At first she did not realize who the frail man was with the snow-white hair who had come into the room.
It was not indeed until this grave personage informed Anne that he was come from the Queen with a present and a message that she recognized her father. And even then it may have been the slow and deep melancholy of the voice that told her. She gave a little wild cry, and clutched Gervase with a sudden pang of terror. But there was nought in her father’s voice nor in his bearing to inspire it now.
With a gesture all humility, as one who knows that the will of man is little, and that man himself is hardly more than a puppet in the hands of fate, Sir John Feversham knelt by the bed and gave his daughter a kiss on the lips.
“It is the token of the Queen’s forgiveness,” he said, “which I am commanded to bring you.”
Anne shivered. Dry-eyed and in silence, her arms were flung round her father’s neck. It was as if she also had come to understand that she was no more than a plaything in the hands of fate.
The Queen’s messenger rose from his knees. And now for all his look of frailty which was almost pitiful, he had the tense and vital air of a man of affairs who is proud to serve a great sovereign.
“Further I am bidden by the Queen’s majesty,” he said in his slow and melancholy speech which was yet like a fine and rare music, “to bestow upon you, Mistress Anne Feversham, in her name, this chaplet of pearls.”
As Sir John spoke he took a small shagreen case out of the lining of his cloak. It contained a small necklace.
“At the Queen’s behest, thus do I place it round your throat, Mistress Anne Feversham. Moreover, it is her Majesty’s express command that you be well and strong again by Twelfth Night, since noon of that day is the hour her Majesty has appointed for the celebration of your nuptials with Mr. Gervase Heriot in the Chapel of her grandfather within the Abbey at Westminster. The Queen hopes herself to be present on the occasion. And I am further to inform you that on the eve of that day Mr. William Shakespeare, to whose efforts on your behalf the late signal acts of the Royal clemency are wholly due, has undertaken to present a new interlude to the Queen and the ladies and gentlemen of her Court. His former ones, the Queen commands me to say,”—Sir John Feversham bowed to the playwright who with a grave smile bowed to him again—“have been much admired.”
Transcriber’s Notes: