House of Torment Part 15

"Well, well," she said impatiently, "hath His Highness returned? Hath he borne the fatigue of the journey well?"

Most carefully, with studied phrases, furtively watching her face, with the skill and adroitness of an old courtier, Johnnie told his story. At any moment he expected an outburst of temper, but it did not come. To his surprise, the Queen was now in a quiet and reflective mood. She walked up and down the bowling green with him, her ladies standing apart at one edge of it, nodding and whispering to see this young gallant so favoured, and wondering what his mission might be.

The Queen asked Johnnie minute questions about Mr. Peter Lacel's house.

Was it well found? Would His Highness find proper accommodation to lie there? Was Mr. Lacel married, and had he daughters?

Johnnie a.s.sured Her Grace that Mr. Lacel was a widower and without children. He could plainly see that the Queen had that fierce jealousy of a woman wedded late. Not only the torturing of other women, but also the stronger and more pervading dislike of a husband living any life, going through any experiences that she herself did not share. At the same time, he saw also that the Queen was doing her very best to overcome such thoughts as these, was endeavouring to a.s.sume the matron of common sense and to put the evil thing away from her.

Then, just as the young man was beginning to feel a little embarra.s.sed at the quick patter of questions, wondering if he would be able to be as adequate as. .h.i.therto, remembering guiltily where he had met the King the night before, the Queen ceased to speak of her husband.

She began to ask him of Dr. Rowland Taylor and his end.

He told her some of the details as quietly as he could, trying to soften the horror which even now overwhelmed him in memory. At one question he hesitated for a moment, mistaking its intent, and the Queen touched him smartly on the arm.

"No, no," she said, "I don't want to hear of the runagate's torment. He suffered rightly, and doubtless his sufferings were great. But tell me not of them. They are not meet for our ears. Tell me of what he said, and if grace came to him at last."

He was forced to tell her, as he knew others would tell her afterwards, of the st.u.r.dy denial of the martyr till the very end.

And as he did so, he saw the face, which had been alight with tenderness and anxiety when the King's name was mentioned, gravely judicial and a little disgusted when the actual sufferings of the Archdeacon were touched upon, now become hard and cruel, aflame with bigotry.

"They shall go," the Queen said, rather to herself than to him. "They shall be rooted out; they shall die the death, and so may G.o.d's most Holy Church be maintained."

At that, with another and astonis.h.i.+ng change of mood, she looked at the young man, looked him up and down, saw his long boots powdered with dust, his dress in disorder, him travel-stained and weary.

"You have done well," she said, with a very kindly and eminently human smile. "I would that all the younger gentlemen of our old houses were like you, Mr. Commendone. His Highness trusts you and likes you. I myself have reason to think well of you. You are tired by your long ride. Get you to your lodging, and if so you wish it, you shall do as you please to-night, for when His Highness returns I will see that he hath no need of you. And take this from your Queen."

In her hand the Queen carried a little volume, bound in Nile-green skin, powdered with gold heraldic roses. It was the _Tristia et Epistolae ex Ponto_ of Ovid, which she had been reading. Johnnie sank upon one knee and took the book from the ivory-white and wrinkled hand.

"Madam," he said, "I will lose my life rather than this gracious gift."

"Hey ho!" the Queen answered. "Tell that to your mistress, Mr.

Commendone, if you have one. Still, the book is rare, and when you read of the poet's sorrows at Tomi, think sometimes of the giver who--and do not doubt it--hath many sorrows of her own. It is an ill thing to rule We sometimes think, Mr. Commendone, but G.o.d hath put Us in Our place, and We must not falter."

She turned. "Lady Paget," she called, "I have done with this young spark for the nonce; come you, and help me pick red roses, red roses, for my chamber. The King loveth deep red roses, and I am told that they are the favoured flower of all n.o.ble gentlemen and ladies in the dominions of Spain."

Bowing deeply once more, and walking backwards to the edge of the bowling green, Johnnie withdrew.

He pa.s.sed through the flower-bordered ways till he came to the gate of the garden.

Outside the gate this time, on the big gravelled sweep which went in front of the Palace, Cholmondely was walking up and down, the blood dried upon his cheek, but not washed away. He turned in his sentinel's parade as Johnnie came out, and the two young men looked at each other for a moment in silence.

"What's it to be?" Johnnie said, with a smile--"Lincoln's Inn Fields to-morrow morning? Her Grace will never know of it."

"I was waiting for you, Johnnie," the other answered. "No, we'll not fight, unless you wish it. Come you to the Common Room, and the pantler shall boil his kettle and brew us some sack."

Johnnie thrust his arm into the other's and together they pa.s.sed away from the garden, better friends at that moment than they had ever been before--friends destined to be friends for two hours before they were to part forever, though during these hours one of them was to do the other a service which would help to alter the whole course of his life.

They went into the Common Room, and the pantler was summoned and ordered to brew them a bowl of sack--simply the hot wine and water, with added spices, which our grandmothers of the present time sipped over their cards, and called Negus.

Commendone sunk down into a big oak chair, his hands stretched out along the arms, his whole body relaxed in utter weariness, his dark face now grown quite white. There were lines about his eyes which had not been there a few hours before. The eyes themselves were dull and gla.s.sy, the lips were flaccid.

Cholmondely looked at him in amazement. "Go by, Jeronymo!" he said, using a popular tag, or catch-word, of the time, the "What ho, she b.u.mps!" of the period, though there were no music-halls in those days to popularise such gems of phrase. "What ails you, Esquire? I was frightened also by Her Grace, and, i' faith, 'tis a fearful thing to hear the voice of Majesty in reproof. But thou camest better out of it than I, though all was well at the end of it for both of us. Is it with you still?"

