The treaty had been agreed upon, and as to the international arrangement, at least, the marriage of Louis de Valois and Mary Tudor was a settled fact. All it needed was the consent of an eighteen-year-old girl—a small matter, of course, as marriageable women are but commodities in statecraft, and theoretically, at least, acquiesce in everything their liege lords ordain. Lady Mary's consent had been but theoretical, but it was looked upon by every one as amounting to an actual, vociferated, sonorous "yes;" that is to say, by every one but the princess, who had no more notion of saying "yes" than she had of reciting the Sanscrit vocabulary from the pillory of Smithfield.
Wolsey, whose manner was smooth as an otter's coat, had been sent to fetch the needed "yes"; but he failed.
Jane told me about it.
Wolsey had gone privately to see the princess, and had thrown out a sort of skirmish line by flattering her beauty, but had found her not in the best humor.
"Yes, yes, my lord of Lincoln, I know how beautiful I am; no one knows better; I know all about my hair, eyes, teeth, eyebrows and skin. I tell youI am sick of them. Don't talk to me about them; it won't help you to get my consent to marry that vile old creature. That is what you have come for, of course. I have been expecting you; why did not my brother come?"
"I think he was afraid; and, to tell you the truth, I was afraid myself," answered Wolsey, with a smile. This made Mary smile, too, in spite of herself, and went a long way toward putting her in a good humor. Wolsey continued: "His majesty could not have given me a more disagreeable task. You doubtless think I am in favor of this marriage, but I am not."
This was as great a lie as ever fell whole out of a bishop's mouth. "I have been obliged to fall in with the king's views on the matter, for he has had his mind set on it from the first mention by de Longueville."
"Was it that bead-eyed little mummy who suggested it?"
"Yes, and if you marry the king of France you can repay him with usury."
"'Tis an inducement, by my troth."
"I do not mind saying to you in confidence that I think it an outrage to force a girl like you to marry a man like Louis of France, but how are we to avoid it?"
By the "we" Wolsey put himself in alliance with Mary, and the move was certainly adroit.
"How are we to avoid it? Have no fear of that, my lord; I will show you."
"Oh! but my dear princess; permit me; you do not seem to know your brother; you cannot in any way avoid this marriage. I believe he will imprison you and put you on bread and water to force your consent. I am sure you had better do willingly that which you will eventually be compelled to do anyway; and besides, there is another thought that has come to me; shall I speak plainly before Lady Jane Bolingbroke?"
"I have no secrets from her."
"Very well; it is this: Louis is old and very feeble; he cannot live long, and it may be that you can, by a ready consent now, exact a promise from your brother to allow you your own choice in the event of a second marriage. You might in that way purchase what you could not bring about in any other way."
"How do you know that I want to purchase aught in any way, Master Wolsey? I most certainly do not intend to do so by marrying France."
"I do not know that you wish to purchase anything, but a woman's heart is not always under her full control, and it sometimes goes out to one very far beneath her in station, but the equal of any man on earth in grandeur of soul and nobleness of nature. It might be that there is such a man whom any woman would be amply justified in purchasingat any sacrifice—doubly so if it were buying happiness for two."
His meaning was too plain even to pretend to misunderstand, and Mary's eyes flashed at him, as her face broke into a dimpling smile in spite of her.
Wolsey thought he had won, and to clinch the victory said, in his forceful manner: "Louis XII will not live a year; let me carry to the king your consent, and I guarantee you his promise as to a second marriage."
In an instant Mary's eyes shot fire, and her face was like the blackest storm cloud.
"Carry this to the king: that I will see him and the whole kingdom sunk in hell before I will marry Louis of France. That is my answer once and for all. Good even', Master Wolsey." And she swept out of the room with head up and dilating nostrils, the very picture of defiance.
St. George! She must have looked superb. She was one of the few persons whom anger and disdain and the other passions which we call ungentle seemed to illumine—they were so strong in her, and yet not violent. It seemed that every deep emotion but added to her beauty and brought it out, as the light within a church brings out the exquisite figuring on the windows.
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After Wolsey had gone, Jane said to Mary: "Don't you think it would have been better had you sent a softer answer to your brother? I believe youcould reach his heart even now if you were to make the effort. You have not tried in this matter as you did in the others."
