THE STRANGE WEAKNESS OF FRANCIS STAFFORD
When Francis recovered consciousness she found Edward Devereaux bending over her with the utmost concern.
“You live,” he cried joyfully as she opened her eyes. “Now Heaven be praised! Methought that I had killed thee, Master Stafford.”
“Methought that it was to be a tilt a l’outrance,” said Francis trying to rise. “Oh,” she moaned sinking back as dizziness again assailed her. “I know not why but I am so weak. Bethink you that I am dying, Master Devereaux?”
“I understand it not,” returned the lad much perturbed. “The wound is naught. See! I slashed the sleeve of thy doublet and examined it. The cut should tingle and smart as all such do when green, but there is naught in it that should cause thy death. Art thou still no better?” 161
“Nay;” said Francis feebly. “I am sure that my time is come. Good Edward, I beseech you, bring me a priest that he may shrive me.”
“There is no priest in all the castle walls, Francis Stafford. Know you not that priests and all such popery are forbid? I will call a chirurgeon.”
“Nay; do not so,” said the girl. “What this weakness that has o’ertaken me may be, I know not, unless it be death. E’er I depart I would assoil my soul of all taint. Therefore incline thine ear, Master Devereaux, and receive my confession. It cuts me to the quick to make acknowledgment, but I have hated thee because thy skill with the bow was greater than mine.” She paused for a moment. It was hard for Francis Stafford to confess fault even though she believed herself to be dying. Soon she continued: “It was thine arrow, Edward Devereaux, that slew the deer. I knew it at the time, but I liked not to own thy skill. Wilt thou pardon me?”
“Gladly, gladly,” said Devereaux. “Only I know not how thou couldst have seen the arrow. Thou wert not there.” 162
“I was, Edward,” returned Francis. “I am in truth Francis Stafford, but I am the daughter instead of the son of my father.”
“Thou!—A girl!” The youth drew back in astonishment. “And I struck thee with my sword? O chivalry! I am undone! I am undone!”
“Nay; take it not so to heart. The blame is not thine. How couldst thou know that I was other than I seemed?”
“But I struck thee!” The boy seemed almost stunned. “Would Sidney have been guilty of such an act? Would the basest hind in the field have lifted a sword against a woman? Fair mistress,” he cried in distress offering his sword to her, “do one last favor for Edward Devereaux. Bury that sword in the breast of him who is unworthy to bear it.”
“In the name of St. George, what means this?” cried Lord Shrope as he and Lord Hunsdon ran out from among the trees.
“By my faith, my lord,” cried the chamberlain bursting into a laugh. “If there has not been a duel!” 163
“Art hurt, Francis?” and Lord Shrope bent over the girl with solicitude.
“My lord, methought just now that I was dying, but the weakness that overcame me hath departed,” and the girl staggered to her feet with his assistance.
“But thou art wounded? Girl, girl, what doth it mean?” Lord Shrope caught hold of the sleeve that dangled from her bared arm.
“Edward,” said the lord chamberlain sternly, “I am surprised at thee. Is this thy honor? Thou wert to treat this girl with gentleness. I had thy word. Thou knowest also that no brawling is permitted near the person of the queen. It shall go hard with thee for this. Francis Stafford might not know the law, albeit ignorance excuses none, but thou didst. Besides, in the name of chivalry, what cause had you to draw your sword against a maiden?”
“My lord,” said Devereaux who had received the rebuke with bowed head, “deal with me as you list. There is no penalty too severe to be visited upon me. There is naught that can restore self-esteem to Edward Devereaux. But, I beseech you, believe me 164 when I say that I knew not until now that yon maiden was a boy only in attire. My lord, believe this, and you may do with me as you will.”
“’Tis true,” corroborated Francis. “He is no more at fault for the encounter than I, my lord. And he knew not that I was not a boy, until, thinking that my end was near, I told him. I know not why I felt so weak.”
“Thou didst swoon, child,” said Lord Shrope. “’Tis a matter that is of frequent occurrence among thy sex. Didst never experience it before?”
“Never,” replied Francis with a light laugh. Save for the sting and smart of the wound she was fully herself. “And I like it not. I’ faith, were I to have them often, there would be few sins of Francis Stafford’s that would be unknown.”
“Didst confess to Edward?” laughed Lord Shrope. “You two should be great friends anent this.”
“No;” said Francis. “I confessed that he killed the deer, and that its horns were justly his. I will not retract that, but still do I 165 count him mine enemy, even as his father and mine are at feud.”
“So be it,” said Edward Devereaux mournfully. “Thou canst not, maiden, hate me more than I loathe myself.”
