So saying Mary rose, and leaning on her daughter's arm, proceeded to explore her new abode. Like her apartment at the Lodge, it was at the top of the house, a fashion not uncommon when it was desirable to make the lower regions defensible; but, whereas she had always hitherto been placed in the castles of the highest nobility, she was now in that of a country knight of no great wealth or refinement, and, moreover, taken by surprise.
So the plenishing was of the simplest. The walls were covered with tapestry so faded that the pattern could hardly be detected. The hearth yawned dark and dull, and by it stood one chair with a moth-eaten cushion. A heavy oaken table and two forms were in the middle of the room, and there was the dreary, fusty smell of want of habitation. The Queen, whose instincts for fresh air were always a distress to her ladies, sprang to the mullioned window, but the heavy lattice defied all her efforts.
"Let us see the rest of our dominions," she said, turning to a door, which led to a still more gloomy bedroom, where the only articles of furniture were a great carved bed, with curtains of some undefined dark colour, and an oaken chest. The window was a mere slit, and even more impracticable than that of the outer room. However, this did not seem to horrify Mary so much as it did her daughter. "They cannot mean to keep us here long," she said; "perhaps only for the day, while they make their search—their unsuccessful search—thanks to—we know whom, little one."
"I hope so! How could we sleep there?" said Cicely, looking with a shudder at the bed.
"Tush! I have seen worse in Scotland, mignonne, ay and when I was welcomed as liege lady, not as a captive. I have slept in a box like a coffin with one side open, and I have likewise slept on a plaidie on the braw purple blossoms of freshly pulled heather! Nay, the very thought makes this chamber doubly mouldy and stifling! Let the old knight beware. If he open not his window I shall break it! Soft. Here he comes."
Sir Walter Ashton appeared, louting low, looking half-dogged, half-sheepish, and escorting two heavy-footed, blue-coated serving-men, who proceeded to lay the cloth, which at least had the merit of being perfectly clean and white. Two more brought in covered silver dishes, one of which contained a Yorkshire pudding, the other a piece of roast-beef, apparently calculated to satisfy five hungry men. A flagon of sack, a tankard of ale, a dish of apples, and a large loaf of bread, completed the meal; at which the Queen and Cicely, accustomed daily to a first table of sixteen dishes and a second of nine, compounded by her Grace's own French cooks and pantlers, looked with a certain amused dismay, as Sir Walter, standing by the table, produced a dagger from a sheath at his belt, and took up with it first a mouthful of the pudding, then cut off a corner of the beef, finished off some of the bread, and having swallowed these, as well as a draught of each of the liquors, said, "Good and sound meats, not tampered with, as I hereby testify. You take us suddenly, madam; but I thank Heaven, none ever found us unprovided. Will it please you to fall to? Your woman can eat after you."
Mary's courtesy was unfailing, and though she felt all a Frenchwoman's disgust at the roast-beef of old England, she said, "We are too close companions not to eat together, and I fear she will be the best trencher comrade, for, sir, I am a woman sick and sorrowful, and have little stomach for meat."
As Sir Walter carved a huge red piece from the ribs, she could not help shrinking back from it, so that he said with some affront, "You need not be queasy, madam, it was cut from a home-fed bullock, only killed three days since, and as prime a beast as any in Stafford."
"Ah! yea, sir. It is not the fault of the beef, but of my feebleness. Mistress Talbot will do it reason. But I, methinks I could eat better were the windows opened."
But Sir Walter replied that these windows were not of the new-fangled sort, made to open, that honest men might get rheums, and foolish maids prate therefrom. So there was no hope in that direction. He really seemed to be less ungracious than utterly clownish, dull, and untaught, and extremely shy and embarrassed with his prisoner.