"Perhaps you are right, Jane. I will go to Henry."
Mary waited until she knew the king was alone, and then went to him.
On entering the room, she said: "Brother, I sent a hasty message to you by the Bishop of Lincoln this morning, and have come to ask your forgiveness."
"Ah! little sister; I thought you would change your mind. Now you are a good girl."
"Oh! do not misunderstand me; I asked your forgiveness for the message; as to the marriage, I came to tell you that it would kill me and that I could not bear it. Oh! brother, you are not a woman—you cannot know." Henry flew into a passion, and with oaths and curses ordered her to leave him unless she was ready to give her consent. She had but two courses to take, so she left with her heart full of hatred for the most brutal wretch who ever sat upon a throne—and that is making an extreme case. As she was going, she turned upon him like a fury, and exclaimed:
"Never, never! Do you hear? Never!"
Preparations went on for the marriage just as if Mary had given her solemn consent. The important work of providing the trousseau began at once, and the more important matter of securing the loanfrom the London merchants was pushed along rapidly. The good citizens might cling affectionately to their angels, double angels, crowns and pounds sterling, but the fear in which they held the king, and a little patting of the royal hand upon the plebeian head, worked the charm, and out came the yellow gold, never to be seen again, God wot. Under the stimulus of the royal smile they were ready to shout themselves hoarse, and to eat and drink themselves red in the face in celebration of the wedding day. In short, they were ready to be tickled nearly to death for the honor of paying to a wretched old lecher a wagon-load of gold to accept, as a gracious gift, the most beautiful heart-broken girl in the world. That is, she would have been heart-broken had she not been inspired with courage. As it was, she wasted none of her energy in lamentations, but saved it all to fight with. Heavens! how she did fight! If a valiant defense ever deserved victory, it was in her case. When the queen went to her with silks and taffetas and fine cloths, to consult about the trousseau, although the theme was one which would interest almost any woman, she would have none of it, and when Catherine insisted upon her trying on a certain gown, she called her a blackamoor, tore the garment to pieces, and ordered her to leave the room.
Henry sent Wolsey to tell her that the 13th day of August had been fixed upon as the day of the marriage, de Longueville to act as the French king'sproxy, and Wolsey was glad to come off with his life.
Matters were getting into a pretty tangle at the palace. Mary would not speak to the king, and poor Catherine was afraid to come within arm's length of her; Wolsey was glad to keep out of her way, and she flew at Buckingham with talons and beak upon first sight. As to the battle with Buckingham, it was short but decisive, and this was the way it came about: There had been a passage between the duke and Brandon, in which the latter had tried to coax the former into a duel, the only way, of course, to settle the weighty matters between them. Buckingham, however, had had a taste of Brandon's nimble sword play, and, bearing in mind Judson's fate, did not care for any more. They had met by accident, and Brandon, full of smiles and as polite as a Frenchman, greeted him.
"Doubtless my lord, having crossed swords twice with me, will do me the great honor to grant that privilege the third time, and will kindly tell me where my friend can wait upon a friend of his grace."
"There is no need for us to meet over that little affair. You had the best of it, and if I am satisfied you should be. I was really in the wrong, but I did not know the princess had invited you to her ball."
"Your lordship is pleased to evade," returnedBrandon. "It is not the ball-room matter that I have to complain of; as you have rightly said, if you are satisfied, I certainly should be; but it is that your lordship, in the name of the king, instructed the keeper of Newgate prison to confine me in an underground cell, and prohibited communication with any of my friends. You so arranged it that my trial should be secret, both as to the day thereof and the event, in order that it should not be known to those who might be interested in my release. You promised the Lady Mary that you would procure my liberty, and thereby prevented her going to the king for that purpose, and afterwards told her that it had all been done, as promised, and that I had escaped to New Spain. It is because of this, my Lord Buckingham, that I now denounce you as a liar, a coward and a perjured knight, and demand of you such satisfaction as one man can give to another for mortal injury. If you refuse, I will kill you as I would a cut-throat the next time I meet you."