“Come, Francis,” said Lord Shrope, “we must to my lady. We were filled with alarm when thou didst not come at the usual hour, and my lord and I have sought for thee everywhere. It was lucky chance that brought us this way. Child, child, I would that thy father had thee with him, or else were here. I would also that the queen were not so obdurate in her mind against thee. But she will not have thy name broached to her. Something lies underneath it all. Hadst thou been concerned in treasonous undertakings the matter would be plain. As it is—but why think of it? That wound of thine which to a man would be a mere scratch must with thee be looked to. Let us away.”
The inconvenience caused by the hurt was short, but, before the girl resumed her place among the pages, Lord Shrope again ventured to speak of her to the queen. 166
“My liege,” he said one morning when the queen had been particularly gracious to him, “I would that you would let me speak of Francis Stafford. There is somewhat——”
“Now a murrain on thee, Shrope, for mentioning that name,” cried Elizabeth her humor changing instantly. “We, too, have somewhat to say of Francis Stafford, but the time is not yet ripe. When it is, then will I hear what thou hast to say. Until then we would not be plagued with the matter. Hearest thou?”
“I do, my sovereign mistress,” answered Lord Shrope humbly. “I hear and will heed thy commands. Only take not from me thy divine favor.”
“Hadst thou ever been connected with any enterprise against her,” he said to Francis as he reported the result of the interview, “I could understand it. As it is, her mood toward thee gives me great concern.”
“Trouble not thyself, my good friend,” answered Francis, though she herself was more disturbed than she cared to admit. Perhaps the journey to Chartley had come to the queen’s ears, and that enterprise wore a different 167 complexion now to the girl than it had done ere her coming to the court. “Trouble not about me. Thou canst do no more than thou hast done.”
And so she went back to her place among the pages. The greeting between her and Edward Devereaux was formal. As the time passed she became aware that the lad’s manner toward her was quite different from what it had been before their encounter. Now he seemed to regard her with something akin to admiration, and assumed a protecting air toward her, assuming many of her duties, that irked the girl exceedingly.
“Prithee, sirrah,” she said one day pettishly when his guardianship was more than usually apparent, “who gave thee leave to watch over me? It irks me to have thee play the protector. Beshrew me, but Francis Stafford can care for herself.”
“I crave pardon, Master Stafford,” replied Devereaux who never by word or deed dropped a hint that he knew aught of her sex. “I crave pardon if I have offended. I will vex thee no more.”
From that time his care was more unobtrusive, 168 but Francis was still conscious of it, and it was gall and wormwood to her. She could not forget the acknowledgment of his skill had been wrung from her when she thought herself dying. Although she could not but admit that Devereaux was innocent in the matter, she felt as though a fraud had been perpetrated upon her, and, girl-like, held him responsible for it.
And so life at the court went on. A great family under the same walls, loving and hating. The courtiers divided into factions; their followers being kept from brawling only by the presence of the queen. The serving men followed the example of their betters and squabbled in the kitchen; the butlers drank on the sly in the cellars; the maids chattered in the halls; the pages pilfered from the buttery; the matrons busied in the still rooms compounding fragrant decoctions for perfumes, or bitter doses for medicine; the stewards weighing money in the treasury; gallants dueling in the orchard or meeting their ladies on the stairs. But Francis liked it all.
The gallant courtiers with their song and 169 fence, and quibble and prattle and pun; the gaily dressed ladies; the masques in the great hall of the castle; the pomp and ceremony that attended the queen when she went abroad: all appealed to her æsthetic nature.
She soon learned to distinguish the courtiers. The Gipsy Earl of Leicester, with his swarthy handsome face; the tall and comely vice chamberlain, Sir Christopher Hatton; the venerable Burleigh; the trusty and wily Walsingham; the gay, witty and sarcastic Harrington, godson of the queen, and the fiery and impetuous Earl of Essex, stepson to Leicester.
Sometimes a low, broad-shouldered, heavily-built man would appear at court followed by brawny sailors who bore great chests of gold gathered from the Spanish Main. Then the court would be filled with the deeds of Sir Francis Drake, and of the wondrous happenings in that new world which lay over the sea.
Youth does not examine closely below the surface, and so to the girl all was bright and beautiful. She herself would have entered 170 into the life more fully, but that the cloud of the queen’s displeasure hung over her. There is no place where a sense of the august disapprobation makes itself so quickly felt as a court. And, as the days went by and Elizabeth still refused to permit her approach, Francis found herself more and more isolated.
Even the courtiers who had formerly called upon her to perform services for them now chose other of the pages, while the pages themselves no longer stopped to chat or gossip with her.
Thus the days went by.