Johnnie shook his head feebly. "No," he said, lifting a three-handled silver cup of sack to his lips. "'Twas not that, though I was sorely angered with you, Ambrose; but I have had a long journey into the country, and have returned but half an hour agone. I have seen much--much." He put one hand to his throat, swallowing as he spoke, and then recollecting himself, adding hurriedly, "Upon affairs of State."

The other gallant sipped his wine. "Thou need'st not have troubled to tell me that," he said dryly. "When a gentleman bursts into the Privy Garden against all order he is doubtless upon business of State. What brought you to this doing I do not know, and I don't ask you, Johnnie.

All's well that ends well, and I hope we are to be friends."

"With all my goodwill," Commendone answered. "We should have been friends before."

The other nodded. He was a tall, handsome young man, a little florid in face, but of a high and easy bearing. There was, nevertheless, something infinitely more boyish and ingenuous in his appearance than in that of Commendone. The latter, perhaps of the same age as his companion, was infinitely more unreadable than the other. He seemed older, not in feature indeed, but in manner and capability. Cholmondely was explicit.

There was a swagger about him. He was thoroughly typical. Johnnie was cool, collected, and aware.

"To tell you the truth, Commendone," Cholmondely said, with a light laugh which rang with perfect sincerity, "to tell you the truth, I have been a little jealous of you since you came to Court. Thou art a newcomer here, and thou hast risen to very high favour; and then, by the Ma.s.s! thou dost not seem to care about it all. Here am I, a squire of dames, who pursue the pleasures of Venus with great ardour and not ever with success. But as for thee, John Commendone of Kent, i' faith, the women are quarrelling for thee! Eyes grow bright when thou comest into the dance. A week agone, at the barrier fight in the great hall, Cicily Thwaites, that I had marked out for myself to be her knight, was looking at thee with the eyes of a duck in a tempest of thunder. So that is that, Johnnie. 'Tis why I have not liked thee much. But we're friends now, and see here----"

He stepped up to the young man in the chair and clapped his hand upon his shoulder. "See here," he went on in a deeper voice, "thou hast well purged the dregs and leaven of my dislike. Thou gav'st me thy sword when hadst disarmed me, and I stood before Her Grace shamed. I don't forget that. I will never forget it. There will never be any savour or smell of malice between thou and me."

The wine had roused the blood in Commendone's tired veins. He was more himself now. The terrible fatigue and nerve tension of the past few hours was giving place to a sense of physical well-being. He looked at the handsome young fellow before him standing up so taut and trim, with the sunlight pouring in upon his face from one of the long open windows, his head thrown slightly back, his lips a little parted, bright with the health of youth, and felt glad that Ambrose Cholmondely was to be his friend. And he would want friends now, for some reason or other--why he could not divine--he had a curious sense that friends would be valuable to him now. He felt immeasurably older than the other, immeasurably older than he had ever felt before. There was something big and stern coming into his life. The diplomatic, the cautious, trained side of him knew that it must hold out hands to meet all those that were proffered in the name of friend.

Cholmondely sat down upon the table, swinging his legs backwards and forwards, and stroking the smooth pointed yellow beard which lay upon his ruff, with one long hand covered with rings.

"And how like you, Johnnie," he said, "your attendance upon His Majesty?

From what we of the Queen's Household hear, the garden of that service is not all lavender. Nay, nor ale and skittles neither."

Johnnie shrugged his shoulders, his face quite expressionless. In a similar circ.u.mstance, Ambrose Cholmondely would have gleefully entered into a gossip and discussion, but Commendone was wiser than that, older than his years. He knew the value of silence, the virtue of a still tongue.

"Sith you ask me, Ambrose," he answered, sipping his wine quietly, "I find the service good enough."

The other grinned with boyish malice. There was a certain rivalry between those English gentlemen who had been attached to King Philip and those who were of the Queen's suite. Her Majesty was far more inclined to show favour to those whom she had put about her husband than to the members of her own _entourage_. They were picked men, and the gay young English sparks resented undue and too rapid promotion and favour shown to men of their own standing, while, Catholics as most of them were, there was yet an innate political distrust instilled into them by their fathers and relations of this Spanish Match. And many courtiers thought that, despite all the safe-guards embodied in the marriage contract, the marriage might yet mean a foreign dominion over the realm--so fond and anxious was the Queen.

"Each man to his taste," Cholmondely said. "I don't know precisely what your duties are, Johnnie, but for your own sake I well hope they don't bring you much into the companions.h.i.+p of such gentry as Sir John Shelton, let us say."

Johnnie could hardly repress a start, though it pa.s.sed unnoticed by his friend. "Sir John Shelton?" he said, wondering if the other knew or suspected anything of the events of the last twenty-four hours. "Sir John Shelton? It's little enough I have to do with him."

"And all the better."

Johnnie's ears were p.r.i.c.ked. He was most anxious to get to know what was behind Cholmondely's words. It would be worth a good deal to him to have a thorough understanding of the general Court view about the King Consort. He affected an elaborate carelessness, even as he did so smiling within himself at the ease by which this boy could be drawn.

"Why all the better?" he said. "I care not for a bully-rook such as Shelton any more than you, but I have nothing to do with him."

"Then you make no excursions and sallies late o' nights?"

Commendone's face was an elaborate mask of wonder.

"Sallies o' nights?" he said.

The other young man swung his legs to and fro, and began to chuckle. He caught hold of the edge of the table with both hands, and looked down on Johnnie in the chair with an amused smile.