"I care nothing for your rant, fellow, but out of consideration for the feelings which your fancied injuries have put into your heart, I tell you that I did what I could to liberate you, and received from the keeper a promise that you should be allowed to escape. After that a certain letter addressed to you was discovered and fell into the hands of the king—a matter in which I had no part. As to your confinement and non-communication with yourfriends, that was at his majesty's command after he had seen the letter, as he will most certainly confirm to you. I say this for my own sake, not that I care what you may say or think."
This offer of confirmation by the king made it all sound like the truth, so much will even a little truth leaven a great lie; and part of Brandon's sails came down against the mast. The whole statement surprised him, and, most of all, the intercepted letter. What letter could it have been? It was puzzling, and yet he dared not ask.
As the duke was about to walk away, Brandon stopped him: "One moment, your grace; I am willing to admit what you have said, for I am not now prepared to contradict it; but there is yet another matter we have to settle. You attacked me on horseback, and tried to murder me in order to abduct two ladies that night over in Billingsgate. That you cannot deny. I watched you follow the ladies from Bridewell to Grouche's, and saw your face when your mask fell off during the mêleé as plainly as I see it now. If other proof is wanting, there is that sprained knee upon which your horse fell, causing you to limp even yet. I am sure now that my lord will meet me like a man; or would he prefer that I should go to the king and tell him and the world the whole shameful story? I have concealed it heretofore, thinking it my personal right and privilege to settle with you."
Buckingham turned a shade paler as he replied:"I do not meet such as you on the field of honor, and have no fear of your slander injuring me."
He felt secure in the thought that the girls did not know who had attacked them, and could not corroborate Brandon in his accusation, or Mary, surely, never would have appealed to him for help.
I was with Brandon—at a little distance, that is—when this occurred, and after Buckingham had left, we went to find the girls in the forest. We knew they would be looking for us, although they would pretend surprise when they saw us. We soon met them, and the very leaves of the trees gave a soft, contented rustle in response to Mary's low, mellow laugh of joy.
After perhaps half an hour, we encountered Buckingham with his lawyer-knight, Johnson. They had evidently walked out to this quiet path to consult about the situation. As they approached, Mary spoke to the duke with a vicious sparkle in her eyes.
"My Lord Buckingham, this shall cost you your head; remember my words when you are on the scaffold, just when your neck fits into the hollow of the block."
He stopped, with an evident desire to explain, but Mary pointed down the path and said: "Go, or I will have Master Brandon spit you on his sword. Two to one would be easy odds compared with the four to one you put against him in Billingsgate. Go!" And the battle was over, the foe neverhaving struck a blow. It hurt me that Mary should speak of the odds being two to one against Brandon when I was at hand. It is true I was not very large, but I could have taken care of a lawyer.
Now it was that the lawyer-knight earned his bread by his wits, for it was he, I know, who instigated the next move—a master stroke in its way, and one which proved a checkmate to us. It was this: the duke went at once to the king, and, in a tone of injured innocence, told him of the charge made by Brandon with Mary's evident approval, and demanded redress for the slander. Thus it seemed that the strength of our position was about to be turned against us. Brandon was at once summoned and promptly appeared before the king, only too anxious to confront the duke. As to the confinement of Brandon and his secret trial, the king did not care to hear; that was a matter of no consequence to him; the important question was, did Buckingham attack the princess?
Brandon told the whole straight story, exactly as it was, which Buckingham as promptly denied, and offered to prove by his almoner that he was at his devotions on the night and at the hour of the attack. So here was a conflict of evidence which called for new witnesses, and Henry asked Brandon if the girls had seen and recognized the duke. To this question, of course, he was compelled to answer no, and the whole accusation, after all, rested upon Brandon's word, against which, on the other hand,was the evidence of the Duke of Buckingham and his convenient almoner.
All this disclosed to the full poor Mary's anxiety to help Brandon, and the duke having adroitly let out the fact that he had just met the princess with Brandon at a certain secluded spot in the forest, Henry's suspicion of her partiality received new force, and he began to look upon the unfortunate Brandon as a partial cause, at least, of Mary's aversion to the French marriage.
Henry grew angry and ordered Brandon to leave the court, with the sullen remark that it was only his services to the Princess Mary that saved him from a day with papers on the pillory.
