Francis’ heart glowed with love and tenderness toward her parents, and she was grieved that words of hers had brought such disquiet upon them.
“I must try,” she mused, “to retain my truth and yet not offend by it. But how could I have said other than I did? My mother is fairer to me. There was but the one answer to be given to such a question.”
Over and over she turned the matter in her mind striving to reconcile policy with truthfulness. A problem which has vexed the souls of men since the beginning of time.
At last the queen took her departure. As she bade her host and hostess farewell, she said:
“Madam, I thank you for your entertainment. My lord, though thou bearest me no good will, yet shalt thou find that Elizabeth doth not forget that thy father was the friend of her father. ’Tis pity that more attention hath not been given to thy son’s manners, but 114 the fault shall be amended, I promise you. England surely hath schools for its youth that are equal to those of thy faith abroad.”
“Madam, what mean you?” asked the nobleman detecting the menace in her words.
“We shall see what we shall see,” was the queen’s enigmatical rejoinder. She swept to her chariot, and with her brilliant train, soon left Stafford Hall behind.
As the days glided by, and no sign or message came from her, the anxiety engendered by her last words faded away, and once more a feeling of security crept into their hearts. This false confidence was dispelled however one warm day in July when a messenger from the queen rode into the courtyard, and demanded an audience with the master of the Hall. The guest had been but a short time in the presence chamber when Lord Stafford emerged from the apartment with pale face.
“Bid my lady and my daughter repair hither without delay,” he cried hailing a servitor.
“But, my lord,” Francis heard him say as they hastened to the room in answer to the summons, “I do but speak the truth when I 115 declare that, as I live by bread, I have no son. I have but one child, and that a daughter. She is here to speak for herself.”