“Thomas Carew,” repeated the queen, with sudden recollection. “Your mother was the daughter of Lord Penrith; I knew her well, and I do now recall that she commended her child to my care, when I was little able to care for any one; a falling tree doth crush the flower at its root. Blessed Virgin, how strange is destiny! That very child sent down to watch her royal mistress!”
Catherine spoke in a low tone, more to herself than to those about her, and sat for a few moments lost in revery. She was seated in a great chair before the hearth, and there was much calm dignity and sadness in her whole aspect, but she was both unlovely and unattractive; a stout woman with a pale, large-featured face which ill health and trouble had aged before her time. Her expression was austere, and there were traces of deep sorrow and anxiety in the furrows that already marked her brow and the deep purple shadows under her dark eyes. Her gown was of black velvet, with large, flowing sleeves over small, straight ones, which had lace ruffles over the hands. On her head was a high, crownlike, five-cornered cap edged with jewels, two pieces falling down from it over the ears, and at the back was fastened the Spanish mantilla, its graceful folds draping her shoulders and showing her face in strong relief against the black background. Behind her chair were grouped three ladies-in-waiting, and all bent curious glances on the young stranger. Mistress Betty’s blooming youth and brilliantly colored beauty had never shown to a more dazzling advantage than it did by contrast now, and Catherine herself, looking up from her revery, observed it and smiled sadly.
“Alas!” she said, “poor maid, this place is like to be no better than a tomb to one so young, albeit safer for your soul’s grace now than Greenwich. I have no entertainment, no masks, no dances to break the cold monotony. You may pray here, weep here, die here, but verily, you will have no revelry. If you but remember to be a woman, and bear a woman’s heart in your breast, as did your mother, you will find me no unkind mistress to you, though, God knows, an impoverished one. Wilt serve me on such terms as these?”
“Madam, I will do my duty, and I can no more,” Betty answered in a low tone, divided between her pity and her uncle’s instructions.
The queen smiled ironically. “Well tutored in her ‘duty,’ doubtless,” she said, turning to her maids; “a cautious answer, aptly mouthed. But, pshaw! I grow a weak woman to be angered with a baby. The wench is tired, I know; these men take no thought for a woman’s strength, and doubtless she has ridden long and far. Take her away and find some place to bestow her, and to-morrow we will give some employment to her. Can you sing, Mistress Carew?” she added to Betty.
“I can both sing and play upon the harp, madam,” the young girl answered gravely, for Catherine’s words offended her, even though she felt the justice of the queen’s suspicions.
“A musician,” said Catherine, more graciously; “now am I reconciled. Like Saul, my soul finds consolation in music; it seems my lord privy seal would send me a female David! Well, well, leave me, maiden; I am weary, and I would not have you think your queen a sour and uncharitable woman with no lenient word for youth. Go eat and sleep, and to-morrow we will be merry.”
CHAPTER V
THE GENTLEMAN IN THE RUSSET CLOAK
Queen Catherine’s prediction that life at Kimbolton would be gloomy for a young girl, seemed likely to be fulfilled. Happily, for Mistress Betty’s comfort, she had already undergone such discipline in both poverty and solitude that she was better fitted to endure restraint and depressing surroundings than others of her years. Sir William Carew and Master Raby bade her farewell the morning after her arrival, and from that time she encountered no very friendly treatment, except from Sir Edmund Bedingfield. The queen was never unkind, but she looked upon Betty with suspicion, and a settled conviction existed in her mind that the young girl was a spy of my lord privy seal, while her three attendants, all women who were devoted to her person, resented still more intensely the presence of the new lady-in-waiting. At the same time, Betty’s youth, beauty, and many attractions won upon them, in spite of themselves, and they could not be harsh or malicious to so charming a creature. After the first week or two they relaxed a little in their manner toward her, and gradually she won her own place in the little household, though she was never trusted in any confidential matter; and often, at her approach, conversation was hushed or writing materials put aside, and an artificial manner assumed, as before a stranger. Intensely as Betty resented the distrust and coldness, she was not without a feeling of thankfulness that her sympathies would never be appealed to, that they seemed to have no wish to work upon her for any of their secret purposes. That there was much scheming she could not doubt from many little indications, and from occasional passages in the conversation, she learned that Catherine was still industriously employed in appealing both to the Emperor Charles and to the new pope. To all these matters Betty tried to close her eyes and ears, and indeed it seemed to her that it could not last long; it required no very observant eye to see that the queen was suffering from some malady even more dangerous than grief and mortification. There were many days when the royal sufferer never left her bed, and at such times she seemed to find genuine consolation in Betty’s harp and her clear, sweet voice. The young girl, moved by deep pity for the injured queen, was ever ready to give her the comfort of her music, and so, little by little, she gained a place in Catherine’s regard, though herself chilled and sometimes repulsed by the coldness and suspicious austerity of the Castilian princess. Just, virtuous, and religious, Catherine did not also possess the attraction of sweet and gracious manners, and her natural austerity had been increased by the usage she had received in England. She was devout in the observance of her religion, rising at five o’clock in the morning for prayers, and fasting with rigid exactness. Beneath her robes she had always worn the habit of a nun of the order of Saint Francis, and she held the vanities of the world in contempt, even while she contended for her earthly honors. Heavily oppressed by her sorrows and deeply distressed for the future of her daughter, the unhappy queen had neither leisure nor inclination to win the affection of the young attendant so unceremoniously thrust upon her. So it was that Mistress Betty stood as one apart, and watched the sad little drama to its close without feeling herself one of the actors.
Catherine held a little court each day, unless her health prevented it, many visitors coming and going at Kimbolton in spite of the surveillance of the royal officers. Although he feared her influence, the king had never isolated her; he either respected her too much, or hesitated because of the popular feeling in her favor, and the attitude of the foreign princes. She was in the hands of the officers of the crown, but they dared not treat her as a prisoner, and the sympathy of a large portion of the kingdom showed itself, more or less openly, in many ways. Yet life at Kimbolton was gloomy enough, and the queen being almost constantly indisposed, her maids had small opportunities for out-of-door exercises and none for sports. Their greatest entertainment was to embroider in the evenings, gathered about the invalid’s chair, or to play cards,—a game in which the queen sometimes joined, though it was whispered among her women that she had hated the sight of a card since she had played with Anne Boleyn at Greenwich. Although Betty felt herself an object of indifference to the little circle, she was more noticed and commented upon than she was aware. The fresh beauty of the young girl was often the subject of conversation, when her back was turned; even the queen observing it and speaking of Betty’s many charms.