CHAPTER XLV.
TEN YEARS AFTER.
It was ten years later in the reign of Elizabeth, when James VI. wasunder one of his many eclipses of favour, and when the united Englishand Dutch fleets had been performing gallant exploits at Cadiz andTercera, that license for a few weeks' absence was requested for one ofthe lieutenants in her Majesty's guard, Master Richard Talbot.
"And wherefore?" demanded the royal lady of Sir Walter Raleigh, thecaptain of her guard, who made the request.
"To go to the Hague to look after his brother's widow and estate, soplease your Majesty; more's the pity," said Raleigh.
"His brother's widow?" repeated the Queen.
"Yea, madam. For it may be feared that young Humfrey Talbot--I knownot whether your Majesty ever saw him--but he was my brave brotherHumfrey Gilbert's godson, and sailed with us to the West some sixteenyears back. He was as gallant a sailor as ever trod a deck, and Inever could see why he thought fit to take service with the States. Buthe did good work in the time of the Armada, and I saw him one of theforemost in the attack on Cadiz. Nay, he was one of those knighted bymy Lord of Essex in the market-place. Then he sailed with my Lord ofCumberland for the Azores, now six months since, and hath not sincebeen heard of, as his brother tells me, and therefore doth Talbotrequest this favour of your Majesty."
"Send the young man to me," returned the Queen.
Diccon, to give him his old name, was not quite so unsophisticated aswhen his father had first left him in London. Though a good dealshocked by what a new arrival from Holland had just told him of thehopelessness of ever seeing the Ark of Fortune and her captain again,he was not so overpowered with grief as to prevent him from being fullof excitement and gratification at the honour of an interview with theQueen, and he arranged his rich scarlet and gold attire so as to sethimself off to the best advantage, that so he might be pronounced "aproper man."
Queen Elizabeth was now some years over sixty, and her nose and chinbegan to meet, but otherwise she was as well preserved as ever, andquite as alert and dignified. To his increased surprise, she wasalone, and as she was becoming a little deaf, she made him kneel verynear her chair.
"So, Master Talbot," she said, "you are the son of Richard Talbot ofBridgefield."
"An it so please your Majesty."
"And you request license from us to go to the Hague?"
"An it so please your Majesty," repeated Diccon, wondering what wascoming next; and as she paused for him to continue--"There are graverumours and great fears for my brother's ship--he being in the Dutchservice--and I would fain learn the truth and see what may be done forhis wife."
"Who is his wife?" demanded the Queen, fixing her keen glittering eyeson him, but he replied with readiness.
"She was an orphan brought up by my father and mother."
"Young man, speak plainly. No tampering serves here. She is the wenchwho came hither to plead for the Queen of Scots."
"Yea, madam," said Diccon, seeing that direct answers were required.
"Tell me truly," continued the Queen. "On your duty to your Queen, isshe what she called herself?"
"To the best of my belief she is, madam," he answered.
"Look you, sir, Cavendish brought back word that it was all aningenious figment which had deceived your father, mother, and the maidherself--and no wonder, since the Queen of Scots persisted therein tothe last."
"Yea, madam, but my mother still keeps absolute proofs in the garmentsand the letter that were found on the child when recovered from thewreck. I had never known that she was not my sister till her journeyto London; and when next I went to the north my mother told me thewhole truth."
"I pray, then, how suits it with the boasted loyalty of your house thatthis brother of yours should have wedded the maid?"
"Madam; it was not prudent, but he had never a thought save for herthroughout his life. Her mother committed her to him, and holding thematter a deep and dead secret, he thought to do your Majesty no wrongby the marriage. If he erred, be merciful, madam."
"Pah! foolish youth, to whom should I be merciful since the man isdead? No doubt he hath left half a score of children to be puffed upwith the wind of their royal extraction."
"Not one, madam. When last I heard they were still childless."
"And now you are on your way to take on you the cheering of yoursister-in-law, the widow," said the Queen, and as Diccon made a gestureof assent, she stretched out her hand and drew him nearer. "She is thenalone in the world. She is my kinswoman, if so be she is all she callsherself. Now, Master Talbot, go not open-mouthed about your work, buttell this lady that if she can prove her kindred to me, and bringevidence of her birth at Lochleven, I will welcome her here, treat heras my cousin the Princess of Scotland, and, it may be, put her on herway to higher preferment, so she prove herself worthy thereof. Youtake me, sir?"