This was not by any means what Brandon had expected. There seemed to be a fatality for him about everything connected with that unfortunate trip to Grouche's. He had done his duty, and this was his recompense. Virtue is sometimes a pitiful reward for itself, notwithstanding much wisdom to the contrary.
Henry was by no means sure that his suspicions concerning Mary's heart were correct, and in all he had heard he had not one substantial fact upon which to base conviction. He had not seen her with Brandon since their avowal, or he would have had a fact in every look, the truth in every motion, a demonstration in every glance. She seemed powerless even to attempt concealment. In Brandon's handsome manliness and evident superiority, theking thought he saw a very clear possibility for Mary to love, and where there is such a possibility for a girl, she usually fails to fulfill expectations. I suppose there are more wrong guesses as to the sort of man a given woman will fall in love with than on any other subject of equal importance in the whole range of human surmising. It did not, however, strike the king that way, and he, in common with most other sons of Adam, supposing that he knew all about it, marked Brandon as a very possible and troublesome personage. For once in the history of the world a man had hit upon the truth in this obscure matter, although he had no idea how correct he was.
Now, all this brought Brandon into the deep shadow of the royal frown, and, like many another man, he sank his fortune in the fathomless depths of a woman's heart, and thought himself rich in doing it.
With the king, admiration stood for affection, a mistake frequently made by people not given to self-analysis, and in a day or two a reaction set in toward Brandon which inspired a desire to make some amends for his harsh treatment. This he could not do to any great extent, on Buckingham's account; at least, not until the London loan was in his coffers, but the fact that Brandon was going to New Spain so soon and would be out of the way, both of Mary's eyes and Mary's marriage, stimulated that rare flower in Henry's heart, a good resolve, and Brandon was offered his old quarters with me until such time as he should sail for New Spain.
He had never abandoned this plan, and now that matters had taken this turn with Mary and the king, his resolution was stronger than ever, in that the scheme held two recommendations and a possibility.
The recommendations were, first, it would take him away from Mary, with whom—when out of the inspiring influence of her buoyant hopefulness—he knew marriage to be utterly impossible; and second, admitting and facing that impossibility, he might find at least partial relief from his heartachein the stirring events and adventures of that faraway land of monsters, dragons, savages and gold. The possibility lay in the gold, and a very faintly burning flame of hope held out the still more faintly glimmering chance that fortune, finding him there almost alone, might, for lack of another lover, smile upon him by way of squaring accounts. She might lead him to a cavern of gold, and gold would do anything; even, perhaps, purchase so priceless a treasure as a certain princess of the blood royal. He did not, however, dwell much on this possibility, but kept the delightful hope well neutralized with a constantly present sense of its improbability, in order to save the pain of a long fall when disappointment should come.
Brandon at once accepted the king's offer of lodging in the palace, for now that he felt sure of himself in the matter of New Spain, and his separation from Mary, he longed to see as much as possible of her before the light went out forever, even though it were playing with death itself to do so.
Poor fellow, his suffering was so acute during this period that it affected me like a contagion.
It did not make a mope of him, but came in spasms that almost drove him wild. He would at times pace the room and cry out: "Jesu! Caskoden, what shall I do? She will be the wife of the French king, and I shall sit in the wilderness and try every moment to imagine what she is doing and thinking. I shall find the bearing of Paris, andlook in her direction until my brain melts in my effort to see her, and then I shall wander in the woods, a suffering imbecile, feeding on roots and nuts. Would to God one of us might die. If it were not selfish, I should wish I might be the one."
I said nothing in answer to these outbursts, as I had no consolation to offer.
We had two or three of our little meetings of four, dangerous as they were, at which Mary, feeling that each time she saw Brandon might be the last, would sit and look at him with glowing eyes that in turn softened and burned as he spoke. She did not talk much, but devoted all her time and energies to looking with her whole soul. Never before or since was there a girl so much in love. A young girl thoroughly in love is the most beautiful object on earth—beautiful even in ugliness. Imagine, then, what it made of Mary!
Growing partly, perhaps, out of his unattainability—for he was as far out of her reach as she out of his—she had long since begun to worship him. She had learned to know him so well, and his valiant defense of her in Billingsgate, together with his noble self-sacrifice in refusing to compromise her in order to save himself, had presented him to her in so noble a light that she had come to look up to him as her superior. Her surrender had been complete, and she found in it a joy far exceeding that of any victory or triumph she could imagine.
I could not for the life of me tell what would bethe outcome of it all. Mary was one woman in ten thousand, so full was she of feminine force and will—a force which we men pretend to despise, but to which in the end we always succumb.
Like most women, the princess was not much given to analysis; and, I think, secretly felt that this matter of so great moment to her would, as everything else always had, eventually turn itself to her desire. She could not see the way, but, to her mind, there could be no doubt about it; fate was her friend; always had been, and surely always would be.
With Brandon it was different; experience as to how the ardently hoped for usually turns out to be the sadly regretted, together with a thorough face-to-face analysis of the situation, showed him the truth, all too clearly, and he longed for the day when he should go, as a sufferer longs for the surgeon's knife that is to relieve him of an aching limb. The hopelessness of the outlook had for the time destroyed nearly all of his combativeness, and had softened his nature almost to apathetic weakness. It would do no good to struggle in a boundless, fathomless sea; so he was ready to sink and was going to New Spain to hope no more.
Mary did not see what was to prevent the separation, but this did not trouble her as much as one would suppose, and she was content to let events take their own way, hoping and believing that in the end it would be hers. Events, however,continued in this wrong course so long and persistently that at last the truth dawned upon her and she began to doubt; and as time flew on and matters evinced a disposition to grow worse instead of better, she gradually, like the sundial in the moonlight, awakened to the fact that there was something wrong; a cog loose somewhere in the complicated machinery of fate—the fate which had always been her tried, trusted and obedient servant.
The trouble began in earnest with the discovery of our meetings in Lady Mary's parlor. There was nothing at all unusual in the fact that small companies of young folk frequently spent their evenings with her, but we knew well enough that the unusual element in our parties was their exceeding smallness. A company of eight or ten young persons was well enough, although it, of course, created jealousy on the part of those who were left out; but four—two of each sex—made a difference in kind, however much we might insist it was only in degree; and this we soon learned was the king's opinion.
You may be sure there was many a jealous person about the court ready to carry tales, and that it was impossible long to keep our meetings secret among such a host as then lived in Greenwich palace.
One day the queen summoned Jane and put her to the question. Now, Jane thought the truth was made only to be told, a fallacy into which manygood people have fallen, to their utter destruction; since the truth, like every other good thing, may be abused.
Well! Jane told it all in a moment, and Catherine was so horrified that she was like to faint. She went with her hair-lifting horror to the king, and poured into his ears a tale of imprudence and debauchery well calculated to start his righteous, virtue-prompted indignation into a threatening flame.
Mary, Jane, Brandon and myself were at once summoned to the presence of both their majesties and soundly reprimanded. Three of us were ordered to leave the court before we could speak a word in self-defense, and Jane had enough of her favorite truth for once. Mary, however, came to our rescue with her coaxing eloquence and potent, feminine logic, and soon convinced Henry that the queen, who really counted for little with him, had made a mountain out of a very small mole-hill. Thus the royal wrath was appeased to such an extent that the order for expulsion was modified to a command that there be no more quartette gatherings in Princess Mary's parlor. This leniency was more easy for the princess to bring about, by reason of the fact that she had not spoken to her brother since the day she went to see him after Wolsey's visit, and had been so roughly driven off. At first, upon her refusal to speak to him—after the Wolsey visit—Henry was angry on account of what he called her insolence; but as she did not seem to care for that,and as his anger did nothing toward unsealing her lips, he pretended indifference. Still the same stubborn silence was maintained. This soon began to amuse the king, and of late he had been trying to be on friendly terms again with his sister through a series of elephantine antics and bear-like pleasantries, which were the most dismal failures—that is, in the way of bringing about a reconciliation. They were more successful from a comical point of view. So Henry was really glad for something that would loosen the tongue usually so lively, and for an opportunity to gratify his sister from whom he was demanding such a sacrifice, and for whom he expected to receive no less a price than the help of Louis of France, the most powerful king of Europe, to the imperial crown.
Thus our meetings were broken up, and Brandon knew his dream was over, and that any effort to see the princess would probably result in disaster for them both; for him certainly.
The king upon that same day told Mary of the intercepted letter sent by her to Brandon at Newgate, and accused her of what he was pleased to term an improper feeling for a low-born fellow.
Mary at once sent a full account of the communication in a letter to Brandon, who read it with no small degree of ill comfort as the harbinger of trouble.
"I had better leave here soon, or I may go without my head," he remarked. "When that thought getsto working in the king's brain, he will strike, and I—shall fall."
Letters began to come to our rooms from Mary, at first begging Brandon to come to her, and then upbraiding him because of his coldness and cowardice, and telling him that if he cared for her as she did for him, he would see her, though he had to wade through fire and blood. That was exactly where the trouble lay; it was not fire and blood through which he would have to pass; they were small matters, mere nothings that would really have added zest and interest to the achievement. But the frowning laugh of the tyrant, who could bind him hand and foot, and a vivid remembrance of the Newgate dungeon, with a dangling noose or a hollowed-out block in the near background, were matters that would have taken the adventurous tendency out of even the cracked brain of chivalry itself. Brandon cared only to fight where there was a possible victory or ransom, or a prospect of some sort, at least, of achieving success. Bayard preferred a stone wall, and thought to show his brains by beating them out against it, and in a sense he could do it. * * * What a pity this senseless, stiff-kneed, light-headed chivalry did not beat its brains out several centuries before Bayard put such an absurd price upon himself.
So every phase of the question which his good sense presented told Brandon, whose passion was as ardent though not so impatient as Mary's, that itwould be worse than foolhardy to try to see her. He, however, had determined to see her once more before he left, but as it could, in all probability, be only once, he was reserving the meeting until the last, and had written Mary that it was their best and only chance.
This brought to Mary a stinging realization of the fact that Brandon was about to leave her and that she would lose him if something were not done quickly. Now for Mary, after a life of gratified whims, to lose the very thing she wanted most of all—that for which she would willingly have given up every other desire her heart had ever coined—was a thought hardly to be endured. She felt that the world would surely collapse. It could not, would not, should not be.
Her vigorous young nerves were too strong to be benumbed by an overwhelming agony, as is sometimes the case with those who are fortunate enough to be weaker, so she had to suffer and endure. Life itself, yes, life a thousand times, was slipping away from her. She must be doing something or she would perish. Poor Mary! How a grand soul like hers, full of faults and weakness, can suffer! What an infinite disproportion between her susceptibility to pain and her power to combat it! She had the maximum capacity for one and the minimum strength for the other. No wonder it drove her almost mad—that excruciating pang of love.
She could not endure inaction, so she did theworst thing possible. She went alone, one afternoon, just before dusk, to see Brandon at our rooms. I was not there when she first went in, but, having seen her on the way, suspected something and followed, arriving two or three minutes after her. I knew it was best that I should be present, and was sure Brandon would wish it. When I entered they were holding each other's hands, in silence. They had not yet found their tongues, so full and crowded were their hearts. It was pathetic to see them, especially the girl, who had not Brandon's hopelessness to deaden the pain by partial resignation.
Upon my entrance, she dropped his hands and turned quickly toward me with a frightened look, but was reassured upon seeing who it was. Brandon mechanically walked away from her and seated himself on a stool. Mary, as mechanically, moved to his side and placed her hand on his shoulder. Turning her face toward me, she said: "Sir Edwin, I know you will forgive me when I tell you that we have a great deal to say and wish to be alone."
I was about to go when Brandon stopped me.
"No, no; Caskoden, please stay; it would not do. It would be bad enough, God knows, if the princess should be found here with both of us; but, with me alone, I should be dead before morning. There is danger enough as it is, for they will watch us."
Mary knew he was right, but she could not resista vicious little glance toward me, who was in no way to blame.
Presently we all moved into the window-way, where Brandon and Mary sat upon the great cloak and I on a camp-stool in front of them, completely filling up the little passage.
