The Duchess was frowning for all she was worth. Alicia and Barbara tried to look serious, but were obviously only too ready to join in any frolic which happened to be passing in Ursula Glynde's lively little head.
"Oh!" said the latter, as soon as she had partially recovered her breath. "Oh! I vow 'tis the best of the bunch."
With the freedom of a spoilt child, who knows how welcome are its caresses, Ursula sidled up to the Duchess of Lincoln and sat down upon the arm of her chair.
"Your Grace, a share of your seat I entreat," she said gaily, heedless of stern looks. "Nay! I'll die of laughing unless you let me read you this."
"Child! child!" admonished the Duchess, still trying to look severe, "this loud laughter is most unseemly—and your cheeks all ablaze! What is it now?"
"What is it, sweet Grace?" responded the young girl. "A poem! Listen!"
She smoothed out the piece of paper, spread it out upon her knee and began reading solemnly:—
"If all the world were sought so farreWho could find such a wight?Her beauty twinkleth like a starreWithin the frosty night.Her roseall colour comes and goesWith such a comely grace,More ruddier too than doth the rose,Within her lively face."
"If all the world were sought so farreWho could find such a wight?Her beauty twinkleth like a starreWithin the frosty night.Her roseall colour comes and goesWith such a comely grace,More ruddier too than doth the rose,Within her lively face."
"And beneath this sonnet," she continued, "a drawing—see!—a heart pierced by a dagger.Hisheart—mybeauty which twinkleth like a starre!"
Who could resist the joy and gladness, the freshness, the youth, the girlishness which emanated from Ursula's entire personality? The two other girls pressed closely round her, giggling like school-children at sight of the rough, sentimental device affixed to the love poem.
The Duchess vainly endeavoured to keep up a semblance of sternness, but she could not meet those laughing eyes, now dark, now blue, now an ever-changing grey, alive with irrepressible mischief, yet full of loving tenderness. She felt that her wrath would soon melt in the sunshine of that girlish smile.
"Lady Ursula, this is most unseemly," she said as coldly as she could. "How came you by this poem?"
Ursula threw her arms round the feebly-resisting old dame.
"Hush!" she whispered, "in your dear old ears! I found it, sweet Duchess . . . beside my stockings . . . when I came out of my bath!"
"Horror!"
"Now, Duchess! dear, sweet, darling, beautiful Duchess, tell me, who think you wrote this poem? And who—whothink you placed it near my stockings?"
The Duchess was almost speechless, partly through genuine horror, but chiefly because a sweet, fresh face was pressed closely to her old cheek.
"'Twas not the Earl of Norfolk," continued Ursula meditatively. She seemed quite unconscious of the enormity of her offence, and sought the eyes of her young friends in confirmation of these various surmises. "He cannot write verses. Nor could it be my lord of Overcliffe, for he would not know where to find my stockings."
"The vanity of the child!" sighed Her Grace. "Think you these great gentlemen would write verses to a chit of a girl like you?"
But her kind eyes, resting with obvious pride on the dainty figure beside her, belied the severity of her words.
"Yes," replied Ursula decisively, "bad ones!—not such beautiful verses as these."
Then she went on with her conjectures.
"And there's my lord of Everingham, and the Marquis of Taunton, and——"
"His Grace of Wessex," suggested Alicia archly, despite the Duchess's warning frown.
"Alas, no!" sighed Ursula, "for he has never been allowed to see me."
"Ursula!" came in ever-recurring feeble protests from the old dowager.
But the young girl was wholly unabashed.
"But hewillsee me—before to-night," she said.
The others exchanged significant glances.
"To-night?"
"Yes! What have I said? Why do you all look like that?"
"Because your conduct, child, is positively wanton," said the Duchess.
But Ursula only hugged the kind old soul all the more closely.
"Now—now," she coaxed, "don't be angry, darling. There!—look!" she added with mock horror, "your coif is all awry."
With deft fingers she rearranged the delicate lace cap over Her Grace's white curls.
"So," she said, "now you look pretty again—and your nice, fat cheeks have the sweetest of dimples. Nay, I vow, all these young gallants only sigh with love for me becauseyoufrown on them so!"
"What a madcap!" sighed the Duchess, mollified.
"You won't be angry with me?" queried the girl earnestly.
"Nay! that depends what mad pranks you have been after."
"Sh—sh!—sh!—'tis a deadly secret. Barbara, Alicia, come a little closer."
She paused a moment, whilst all three of them crowded round Her Grace of Lincoln's chair.
Then Ursula said solemnly—
"The Queen is in love with my future husband!"
The Duchess of Lincoln nearly fell backwards in a faint.
"Ursula!" she gasped.
"Nay, that's not the secret," continued Ursula, quite unperturbed, "for that is town-talk, and every one at Court knows that she won't let him see me for fear he should fall in love with me. And my lord Cardinal is furious because he wants the Queen to marry Philip of Spain, and he is wishing His Grace of Wessex down there, where all naughty Cardinals go."
"Child! . . . child! . . ."
"But the days are slipping by, darling," added the young girl, with just a shade of seriousness in her eyes. "All these intriguers may fight as much as they like, but if I do not wed His Grace of Wessex, if he should be inveigled into marrying the Queen, I must to the convent. My dear father made me swear it on his deathbed, when I was beside myself with grief, and scarce knew what I did. 'There is but one true gentleman to whom I would trust my child,' he said to me; 'swear to me, Ursula, that if Wessex claims you not, that you will never marry any one else, but spend your days in happy singleness in a convent. Swear it, little one.' He was so ill, so dear, I swore and——"
"The convent is the proper place for such a feather-brain as yourself," concluded the Duchess with as gruff a voice as she could command.
"But I do not wish to be a nun," protested Ursula, as tears began to gather in her eyes, "and I do want to wed Wessex, who is handsome—and gallant—and witty—and—and," she added coquettishly, "when he sees me—I vow he'll not let me go to a convent either, so——"
She leant closer to the kind dowager and once more whispered confidentially in her ear.
"So, as the Queen is engaged in prayers for at least half an hour, I've sent His Grace word by one of the pages that the Duchess of Lincoln desired his presence in this chamber—here!"
But this was really past bearing.
"I! . . ." exclaimed the Duchess in horror. "I? . . . desire his presence? . . . Merciful heavens! what will His Grace think?"
Once more Ursula, like the veritable child that she was, was dancing like mad round the room, now alone, clapping her tiny hands together, then seizing one of her companions by the waist, she whirled with her, round and round, until she fell back breathless against the Duchess's chair. And all the while her tongue went prattling on, now talking at top speed, anon singing out the words in the madness of her glee.
"And he is coming, dear Duchess," she said. "'He'll attend upon Her Grace at once!' these were his words to that pet of a page, and he'll see me—and—and——"
Now she paused, kneeling beside her old friend, putting coaxing arms round the bulky figure of the kind soul.
"But don't tell him my name all at once, Duchess darling," she whispered entreatingly; "let him fall in love with me without knowing that I am his affianced bride—for that might prejudice him against me. Justmumble something when he asks my name, and let me do the rest. Give me another kiss, darling. Alicia—Alicia," she cried in feverish anxiety, "is my kerchief straight at the back? and—and—oh, my hair!"
Still in that same madly-excited mood, she ran to a small oval mirror which hung on one of the walls, close to the great bay window.
The Duchess during that brief moment's respite tried to collect her scattered wits.
"But oh! what shall I say to His Grace?" she moaned distractedly. "Child! child! to your folly there is no end!"
A quickly smothered shriek from Ursula now brought the other girls to her side in the embrasure. She was pointing across the court to the gateway beneath the clock tower.
"He is coming!" she cried, with a slightly nervous tremor in her voice. "It is he, with my lord Everingham; they are laughing and talking together. . . . Oh, how handsome he looks!" she added enthusiastically. "My future husband,mylord, not the Queen's—mine own, mine own! Alicia, tell me, hast ever seen a more goodly sight than that ofmyfuture husband in that beautiful silken doublet and with that dear, dear dog of his walking so proudly behind him? Harry Plantagenet, thou'rt a lucky dog, and I'll kiss thee first, and—and——"
Then she ran back to the Duchess.
"Two minutes to mount the stairs, two more to cross the Great Hall, then the watching chamber, the presence chamber. . . . In six minutes he will be here—hush!—I hear a footstep! . . . Holy Virgin, how my heart beats!"
There had come a discreet knock at the door. All four women were too excited to respond, but the next moment the door was opened and a young page, dressed in thesame gorgeous livery which Henry VIII had originally prescribed, entered and bowed to the ladies.
Then he turned to the Duchess of Lincoln.
"Her Majesty the Queen desires the immediate presence of Her Grace and of her maids-of-honour in the Oratory."
There was dead silence in the room whilst the page once more bowed in the elaborate manner ordained by Court etiquette; then he walked backwards to the door, and stood there, holding it open ready for the ladies to pass.
"No, no, no!" whispered Ursula excitedly, as the Duchess immediately rose to obey.
"Ladies!" commanded Her Grace.
"One minute, darling," entreated Ursula, "just one short little minute!"
But where the Queen's commands were concerned Her Grace of Lincoln was adamant.
"Ladies!" she ordered once more.
Alicia and Barbara, though terribly disappointed at the failure of the exciting conspiracy, were ready enough to obey. Ursula wildly ran back to the window.
"I can see his silhouette and that of my lord Everingham slowly moving across the Great Hall," she said.
"Oh! why is he so slow?"
The Duchess turned to the page.
"Precede!" she commanded. "We'll follow."
She then pointed to the door. Alicia and Barbara, endeavouring to look grave, walked out with becoming dignity.
Her Grace went up to Ursula, who was still clinging to the window embrasure with passionate obstinacy.
"Lady Ursula Glynde," she said sternly, "if you do not obey Her Majesty's commands instantly, you'll be dismissed from the Court this very day."
And while His Grace of Wessex was slowly wending his way towards the chamber where he had been so eagerly expected, Lady Ursula, defiant and rebellious, was being peremptorily marshalled off in an opposite direction.
When Wessex, accompanied by his friend, reached the room which so lately was echoing with merry girlish laughter, he was met by a page, deputed by the Duchess of Lincoln to present her excuses to His Grace for her non-appearance.
"Nay! marry, this is the bravest comedy ever witnessed," laughed the Duke, when the boy had gone.
"What, my lord?" asked Everingham with seeming unconcern.
"A comedy, friend, in which the Queen, Her Grace of Lincoln, you, and His Eminence the Cardinal, all play leading rôles."
"I don't understand."
"Well done, man! Nay! I know not yet which of you will win; but this I know, that whilst I do my best to whisper sweet nothings in Her Majesty's ear, you are pleased, the Cardinal is furious, and the Duchess of Lincoln discreetly keeps my affianced bride out of my way."
"For this at least Your Grace should be grateful," rejoined his friend with a smile.
"Grateful that other people should guide my destiny for me? Well, perhaps! 'Twould certes have been ungallant to flee from danger, when danger takes the form of a future wife. I cannot picture myself saying to a lady: 'Madam, honour demands that I should wed you,and thus hath put it out of my power ever to love you.' But since the Lady Ursula is so unapproachable, marry!—methinks I am almost free!"
"Perchance it is the lady herself who avoids Your Grace."
"Nay! undoubtedly she does. Poor girl! how she must hate the very thought of me. Her dear father, I fear me, was wont to sing my praises in her childish ears; now that she hath arrived at years of discretion, my very name must have become an obsession to her. Obviously even a convent must be preferable. Then why this mad desire to keep us apart? Mutual understanding would do that soon enough."
The two men had once more turned to go back the way they came; slowly they strolled across the vast and lofty rooms and through the Great Hall, which, deserted at this time of day, was the scene of so much gaiety and magnificence during the evening hours.
"Your Grace, methinks, must be mistaken," said Everingham after a while; "there is, at any rate on the part of your friends, no desire to keep you and the Lady Ursula apart; you are best judge of your own honour, my lord, and no one would presume to dictate to you; but the most sensitive conscience in England could but hold the opinion that, whilst the lady may feel bound by her promise to her father, you are as free as air—free to wed whom you choose."
"By the mass! what an anomaly, friend! Free to wed! free to wear fetters! the most terrible chains ever devised by the turpitude of man."
"Marriage is a great institution——"
"Nay! 'tis an evil one, contrived out of malice by priests and old maids to enchain a woman who would rather be free to a man who speedily becomes bored."
"Nay! but when that woman is a queen?"
"Take off her crown and what is she, friend?" rejoined His Grace lightly. "A woman . . . to be desired, of course, to be loved, by all means—but at whose feet we should only recline long enough to make all other men envious, and one woman jealous."
