“Will I do it!” exclaimed Catharine, quickly. “Oh, Jane, you well know how much my heart longs to help and be serviceable to the unfortunate! Ah, so many wounds are inflicted at this court, and the queen is so poor in balm to heal them! Allow me this pleasure then, Jane, and I shall be thankful to you, not you to me! Speak then, Jane, speak quickly; who is it that needs my help?”
“Not your help, queen, but your compassion and your grace. Earl Sudley has conquered poor Earl Surrey in the tournament to-day, and you comprehend that your lord chamberlain feels himself deeply bowed and humbled.”
“Can I alter that, Jane? Why did the visionary earl, the enthusiastic poet, allow himself a contest with a hero who already knows what he wants, and ever accomplishes what he wills? Oh, it was wonderful to look upon, with what lightning speed Thomas Seymour lifted him out of the saddle! And the proud Earl Surrey, the wise and learned man, the powerful party leader, was forced to bow before the hero, who like an angel Michael had thrown him in the dust.”
The queen laughed.
That laugh went through Jane’s heart like a cutting sword.
“She shall pay me for that!” said she softly to herself. “Queen,” said she aloud, “you are perfectly right; he has deserved this humiliation; but now, after he is punished, you should lift him up. Nay, do not shake your beautiful head. Do it for your own sake, queen; do it from prudence. Earl Surrey, with his father, is the head of a powerful party, whom this humiliation of the Howards fills with a still more burning hate against the Seymours, and who will, in time to come, take a bloody revenge for it.”
“Ah, you frighten me!” said the queen, who had now become serious.
Lady Jane continued: “I saw how the Duke of Norfolk bit his lips, as his son had to yield to Seymour; I heard how one, here and there, muttered low curses and vows of vengeance against the Seymours.”
“Who did that? Who dared to do it?” exclaimed Catharine, springing up impetuously from her arm-chair. “Who at this court is so audacious as to wish to injure those whom the queen loves? Name him to me, Jane; I will know his name! I will know it, that I may accuse him to the king. For the king does not want that these noble Seymours should give way to the Howards; he does not want that the nobler, the better, and more glorious, should bow before these quarrelsome, domineering papists. The king loves the noble Seymours, and his powerful arm will protect them against all their enemies.”
“And, without doubt, your majesty will assist him in it?” said Jane, smiling.