"I can bear this no longer," exclaimed Mary. "I will go to my brother to-night and tell him all; I will tell him how I suffer, and that I shall die if you are allowed to go away and leave me forever. He loves me, and I can do anything with him when I try. I know I can obtain his consent to our—our—marriage. He cannot know how I suffer, else he would not treat me so. I will let him see—I will convince him. I have in my mind everything I want to say and do. I will sit on his knee and stroke his hair and kiss him." And she laughed softly as her spirit revived in the breath of a growing hope. "Then I will tell him how handsome he is, and how I hear the ladies sighing for him, and he will come around all right by the third visit. Oh, I know how to do it; I have done it so often. Never fear! I wish I had gone at it long ago."
Her enthusiastic fever of hope was really contagious, but Brandon, whose life was at stake, had his wits quickened by the danger.
"Mary, would you like to see me a corpse before to-morrow noon?" he asked.
"Why! of course not; why do you ask such a dreadful question?"
"Because, if you wish to make sure of it, do what you have just said—go to the king and tell him all. I doubt if he could wait till morning. I believe he would awaken me at midnight to put me to sleep forever—at the end of a rope or on a block pillow."
"Oh! no! you are all wrong; I know what I can do with Henry."
"If that is the case, I say good-bye now, for I shall be out of England, if possible, by midnight. You must promise me that you will not only not go to the king at all about this matter, but that you will guard your tongue, jealous of its slightest word, and remember with every breath that on your prudence hangs my life, which, I know, is dear to you. Do you promise? If you do not, I must fly; so you will lose me one way or the other, if you tell the king; either by my flight or by my death."
"I promise," said Mary, with drooping head; the embodiment of despair; all life and hope having left her again.
After a few minutes her face brightened, and she asked Brandon what ship he would sail in for New Spain, and whence.
"We sail in the Royal Hind, from Bristol," he replied.
"How many go out in her; and are there any women?"
"No! no!" he returned; "no woman could make the trip, and, besides, on ships of that sort, half pirate, half merchant, they do not take women. Thesailors are superstitious about it and will not sail with them. They say they bring bad luck—adverse winds, calms, storms, blackness, monsters from the deep and victorious foes."
"The ignorant creatures!" cried Mary.
Brandon continued: "There will be a hundred men, if the captain can induce so many to enlist."
"How does one procure passage?" inquired Mary.
"By enlisting with the captain, a man named Bradhurst, at Bristol, where the ship is now lying. There is where I enlisted by letter. But why do you ask?"
"Oh! I only wanted to know."
We talked awhile on various topics, but Mary always brought the conversation back to the same subject, the Royal Hind and New Spain. After asking many questions, she sat in silence for a time, and then abruptly broke into one of my sentences—she was always interrupting me as if I were a parrot.
"I have been thinking and have made up my mind what I will do, and you shall not dissuade me. I will go to New Spain with you. That will be glorious—far better than the humdrum life of sitting at home—and will solve the whole question."
"But that would be impossible, Mary," said Brandon, into whose face this new evidence of her regard had brought a brightening look; "utterly impossible. To begin with, no woman could standthe voyage; not even you, strong and vigorous as you are."
"Oh, yes I can, and I will not allow you to stop me for that reason. I could bear any hardship better than the torture of the last few weeks. In truth, I cannot bear this at all; it is killing me, so what would it be when you are gone and I am the wife of Louis? Think of that, Charles Brandon; think of that, when I am the wife of Louis. Even if the voyage kills me, I might as well die one way as another; and then I should be with you, where it were sweet to die." And I had to sit there and listen to all this foolish talk!
Brandon insisted: "But no women are going; as I told you, they would not take one; besides, how could you escape? I will answer the first question you ever asked me. You are of 'sufficient consideration about the court' for all your movements to attract notice. It is impossible; we must not think of it; it cannot be done. Why build up hopes only to be cast down?"
"Oh! but it can be done; never doubt it. I will go, not as a woman, but as a man. I have planned all the details while sitting here. To-morrow I will send to Bristol a sum of money asking a separate room in the ship for a young nobleman who wishes to go to New Spainincognito, and will go aboard just before they sail. I will buy a man's complete outfit, and will practice being a man before you and Sir Edwin." Here she blushed so that Icould see the scarlet even in the gathering gloom. She continued: "As to my escape, I can go to Windsor, and then perhaps on to Berkeley Castle, over by Reading, where there will be no one to watch me. You can leave at once, and there will be no cause for them to spy upon me when you are gone, so it can be done easily enough. That is it; I will go to my sister, who is now at Berkeley Castle, the other side of Reading, you know, and that will make a shorter ride to Bristol when we start."