Everingham frowned. He hated this flippant, careless mood of his friend. He did not understand it. To him the idea of such a possibility as a union with the Queen of England was so great, so wonderful, so superhuman almost, that he felt that the man who deserved such incommensurate honour should spend half his days on his knees, thanking God for such a glorious destiny.
That Wessex hung back when Mary herself was holding out her hand to him seemed to this enthusiast almost a sacrilege.
"But surely you have ambition, my lord?" he said at last.
"Ambition?" replied Wessex with characteristic light-heartedness. "Yes, one!—to be a boy again."
"Nay! an you were that now, you could not understand all that England expects of you. The Queen is harassed by the Cardinal and the Spanish ambassador. Philip but desires her hand in order to lay the iron heel of Spain upon the neck of submissive England. Your Grace can save us all. Mary loves you, would wed you to-morrow."
"And send me to the block for my infidelities—supposed or real—the day after, and be free to wed Philip or the Dauphin after all."
"I'll not believe it."
"Friend! do you know what you ask of me? To marry—that is to say to give up all that makes life poetic, beautiful, amusing, the love which lasts a day, the delights which live one hour, woman in her most alluringaspect, the unattainable; and in exchange what do you offer me—the smaller half of a crown."
"The gratitude of a nation . . ." protested Everingham.
"Ah! A woman, however fickle she may be, is more constant than a nation . . . As for gratitude? . . . nay, my lord . . . let us not speak of the gratitude of nations."
"This is not your last word, friend," pleaded Lord Everingham earnestly.
They had reached the foot of the stairs, and were once more under the gateway of the clock tower, where Lady Ursula Glynde had caught sight of them from the great bay-window opposite.
It was a glorious afternoon. October, always lovely in England, was more beautiful and mellow this year than it had ever been. Wessex paused a moment, with his slender hand placed affectionately on his friend's shoulder. He looked round him—at the great windows of the hall, the vast enclosure of the Base Court beyond, the distant tower of the chapel visible above the fantastic roofs and gables of Henry VIII's chambers, the massive, imposing grandeur of the great pile which had seen so many tragedies, witnessed so many sorrows, so many downfalls, such treachery and such horrible deaths. A shudder seemed to go through his powerful frame, a look of resolution, of pride, and of absolute disdain crept into his lazy, deep-set eyes. Then he said quietly—
"That is my last word, friend. I'll never be made a puppet on which to hang the cloak of political factions and intrigues. My life belongs to my country, but neither my liberty nor my self-respect. If my friendship will help to influence the Queen into refusing to wed the King of Spain I'll continue to exert it to the best of my ability, but I'll not become Her Majesty's lapdog, nor the tool of my friends."
Then once more the hardness and determination vanished from his face; the nonchalance and careless idleness of the grand seigneur was alone visible now.
With easy familiarity he linked his arm through that of Everingham.
"Shall we rejoin Her Majesty on the terrace?" he said lightly. "She will have finished her orisons, and will be awaiting us. Come, Harry!"
A merry company was gathered on the terrace, which, fronting the ill-fated Cardinal Wolsey's rooms, descended in elegantly sloping grades down to the old Pond Garden, giving an exquisite view across the tall, trim hedges, the parterres gay with late summer flowers, and the green bosquets of lilac and yew, to the serpentine river and distant landscape beyond.
Mary Tudor had indeed finished her afternoon orisons. She had recited her rosary in the chapel, kneeling before the altar and surrounded by her maids-of-honour: no doubt she had prayed for the Virgin's help to aid her in the accomplishment of the one great wish which lay so near to her heart.
She was this afternoon expecting the arrival of a special envoy from His Holiness the Pope, and had to curtail her prayers in consequence. She had strolled back to the terrace, because His Eminence the Cardinal de Moreno was there, the ambassador of His Most Catholic Majesty the King of Spain, also the Duc de Noailles, who represented the King of France, and Scheyfne, who watched over the interests of the Emperor Charles V in this game of political conflicts, wherein the hand of the Queen of England was the guerdon.
Mary Tudor watched them all with a sleepy eye. She felt dreamy and contented this beautiful afternoon: was not the envoy from Rome bringing her a special blessing from His Holiness? and what could that blessing bebut the love of the one man in all the world to whom she would gladly have given her hand to hold and her lips to kiss?
She sighed as she settled herself down on the straight-backed chair which she affected. Noailles and Scheyfne hurried eagerly towards her. His Eminence bowed low as she approached, but her eyes wandered restlessly round her in search of the one form dear to her, and she frowned impatiently when she missed the proud, handsome face, whose smile alone could bring hers forth in response.
She listened with but half an ear to Noailles' platitudes, or to His Eminence's smooth talk, until close by she heard the well-known step. She did not turn her head. Her heart, by its sudden, rapid beating, had told her that he was there.
Mary Tudor was not quite forty then, a woman full of the passionate intensity of feeling, characteristic of the Tudors, neither beautiful nor yet an adept at women's wiles; but when she heard Wessex' footsteps on the flagstones of the terrace, her whole face lighted up with that radiance which makes every woman fair—the radiance of a whole-hearted love.
"Nay, my lord Cardinal," she said with sudden impatience, "Your Eminence has vaunted the beauties of Spain long enough to-day. I feel sure," she added, half turning towards Wessex, "that His Grace, though a truant from our side, will hold a brief for Merrie England against you."
The Duke, as he approached, scanned with a lazy eye the brilliant company gathered round the Queen; an amused smile, made up partly of sarcasm, wholly of insouciance, glimmered in his eyes as he caught the frown, quickly suppressed, which appeared on the Cardinal's shrewd, clever face.
"Nay, His Eminence hath but to look on our Sovereign Lady," he said, as he gallantly kissed the tips of the royal hand, graciously extended to him, "to know that England hath naught to envy Spain."
Mary, with the rapid intuition of the woman who loves, seemed to detect a more serious tone in Wessex' voice than was his wont. She looked inquiringly at him. The thoughts, engendered in his mind by Everingham's earnestness and enthusiasm, had left their shadow over his lighter mood.
"You look troubled, my lord!" she said anxiously.
"What trouble I had Your Grace's presence has already dispelled," he replied gently.
It amused him to watch the discomfited faces of his political antagonists, whose presence now Mary seemed completely to ignore. Her whole personality was transformed in his presence: she looked ten years younger; her heavy, slow movements appeared suddenly to gain in elasticity.
