I was to make ready my bundle and ride six miles to London in one hour; and almost half that time was spent already. I was sure to be late, so I could not waste another minute.
I went to my room and got together a few things necessary for my journey, but did not take much in the way of clothing, preferring to buy that new in Paris, where I could find the latest styles in pattern and fabric.
I tried to assure myself that Mary would see the king at once and tell him all, and not allow my dear friend Brandon to lie in that terrible place another night; yet a persistent fear gnawed at my heart, and a sort of intuition, that seemed to have the very breath of certainty in its foreboding, made me doubt her.
As I could find neither Mary nor Jane, I did the next best thing: I wrote a letter to each of them, urging immediate action, and left them to be delivered by my man Thomas, who was one of those trusty souls that never fail. I did not tell the girls I was about to start for France, but intimated that I was compelled to leave London for a time, and said: "I leave the fate of this man, to whom we all owe so much, in your hands, knowing full well how tender you will be of him."
I was away from home nearly a month, and as I dared not write, and even Jane did not know where I was, I did not receive, nor expect, any letters. The king had ordered secrecy, and if I have mingled with all my faults a single virtue it is that of faithfulness to my trust. So I had no news from England and sent none home.
During all that time the same old fear lived in my heart that Mary might fail to liberate Brandon. She knew of the negotiations concerning the French marriage, as we all did, although only by an indefinite sort of hearsay, and I was sure the half-founded rumors that had reached her ears had long since become certainties, and that her heart was full of trouble and fear of her violent brother. She would certainly be at her coaxing and wheedling again and on her best behavior, and I feared she might refrain from telling Henry of her trip to Grouche's, knowing how severe he was in such matters and how furious he was sure to become at the discovery. I was certain it was this fear which had prevented Mary from going directly to the king on our return to Greenwich from Scotland Palace, and I knew that her eating, bathing and dressing were but an excuse for a breathing spell before the dreaded interview.
This fear remained with me all the time I was away, but when I reasoned with myself I would smother it as well as I could with argumentative attempts at self-assurance. I would say over and over to myself that Mary could not fail, and that even if she did, there was Jane, dear, sweet, thoughtful, unselfish Jane, who would not allow her to do so. But as far as they go, our intuitions—our "feelings," as we call them—are worth all the logic in the world, and you may say what you will, but my presentiments—I speak for no one else—are well to be minded. There is another sense hidden about us that will develop as the race grows older. I speak to posterity.
In proof of this statement, I now tell you that when I returned to London I found Brandon still in the terrible dungeon; and, worse still, he had been tried for murder, and had been condemned to be hanged, drawn and quartered on the second Friday following. Hanged! Drawn! Quartered! It is time we were doing away with such barbarity.
We will now go back a month for the purpose of looking up the doings of a friend of ours, his grace, the Duke of Buckingham.
On the morning after the fatal battle of Billingsgate, the barber who had treated Brandon's wounds had been called to London to dress a bruised knee for his grace, the duke. In the course of the operation, an immense deal of information oozed out of the barber, one item of which was that he had the night before dressed nine wounds, great and small, for Master Brandon, the king's friend. This established the identity of the man who had rescued the girls, a fact of which Buckingham had had his suspicions all along. So Brandon's arrest followed, as I have already related to you.