The thought, of course, could not but please Brandon, to whom, in the warmth of Mary's ardor, it had almost begun to offer hope; and he said musingly: "I wonder if it could be done? If it could—if we could reach New Spain, we might build ourselves a home in the beautiful green mountains and hide ourselves safely away from all the world, in the lap of some cosy valley, rich with nature's bounteous gift of fruit and flowers, shaded from the hot sun and sheltered from the blasts, and live in a little paradise all our own. What a glorious dream! but it is only a dream, and we had better awake from it."
Brandon must have been insane!
"No! no! It is not a dream," interrupted downright, determined Mary; "it is not a dream; it shall be a reality. How glorious it will be! I can see our little house now nestling among the hills, shaded by great spreading trees with flowers and vines and golden fruit all about it, rich plumagedbirds and gorgeous butterflies. Oh! I can hardly wait. Who would live in a musty palace when one has within reach such a home, and that, too, with you?"
Here it was again. I thought that interview would be the death of me.
Brandon held his face in his hands, and then looking up said: "It is only a question of your happiness, and hard as the voyage and your life over there would be, yet I believe it would be better than life with Louis of France; nothing could be so terrible as that to both of us. If you wish to go, I will try to take you, though I die in the attempt. There will be ample time to reconsider, so that you can turn back if you wish."
Her reply was inarticulate, though satisfactory; and she took his hand in hers as the tears ran gently down her cheeks; this time tears of joy—the first she had shed for many a day.
In the Siren country again without wax! Overboard and lost!
Yes, Brandon's resolution not to see Mary was well taken, if it could only have been as well kept. Observe, as we progress, into what the breaking of it led him.
He had known that if he should but see her once more, his already toppling will would lose its equipoise, and he would be led to attempt the impossible and invite destruction. At first this scheme appeared to me in its true light, but Mary's subtlefeminine logic made it seem such plain and easy sailing that I soon began to draw enthusiasm from her exhaustless store, and our combined attack upon Brandon eventually routed every vestige of caution and common sense that even he had left.
Siren logic has always been irresistible and will continue so, no doubt, despite experience.
I cannot define what it was about Mary that made her little speeches, half argumentative, all-pleading, so wonderfully persuasive. Her facts were mere fancies, and her logic was not even good sophistry. As to real argument and reasoning, there was nothing of either in them. It must have been her native strength of character and intensely vigorous personality; some unknown force of nature, operating through her occultly, that turned the channels of other persons' thoughts and filled them with her own will. There was magic in her power, I am certain, but unconscious magic to Mary, I am equally sure. She never would have used it knowingly.
There was still another obstacle to which Mary administered her favorite remedy, the Gordian knot treatment. Brandon said: "It cannot be; you are not my wife, and we dare not trust a priest here to unite us."
"No," replied Mary, with hanging head, "but we can—can find one over there."
"I do not know how that will be; we shall probably not find one; at least, I fear; I do not know."
After a little hesitation she answered: "I will go with you anyway—and—and risk it. I hope we may find a priest," and she flushed scarlet from her throat to her hair.
Brandon kissed her and said: "You shall go, my brave girl. You make me blush for my faint-heartedness and prudence. I will make you my wife in some way as sure as there is a God."
Soon after this Brandon forced himself to insist on her departure, and I went with her, full of hope and completely blinded to the dangers of our cherished scheme. I think Brandon never really lost sight of the danger, and almost infinite proportion of chance against this wild, reckless venture, but was daring enough to attempt it even in the face of such clearly seen and deadly consequences.
What seems to be bravery, as in Mary's case, for example, is often but a lack of perception of the real danger. True bravery is that which dares a danger fully seeing it. A coward may face an unseen danger, and his act may shine with the luster of genuine heroism. Mary was brave, but it was the feminine bravery that did not see. Show her a danger and she was womanly enough—that is, if you could make her see it. Her wilfulness sometimes extended to her mental vision and she would not see. In common with many others, she needed mental spectacles at times.