She rose and beckoned to Wessex to accompany her. Neither Noailles nor Scheyfne cared to follow, fearing a rebuke.
His Eminence the Cardinal de Moreno alone, seeing her turn towards the gardens, ventured on a remark.
"At what hour will Your Majesty deign to receive the envoy of His Holiness?" he asked unctuously.
"As soon as he arrives," replied the Queen curtly.
His Eminence watched the two figures disappearing down the stone steps of the terrace. There was a troubled, anxious look in his keen eyes. The first inkling had just dawned upon him that perhaps he might fail in his mission after all.
A new experience for the Cardinal de Moreno.
When Philip of Spain desired to wed Mary of England he chose the one man in all Europe most able to carry hiswishes through. A perfect grand seigneur, veritable prince of the Church, but a priest only in name, for he had never taken Holy Orders, His Eminence shone in every circle wherein he appeared, through the brilliancy of his intellect, the charm and suavity of his manner, and above all by that dominating personality of his, whichwilledso strongly what he desired to obtain.
Willed it at times—so his enemies said—without scruple. Well, perhaps! and if so, why not? would be His Eminence's own argument.
Heaven had given him certain weapons: these he used in order to get Heaven's own ends. And in the mind of the Cardinal de Moreno, Heaven was synonymous with the political interests of the Catholic Church. England was too fine a country to be handed over to the schismatic sect without a struggle, the people were too earnest, too deeply religious to be allowed to remain in the enemy's camp.
And His Eminence was not only fighting for an important political alliance for his royal master, but also for the reconquest of Catholic England. Wessex, a firm yet unostentatious adherent of the new faith, was to him an opponent in every sense.
When the Cardinal first landed in England he had been assured that the volatile and nonchalant Duke would never become a serious obstacle to Spanish plans.
The Duke? Perhaps not. But there was the Queen herself, half sick for love! and women's follies have ere now upset the most deeply laid, most important plans.
"Ah, my friend!" sighed His Eminence with ill-concealed irritation, as the Marquis de Suarez came idly lounging beside him, "alas! and alack-a-day! when diplomacy hath to reckon with women. . . . Look at that picture!" he added, pointing with be-ringed, slender, tapering finger to the figures of Wessex and Mary Tudor disappearing amid the bosquets of the park, "and thinkthat the destinies of Europe depend upon how a woman of forty can succeed in chaining that butterfly."
Don Miguel too had followed with frowning eyes the little comedy just enacted upon the terrace. His intellect, though perhaps not so keen as that of his chief, was nevertheless sufficiently on the alert to recognize that Mary Tudor had distinctly intended to administer a snub to the entire diplomatic corps, by her marked preference for Wessex' sole company.
"Chance certainly, seems against your schemes and mine, my lord Cardinal," he said; "for that butterfly is heart-free and indolent, whilst the woman of forty is a queen."
"Indolent, yes," mused His Eminence, "but ambitious?"
"His friends will supply the ambition," rejoined Don Miguel; "and the Crown of England is a heavy prize."
The Cardinal did not speak for a moment. He seemed buried in thought.
"I was thinking of the beautiful Lady Ursula Glynde," he said meditatively after a while.
"Beautiful indeed. But His Grace is never allowed to see her."
"But when he does——"
"Oh! if I judge him rightly, when he does see her—she is passing beautiful, remember—his roving fancy will no doubt be enchained for—shall we say—half an hour—perhaps half a day. . . . What then?"
"Half an hour!" mused the Cardinal. "Much may be done in half an hour, my lord Marquis."
"Bah!"
"In half an hour a woman, even if she be a queen, might become piqued and jealous, and the destinies of Europe will be shaped accordingly."
His keen grey eyes were searching the bosquets, trying to read what went on behind the dark yew hedges of the park.
"To think that the fate of Catholic Europe should depend upon the chance meeting of a young girl and a Court gallant," sighed Don Miguel impatiently.
"The fate of empires has hung on more slender threads than these ere now, my son," rejoined His Eminence quietly; "diplomacy is the art of seeming to ignore the great occasions whilst seizing the small opportunity."
He said nothing more, for at that same moment there came to his ears, gently echoing across the terrace, the sound of a half-gay, half-melancholy ditty. A pure, girlish voice was singing somewhere within the Palace, like a young caged bird behind the bars, at sight of the brilliant sunshine above.
Don Miguel gave a short sarcastic laugh.
"The Lady Ursula's voice," he said.
Then he pointed to the more distant portion of the garden, where Wessex and Mary were once more seen strolling slowly back towards the terrace.
A look of expectancy, of shrewd and sudden intuition crept into the Cardinal's handsome face. The eyes lighted up as if with a quick, bright, inward vision, whilst the thin lips seemed to close with a snap, as if bent on guarding the innermost workings of the mind.
He took his breviary from his pocket and began walking along the flagstones of the terrace in the direction whence the song had come. His head was bent; apparently he was deeply absorbed in the Latin text.
Don Miguel had not followed him. He knew that his chief wished to be alone. He watched the crimson robes slowly fading away into the distance. The Cardinal presently disappeared round the angle formed by Wolsey's rooms. Beyond these were the fine chambers built by Henry VIII. The sweet song still came from there, wafted lightly on the summer breeze.
Five minutes later His Eminence's brilliantly clad figure once more reappeared round the angle of the Palace. The breviary was no longer in his hands.
A few moments later he had joined Don Miguel, and together the two men watched the Queen and Wessex, as they drew nearer to the terrace steps.
A smile was on His Eminence's lips, suave, slightly sarcastic, and at the same time triumphant, yet at this very instant when he seemed so pleased with himself, or with events in general, Mary Tudor was looking with loving anxiety in His Grace of Wessex' eyes.
"I seem unable to cheer you to-day, my dear lord," she said. "What has become of your usual gay spirits?"
"Gone eavesdropping on my lord Cardinal," replied the Duke with a smile, as he spied the crimson robes on the top of the steps, "to find out how soon a King of Spain will rule over England and capture the heart of our Queen."
Mary paused and suddenly laid an eager hand on his wrist.
"Methought you cared nothing for the affairs of state," she said with some sadness, "and still less as to who shall rule over the heart of your Queen."
"Shall I dismiss the Spanish ambassador?" she added in an excited whisper, "and His Eminence?—and M. de Noailles? . . . all of them? . . . I have not yet given my answer. Will you dictate it, my lord?"
