of which less than a year ago he had been an
ornament.
Anne remained, however, in her charming boy’s dress of the previous
day. The lean grace of outline was rendered more poignant by the thin
brown cheeks, the bright, grave eyes, the head of close-clipt curls.
In the wistfulness of this frail figure, chastened by the long night
of the soul, there was a pathos which struck at the hearts of all who
beheld it.
Besides, the Queen and the Lord Treasurer, there was one other person
in the room. Gervase and Anne, for all that they were passing through
a nightmare of dull terror, were sensible of a presence in the
background. It was their friend the play-actor, grave of look and yet
unfearing; gentle, pitiful, and yet secure of soul. Somehow, the sight
of him who had done so much, who had put his fortunes to the proof,
nay, even life itself, that he might help them, moved these hapless
lovers to new courage.
From the gentle face of this man, all compassion, all tenderness, their
eyes sought that of the Queen. That was a very different countenance.
And yet, as those hawklike eyes met theirs, a curious light ran
in them. It was almost as if, in spite of herself, Elizabeth had
been moved by the sight of this shadowy, yet dauntless thing, this
_Rosalind_ who yesterday had charmed her with her coquetry, her grace,
her sorcery of voice and look.
“Mistress Feversham”--the harsh voice seemed to assault their ears, so
sharp it was, so merciless--“I am given to understand you are a woman.
But let me say that, in the moment I saw you first, I knew that you
were that.” Here the voice fell away with the oddest suddenness. A
tense moment passed in which it seemed that the sovereign could hardly
trust herself to speak. “And, by God, you are a brave woman! ... a very
brave woman, even if you are a very froward one.”
The Queen turned abruptly to the Lord Treasurer. There was a sour and
cruel smile on the thin lips.
“Do we understand,” she said, “that there is a boon Mistress Feversham
would crave at our hands?”
A silence followed the question--a silence in which Elizabeth and her
minister looked without pity upon the shrinking pair who stood before
them.
In the next instant, Anne had cast herself on her knees at the Queen’s
feet.
But it was left to Gervase to speak. And he spoke as one who proudly
asks a favor to which he feels he has clearly established a claim.
“Your grace.” The young man sank to his knees. “We crave of your mercy
that we be permitted to die together.”
The Queen’s answer was a swift glance at the Lord Treasurer. And then,
perhaps, it may have been that she felt a sudden sting of remorse for
the cruel nature of the play she was enacting. Yet the face of her
adviser was as cold as stone. It bore no trace of feeling. And it may
have been that such an impassiveness smote the heart of one who, after
all, was a woman, with all a woman’s emotions.
Involuntarily, as it seemed, the Queen turned her eyes from Cecil
toward that other, that more human witness of the scene. Unconsciously,
as if at the beck of an invisible power, her imperious gaze sought the
mild one of him whose life was passed in the making of plays. His face,
averted from a sight it could not endure, was melted with tears.
Of a sudden, something stirred in the Queen’s heart. It was such a
pang of nature as had not touched it for many a long year. The time
was surely at hand in which to make an end of the cruel comedy. Upon a
quick impulse in which the woman alone bore a part, and the tyrannical
arbitress of life and death had no share, she raised the unhappy girl
in her arms and gravely kissed her on the forehead.
“You are a brave thing,” cried the harsh, rough voice. “By God, you are
a brave thing. You shall suffer no more. Our pardon shall be granted to
you, and also to this young man against whom as we are informed----”
But the sentence so fraught with destiny was never finished. The frail
form had grown stiff and cold in the arms of the Queen.