Diccon did take in the situation. He had understood how Cavendish,partly blinded by Langston, partly unwilling to believe in anycompetitor who would be nearer the throne than his niece ArabellaStewart, and partly disconcerted by Langston's disappearance, had madesuch a report to the Queen and the French Ambassador, that they hadthought that the whole matter was an imposture, and had been so ashamedof their acquiescence as to obliterate all record of it. But theQueen's mind had since recurred to the matter, and as in these lateryears of her reign one of her constant desires was to hinder James frommaking too sure of the succession, she was evidently willing to playhis sister off against him.
Nay, in the general uncertainty, dreams came over Diccon of possibleroyal honours to Queen Bridget; and then what glories would bereflected on the house of Talbot! His father and mother were too old,no doubt, to bask in the sunshine of the Court, and Ned--pity that hewas a clergyman, and had done so dull a thing as marry that littlepupil of his mother's, Laetitia, as he had rendered her Puritan name.But he might be made a bishop, and his mother's scholar would alwaysbecome any station. And for Diccon himself--assuredly the Mastiff racewould rejoice in a new coronet!
Seven weeks later, Diccon was back again, and was once more summoned tothe Queen's apartment. He looked crestfallen, and she began,--
"Well, sir? Have you brought the lady?"
"Not so, an't please your Majesty."
"And wherefore? Fears she to come, or has she sent no message norletter?"
"She sends her deep and humble thanks, madam, for the honour yourMajesty intended her, but she--"
"How now? Is she too great a fool to accept of it?"
"Yea, madam. She prays your Grace to leave her in her obscurity at theHague."
Elizabeth made a sound of utter amazement and incredulity, and thensaid, "This is new madness! Come, young man, tell me all! This is asgood and new as ever was play. Let me hear. What like is she? Andwhat is her house to be preferred to mine?"
Diccon saw his cue, and began--
"Her house, madam, is one of those tall Dutch mansions with high roof,and many small windows therein, with a stoop or broad flight of stepsbelow, on the banks of a broad and pleasant canal, shaded with fineelm-trees. There I found her on the stoop, in the shade, with two orthree children round her; for she is a mother to all the Englishorphans there, and they are but too many. They bring them to her as amatter of course when their parents die, and she keeps them till theirkindred in England claim them. Madam, her queenliness of port hathgained on her. Had she come, she would not have shamed your Majesty;and it seems that, none knowing her true birth, she is yet well-nigh aprincess among the many wives of officers and merchants who dwell atthe Hague, and doubly so among the men, to whom she and her husbandhave never failed to do a kindness. Well, madam, I weary you. Shegreeted me as the tender sister she has ever been, but she would notbrook to hear of fears or compassion for my brother. She would listento no word of doubt that he was safe, but kept the whole household inperfect readiness for him to come. At last I spake your Majesty'sgracious message; and, madam, pardon me, but all I got was
a soundrating, that I should think any hope of royal splendour or prefermentshould draw her from waiting for Humfrey. Ay, she knew he would come!And if not, she would never be more than his faithful widow. Had henot given up all for her? Should she fail in patience because his shiptarried awhile? No; he should find her ready in his home that he hadmade for her."
"Why, this is as good as the Globe Theatre!" cried the Queen, but witha tear glittering in her eye.
"Your Majesty would have said so truly," said Diccon; "for as I sat atevening, striving hard to make her give over these fantastic notionsand consult her true interest, behold she gave a cry--''Tis his foot!'Yea, and verily there was Humfrey, brown as a berry, having been so farwith his mate as to the very mouth of the River Plate. He had, indeed,lost his Ark of Fortune, but he has come home with a carrack thatquadruples her burthen, and with a thousand bars of silver in her hold.And then, madam, the joy, the kisses, the embraces, and even more--thelook of perfect content, and peace, and trust, were enough to make abachelor long for a wife."
"Long to be a fool!" broke out the Queen sharply. "Look you, lad:there may be such couples as this Humfrey and--what call you her?--hereand there."
"My father and mother are such."
"Yea, saucy cockerel as you are; but for one such, there are a hundredothers who fret the yoke, and long to be free! Ay, and this brother ofthine, what hath he got with this wife of his but banishment and dreadof his own land?"
"Even so, madam; but they still count all they either could have had orhoped for, nought in comparison with their love to one another."
"After ten years! Ha! They are no subjects for this real world ofours; are they not rather swains in my poor Philip Sidney's Arcadia?Ho, no; 'twere pity to meddle with them. Leave them to their Dutchhousehold and their carracks. Let them keep their own secret; I'llmeddle in the matter no more."
And so, though after Elizabeth's death and James's accession, SirHumfrey and Lady Talbot gladdened the eyes of the loving and venerablepair at Bridgefield, the Princess Bride of Scotland still remained inhappy obscurity, "Unknown to History."
THE END.
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