He looked up and saw the Cardinal's piercing eyes fixed steadily upon him. For one moment he hesitated. His Eminence looked so sure of himself, so proud of his ascendency over this impulsive woman, that just for the space of five seconds the thought crossed his mind that he would yield to the entreaties of his friends, and wrest the crown of England from the grasping hands of these foreigners, all eagerly waiting to snatch it for themselves.
As the Cardinal himself had said, but a short while ago, "the destinies of empires oft hang on more slender threads than these." No doubt none knew better than the shrewd Spaniard himself, how nigh he was at that moment to losing the great game which he played.
Who knows?—if at this instant the sudden commotion on the terrace had not stopped the words on Wessex' lips, how different might have been the destinies of England! But just as His Grace would have spoken, the major-domo's voice rang out:—
"The envoy of His Holiness the Pope awaits Her Majesty in the audience chamber."
"The envoy of His Holiness," said His Eminence with his usual suavity, as he stepped forward to meet the Queen, "and I am to have the honour of introducing him to your Majesty."
The major-domo, who had announced the news, was standing at some little distance with the pages who had accompanied him. The rest of the Court had dispersed when Mary strolled off with the Duke; only two or three ladies, in immediate attendance on the Queen, were laughing and chattering close by.
The Palace itself seemed astir with new movement and life, horses were stamping in the flagged courts, men were heard running and shouting, whilst the rhythmic sound of a brass trumpet at intervals announced the important arrival.
But through all this noise and bustle, the sweet, sad ditty sung by a fresh young voice still seemed to fill the air.
Mary was visibly chafing under this sudden restraint put upon her by rigid ceremonial. His Holiness' envoy could not be kept waiting, though she, poor woman, was burning with desire to prolong the happytête-à-têtewith the man she loved.
She felt His Eminence's eyes watching her every movement. She threw him a defiant look, then peremptorily ordered the major-domo and the pages to precede her.
His Grace of Wessex, on the other hand, seemed obviously relieved. He had turned his head in the direction whence came that girlish song, and appeared to be listening intently.
"Will you accompany us, my lord?" said the Queen in a tone of obvious command. "I must not keep the envoy of His Holiness waiting, and have need of your presence."
She placed her hand on his arm. Respect and chivalry compelled him to obey, yet he seemed loath to go.
"The Lady Ursula's song seems to fascinate His Grace of Wessex," whispered Don Miguel in His Eminence's ear.
"Hush! the small opportunity, my lord Marquis," whispered the Cardinal in reply.
"Have I the honour of following Your Majesty?" he added respectfully, bowing to the Queen.
"Nay, on our left, Your Eminence," rejoined Mary coldly.
Her right hand was still on Wessex' arm, and slowly, as if reluctantly, she began to move in the direction of the Palace. Don Miguel, at an almost imperceptible sign from his chief, had quickly disappeared down the terrace steps.
"Ah! my breviary!" suddenly exclaimed His Eminence in great perturbation. "I forgot it on the terrace!—the Nuncio will desire a prayer, and I am helpless without my Latin text! . . . If Your Majesty will deign to forgive one moment. . . ."
He made a movement as if he would turn back.
From the further end of the terrace the young singer was continuing her song.
"Will Your Eminence allow me?" said the Duke of Wessex with alacrity.
"With pleasure, my dear lord," responded the Cardinal urbanely. "Ah! had I your years and you mine, 'twere my pleasure to serve you. . . . And Her Majesty will excuse . . ." he added pointedly, for His Grace was quite ready to withdraw, whilst Mary was equally prepared to stop him with a look. "Will Your Majesty deign to place your hand on my arm? The envoy of His Holiness the Pope awaits your Most Catholic Majesty."
He was standing before her, outwardly respectful and full of deference. The pages and ladies had already disappeared within the Palace, whilst the Duke of Wessex, taking the Queen's silence for consent, had turned back towards the distant part of the terrace.
Mary, with all her weaknesses where her affections were concerned, was too proud to let this Spaniard see that she felt baffled and not a little humiliated. She guessed that this had been a ruse, a trap into which she had fallen. How it had all been done she knew not, but she could easily guess why.
She smothered the angry words which had risen to her lips, and without looking either to the right or left of her, she walked quickly towards the Palace.
Ursula had had a good cry.
She was a mere girl, only just out of her teens; she had been hideously disappointed and had given way to a paroxysm of tears, just like a child that has been cheated of its toys.
As far as her actual feelings for Wessex were concerned, she scarcely troubled to analyse them. As a tiny child she had worshipped the gallant boy, who had always been pointed out to her as the pattern of what an English nobleman should be, and moreover as the future husband who was to rule over her destiny.
No doubt that the Earl of Truro, lying on his deathbed, had but little real perception of what he was doing, when he forced his daughter to swear that she would marry Wessex or remain single to the end of her days.
But Ursula was thirteen years old then, and held an oath to her father to be the most sacred thing in the world. She had not seen Wessex for some years, but her girlish imagination had always endowed him with all those chivalrous attributes which her own father, whom she idolized, had already ascribed to him.
Love? Well, it scarce could be called that as yet. In spite of her score of years, Ursula had remained a child in thought, in feelings, in temperament. She had spent the last six or seven years within the precincts of old Truro Castle, watched over by her late father's faithfulservants, who brought her up and worshipped her, taught her what they knew, and obeyed her implicitly.
Her one idea, however, had remained, that of a marriage with Wessex. By right and precedence she could claim a place in the Queen of England's immediate entourage. As soon as she was old enough she asserted this claim, and journeyed to Esher in charge of an old aunt, who had supervised her education since her father's death.
Since then her one desire had been to meet the man to whom she had pledged her troth. She had seen him, oh! scores of times, since the day on which he came back to the Court, but Mary Tudor, bent on winning his love, had resolutely kept him away from the beautiful girl who, she instinctively felt, would prove a formidable rival.
It had been easy enough up to now. His Grace, partly in order to please his friends, even if only half believing that his influence would prevent Mary Tudor from contracting an alien marriage, had been in constant attendance on the Queen.
Ursula, on the other hand, had been relegated into the background. She knew this well and chafed at the restraint. Something seemed to tell her that if she could but see the Duke he would easily realize that it would not be very hard to fulfil the old earl's promise. She knew that she was beautiful, her own mirror and the admiration of the Court gallants had already told her that, and at the same time she felt within herself a magnetism which must inevitably draw him towards her.
But time was speeding on. Ursula's quick intelligence had very soon grasped the threads of the present political situation, whilst Mary Tudor, on the other hand, made no secret of her love for Wessex. The young girl was well aware of the many intrigues which were being hatched round the personality of the man whom she looked uponas her affianced husband, and guessed how much these were aided by the enamoured Queen.
His Eminence the Cardinal, the Duc de Noailles, Scheyfne, Don Miguel de Suarez, all were seeking to obtain a definite promise from Mary. The English faction, on the other hand, hoped to force the Duke into a marriage which was obviously distasteful to him.
Ursula, in the midst of these contending parties, was, nevertheless, determined to gain her end. Too unsophisticated to attempt a serious intrigue, she relied on her woman's instinct to guide her to success. Her little plot to bring His Grace to her presence that afternoon had failed, probably owing to the Queen's keen acumen; and the young girl, for the first time since her arrival at Court, felt genuinely mortified and not a little despairing of ultimate triumph.
The Duke, evidently, had no desire to meet her, or he would have accomplished that end somehow. There was not much that His Grace wished that did not sooner or later come to pass.
Obviously, for the moment, he was glad enough to remain free of those bonds which truly were none of his making. Chivalry alone might tempt him to fulfil Lord Truro's dying wishes, for the late Earl and the Duke's own father had been the closest of friends. Ursula's pride, however, would not allow her to appeal to that chivalry; what she wanted was to gain his love.
Out of her childish admiration for the boy had grown a kind of poetic interest in the man, more than fostered by the great popularity enjoyed by Wessex, and the praises of his personality sung on every side. Ursula was still too young to be in love with aught else save with love itself, with her own imaginative fancy, her own conception of what her future husband should be.
He should be good to look at—like Wessex. High-bornand gracious—like Wessex. A king among men, witty and accomplished—like Wessex.
"Holy Virgin! let me have him for mine own!" was her constant, childish prayer.
The girl was not yet a woman.
Thus musing and meditating, she strolled out into the garden, singing as she went. All the maids-of-honour had been bidden to wait on Her Majesty in the audience chamber, save Lady Ursula Glynde and Mistress Margaret Cobham, whose services would not be required. The Duchess of Lincoln, shrewdly guessing from this summons that His Grace of Wessex was in the Queen's company, had given the two young maids leave to wander whither they pleased.
Lazy Margaret had pleaded a headache and curled herself up in a window-embrasure with the express intention of doing nothing at all; but Ursula, with a burning desire for freedom and a longing for flowers, birds, and sunshine, had wandered out into the open.
A parterre of marguerites was laid out close to the terrace. Mooning, dreaming, singing, she had picked a bunch of these and was mechanically plucking their snow-white petals one by one.
Did she guess what a dainty picture she made, as she stood for one moment beside the pond, her shimmering gown of delicate white glistening against a background of dark green yews, her fair hair shining like gold beneath the soft rays of the October sun? Her sweet face was bent down, earnestly intent upon consulting the flowery oracle: a delicate shadow, that soft pearly grey tone beloved of Rubens, fell upon her girlish breast, her soft round arms, the dainty hands which held the marguerite.
"He loves me," she said, half audibly, "a little . . . passionately . . . not at all. He loves me . . . a little. . . ."
So wrapped up was she in these important rites, that she did not hear a muffled footstep upon the gravel. The next moment she felt two firm hands upon her waist, whilst a laughing voice completed the daisy's prophecy,—
"Passionately!"
She gave a little gasp, but did not immediately turn to look who the intruder was. Her woman's instinct had told her that, and then she knew—or guessed—the sound of his voice. The moment had come at last. It had been none of her seeking; she did not pause to think how it had all happened, she only felt that he was near her and that her life's happiness depended on whether he thought her fair.
The pleasant little demon of girlish coquetry whispered to her that, in the midst of this poetic setting of an old-world garden, he would be hard to please indeed if he did not fall a victim to her smile.
She turned and faced him.
"Ah!" she said, with a little cry of feigned surprise, "His Grace of Wessex! . . . I . . . I vow you frightened me, my lord . . . I thought this part of the garden quite deserted, and . . . and the Duke of Wessex at the feet of the Queen."
She looked divinely pretty as she stood there before him, a delicate, nervous little blush suffusing her young cheeks, her eyes veiled by a fringe of lashes slightly darker than her golden hair. As dainty a picture as this fastidious man had ever gazed upon.
"At your feet, fair one," he replied, with undisguised admiration expressed in his every look, "and burning with jealousy at thought of him, for whose sake your sweet fingers plucked the petal of that marguerite."
She still held the flower, half stripped of its petals; he put out his hand in order to take it from her, or perhaps merely for the sake of touching for one second the soft velvet of her own.
Harry Plantagenet, close by, had stretched himself out lazily in the sun.
"Oh!" said Ursula, a little confused, still a little shy and nervous, "that . . . that was for a favourite brother who is absent . . . and I wished to know if he had not forgotten me."
"Impossible," he replied with deep conviction, "even for a brother."
"Your Grace is pleased to flatter."
"The truth spoken to one so fair must ever seem a flattery."
"Your Grace. . . ."
He loved to watch the colour come and go in her face, the dainty, girlish movements, simple and unaffected, that little curl which looked like living gold beside the small, shell-like ear. His passionate love for the beautiful was more than satiated at the exquisite picture before him, and then she had such a musical and tender voice; he had heard her singing just now.
"But you seem to know me, fair one," he said after a while.
"Who does not know His Grace of Wessex?" she responded, making a pretty curtsy.
"Then let me be even with you, sweet singer, and tell me your name."
Ursula darted a sudden shy look at him. Obviously he was conveying the truth; he did not know who she was.
A quick thought crossed her mind; she looked demurely down her nose and said placidly,—
"My name is Fanny."
"Fanny?"
"Yes . . . you do not like it?"
"I didn't before," he said with a smile, "but now I adore it."
"I am getting to like it better too," she added thoughtfully.
"But, sweet Fanny, tell me how is it I never have seen you before."
"Your Grace does not know all the ladies of the Court."
"No! but I thought I knew all the pretty ones. Yet meseems that beauty was but an empty word now that I have seen its queen."
"Ah, my lord! I fear me your reputation doth not wrong you after all!" she added with a quaint little sigh.
"Why? What is my reputation?"
"They call you fickle, and say the Duke of Wessex loves many women a little . . . but constantly, not at all."
He came a step closer to her, and tried to meet her eyes.
"Then will you let me prove them wrong?" he said with sudden seriousness, which perhaps then he could not himself have accounted for.
"I? . . ." she said artlessly, "what must I do for that?"
"Anything you like," he replied.
"Nay, I have no power; for I fear me nothing short of putting Your Grace under lock and key would cure you of that fickleness."
"Then put me under lock and key," he suggested gaily.
"In an inaccessible tower?"
"Wherever you please."
She gave a merry, happy little laugh, for he was standing quite close to her now, his proud head slightly bent so that the quick, whispered words might easily reach her ears; and there was an unmistakable look of ardent admiration in his eyes. A demon of mischief suddenly seized her. She wondered whether he had guessed who she was and tried to nettle him into betraying himself.
"And to whom shall I give the key of that tower?" she said demurely. "To the Lady Ursula Glynde?"
"No," he replied. "Come inside and throw the key out of the window."
"But the Lady Ursula?" she persisted.
He made a quick gesture of mock impatience.
"What wanton cruelty to mention that name now," he said, "when mine ears are tuned to 'Fanny.'"
"Tis wrong they should be so tuned—Lady Ursula, they say, is your promised wife."
"But I do not love her . . . never could love her whilst——"
"They say she is not ill-favoured."
"Ill-favoured to me, like the bitter pills the medicine man gives us, whilst you——"
Once more she interrupted him quickly.
"You have never seen her," she protested, "you do not even know what she is like."
"Nay, I can guess. The Glyndes are all alike—sandy, angular, large-footed. . . ."
She laughed, a long, merry, rippling laugh which set his ears tingling with the desire to hear it once again. Ursula was indeed enjoying herself thoroughly.
"They all have brown eyes," he continued gaily, "and just now I feel as if I could not endure brown eyes."
She cast down her own, veiling them with her long lashes.
"What eyes could Your Grace best endure for the moment?" she said, with the same tantalizing demureness.
But something magnetic must have passed at that moment between these two young people, some subtle current from him to her, which forced the innocent young girl to raise her eyes almost against her will. He looked straight into their wonderful depths, and murmured softly,—
"The very bluest of the blue, and yet so grey, that I should feel they must somehow be green. . . ."
A little shudder had gone through her when first she met his ardent gaze; she tried to free herself from a sudden strange and delicious feeling of obsession, and said with somewhat forced merriment now:
"The Queen has greenish eyes, and Lady Ursula's are grey."
Then she held out the marguerite to him.
"Would you like to know which you love best?" she added. "Consult the marguerite, and take one petal at a time."
But he took the hand which held the flower.
"One petal at a time," he whispered. He took the slender fingers and kissed each in its turn: "This the softest . . . that the whitest . . . all rose-tipped . . . and a feast for the gods. . . ."
"My lord! . . ."
"Now you are frowning—you are not angry?"
"Very angry!"
"I'll make amends," he said humbly.
"How?"
"Give me the other hand, and I'll show you."
"Nay! I cannot do that, for we are told that the left hand must never know what the right hand doeth."
"It shall not," he rejoined earnestly, "for I'll tell it a different tale."
"What is it?"
"Give me the hand and you shall know."
Overhead in the green bosquets of yew a group of starlings began to twitter. The sun was just beginning to sink down in the west, throwing round the head of the fair young girl an aureole of gold. He stood watching her, happy in this the supreme moment of his life. A magic veil seemed to envelop him and her, shutting out all thatportion of the world which was not poetic and beautiful; and she, the priestess of this exquisite new universe in which he had just entered, was smilingly holding out her dainty hand to him.
He seized it, and a sudden wave of passion caused him to bend over it and to kiss its soft rosy palm.
"Nay, my lord," she murmured, confused, "that Your Grace should think of such follies!"
"Yet, when you look at me," he said, "I think of worse follies still."
"Women say that there is no worse folly than to listen to His Grace of Wessex."
"Do you think they are right?"
"How can I tell?"
"By listening to me for half an hour."
"Here, in this garden?"
"No! . . . there! . . . by the river. . . ."
And he pointed beyond the enclosure of the garden, there where the soft evening breeze gently stirred the rushes in the stream.
"Oh! . . . what would everybody say?" she exclaimed in mock alarm.
"Nothing! envy of my good fortune would make them dumb."
"But the Queen will be asking for you, and the Duchess of Lincoln wondering where I am."
"They shall not find us . . . for we'll pull the boat beyond the reeds . . . just you and I alone . . . with the gloaming all round us . . . and the twitter of the birds when they go to rest. Shall we go? . . ."
Her heart had already consented. His voice was low and persuasive, a strange earnestness seemed to vibrate through it, as he begged her to come with him.
Slowly she began to walk by his side towards the stream. She seemed scarcely alive now, a being from another worldwandering in the land of dreams. He said nothing more, for the world was too beautiful for speech. Youth, love, delight were coursing through his veins, and as he led the young girl towards the bank it seemed to him as if he were taking her away from this dull world of prose and humanity, far, far away through mysterious golden gates beyond the sunset, to a land where she would reign as queen.
The river beckoned to them, and the soft, misty horizon seemed to call. The intoxicating odour of summer's dying roses filled the air, whilst in the distance across the stream a nightingale began to sing.
The envoy of His Holiness had departed.
Mary Tudor had dismissed her ladies, for she wished to speak with the Cardinal de Moreno alone.
Throughout the audience with the papal Nuncio, His Eminence had already seen the storm-clouds gathering thick and fast on the Queen's brow. His Grace of Wessex, gone to fetch a breviary left accidentally on the terrace-coping, had been gone half an hour, and moreover had not yet returned.
Her Majesty had sent a page to request His Grace's presence. The page returned with the intimation that His Grace could not be found.
Someone had spied him in the distance walking towards the river, in company with a lady dressed in white.
Then the storm-clouds had burst.
The Queen peremptorily ordered every one out of the room, then she turned with real Tudor-like fury upon His Eminence.
"My lord Cardinal," she said in a quivering voice, which she did not even try to steady, "an you had your master's wishes at heart, you have indeed gone the wrong way to work."
The Cardinal's keen grey eyes had watched Mary's growing wrath with much amusement. What was a woman's wrath to him? Nothing but an asset, an additional advantage in the political game which he was playing.
Never for a moment did he depart, however, from his attitude of deepest respect, nor from his tone of suave urbanity.
"I seem to have offended Your Majesty," he said gently; "unwittingly, I assure you. . . ."
But Mary was in no mood to bandy polite words with the man who had played her this clever trick. She was angered with herself for having fallen into so clumsy a trap. A thousand suggestions now occurred to her of what she might have done to prevent the meeting between Wessex and Ursula, which the Cardinal had obviously planned.
"Nay! masks off, I pray Your Eminence," she said, "that trick just now with your breviary . . . Own to it, man! . . . own to it . . . are you not proud to have tricked Mary Tudor so easily?"
She was trembling with rage, yet looked nigh to bursting into tears. A shade almost of pity crossed His Eminence's cold and clever face. It seemed almost wantonly useless to have aided Fate in snatching a young and handsome lover from this ill-favoured, middle-aged woman.
But the Cardinal never allowed worldly sentiments of any kind to interfere, for more than one or two seconds, with the object he had in view. The look of pity quickly faded from his eyes, giving place to the same mask of respectful deference.
"My breviary?" he said blandly. "Nay! I am still at a loss to understand. . . . Ah, yes! I remember now. . . . I had left it on the balustrade. His Grace of Wessex, a pattern of chivalry, offered to fetch it for me, and——"
"A fine scheme indeed, my lord," interrupted the Queen impatiently, "to send the Duke of Wessex courting after my waiting-maid."
"The Duke of Wessex?" rejoined His Eminence with well-played astonishment. "Nay, methought I spied himjust now in the distance, keeping the vows he once made to the Lady Ursula Glynde."
"I pray you do not repeat that silly fairy-tale. His Grace made no promise. 'Twas the Earl of Truro desired the marriage, and the Duke had half forgotten this, until Your Eminence chose to interfere."
"Nay! but Your Majesty does me grave injustice. What have the amours of His Grace of Wessex to do with me, who am the envoy of His Most Catholic Majesty the King of Spain?"
"'Twere wiser, certainly," retorted Mary coldly, "if the King of Spain's envoy did not concern himself with rousing the Queen of England's anger."
His Eminence smiled as amiably, as unconcernedly as before. Throughout the length of a very distinguished career he had often been obliged to weather storms of royal wrath. He was none the worse for it, and knew how to let the floods of princely anger pass over his shrewd head, without losing grip of the ground on which he stood. Nothing ever ruffled him. Supremely conscious of his own dignity, justly proud of his position and attainments, he had, at the bottom of his heart, a complete contempt for those exalted puppets of his own political schemes. Mary Tudor, a weak and soured woman, an all-too-ready prey of her own passions, swayed hither and thither by her loves and by her hates, was nothing to this proud prince of the Church but a pawn in a European game of chess. It was for his deft fingers to move this pawn in the direction in which he list.
"Nay," he said, with gentle suavity, "my only desire is to rouse in the heart of the Queen of England love for my royal master, the King of Spain. He is young and goodly to look at, a faithful and gallant gentleman, whom it will be difficult to lure from Your Grace's side, once you have deigned to allow him to kneel at your feet."
"You speak, my lord, as if you were sure of my answer."
"Sure is a momentous word, Your Majesty. But I hope——"
"Nay! 'tis not yet done, remember," retorted Mary, with ever-increasing vehemence, "and if this trick of yours should succeed, if Wessex weds the Lady Ursula, then Iwillsend my answer to your master, and it shall be 'No!'"
There was a quick, sudden flash in the Cardinal's eye, a look of astonishment, perhaps, at this unexpected phase of feminine jealousy. Be that as it may, it was quickly veiled by an expression of pronounced sarcasm.
"As a trophy for the vanity of His Grace of Wessex?" he asked pointedly.
"No!—merely as a revenge against your interference. So look to it, my lord Cardinal; the tangle in the skein was made by your hand. See that you unravel it, or you and the Spanish ambassador leave my Court to-morrow."
With a curt nod of the head she dismissed him from her presence. He was far too shrewd to attempt another word just now. Perhaps for the first time in his life he felt somewhat baffled. He had allowed his own impatience to outrun his discretion—an unpardonable fault in a diplomatist. He blamed himself very severely for his attempt at brusquing Fate. Surely time and the Duke's own fastidious disposition would have parted him from Mary quite as readily as this sudden meeting with beautiful Lady Ursula.
The Cardinal had withdrawn from the Queen's presence after an obeisance marked with deep respect. He wished to be alone to think over this new aspect of the situation. Through the tall bay windows of the Great Hall which he traversed, the last rays of the setting sun came slanting in. His Eminence glided along the smooth oak floors, his crimson robes making but a gentlefrou-frou of sound behind him, a ghostlike, whispering accompaniment to his perturbed thoughts. Somehow the softness of the evening air lured him towards the terrace and the gardens. There lacked an hour yet to supper-time, and Mary Tudor was scarce likely to be in immediate need of His Eminence's company.
He crossed the Clock Tower gates and soon found himself once more on the terrace. The gardens beyond looked tenderly poetic in the fast-gathering dusk. The Cardinal's shrewd eyes wandered restlessly over the parterres and bosquets, vainly endeavouring to spy the silhouettes of two young people, whom his diplomacy had brought together and whom his shrewd wit would have to part again.
He descended the terrace steps and slowly walked towards the pond, where, but an hour ago, a sweet and poetic idyll had been enacted. There was nothing to mark the passage of a fair young dream, born this lovely October afternoon, save a few dead marguerites and the scattered flakes of their snow-white petals.
The Cardinal's footsteps crushed them unheeded. He was thinking how best he could dispel that dream, which he himself had helped to call forth.
"Woman! woman!" he sighed impatiently as he looked back upon the graceful outline of the Palace behind him, "thy moods are many and thy logic scant."
"A tangled skein indeed," he mused, "which will take some unravelling. If Wessex weds the Lady Ursula, the Queen will say 'No' to Philip, out of revenge for my interference. She'll turn to Noailles mayhap and wed the Dauphin to spite me, or keep him and Scheyfne dangling on awhile whilst trying to reconquer the volatile Duke's allegiance. But if Wessex does not wed the Lady Ursula . . . what then? Will his friends prevail? Yet there's more obstinacy than indolence inhis composition, I fancy, and the dubious position of King Consort would scarce suit his proud Grace. Still, if I do not succeed in parting those two young people whom my diplomacy hath brought together, then Mary Tudor sends me and the Spanish Ambassador back to Philip to-morrow."