Lady Crabtree’s stern face stiffened.
“That may and may not be,” she retorted dryly; “Anne Boleyn has been more foolish than ever she was wise. The greatest fool was she to think that the man whom she had made unfaithful to his wife would be faithful to her. Poor shallow pate! she but taught him the door by which he should slip out. Well, well, there will be a great trial, and what will my lord of Wiltshire do?”
“The queen’s father?” Betty said; “alas, poor gentleman!”
“Alas, poor ass!” retorted Lady Crabtree; “yet was he clever enough to wring a promise from the king’s grace to marry Mistress Anne before Queen Catherine was put away. They tell a tale of his visit to the Bishop of Rome,” she added, laughing. “The king sent him upon this business of the divorce, and he, getting there, refused to kiss the pope’s toe. ’Tis added that his dog bit it, in which case it is no great wonder that his highness’s cause suffered at Rome.”
“My Lady Rochford does not love the queen,” Betty remarked thoughtfully, “nor does the queen love her.”
“There is gossip about her as a witness against Anne,” old Madam replied, “but there is scandal enough now to raise the stones of the palace. ’Twas the rumor of this matter that reached your uncle through his kinsman, the master of horse. Whereat I get a letter, writ in haste, to tell me to propound some excuse to get you to Deptford. William Carew must take me for a liar; that I never was, because I could not cover one without a thousand, and it is a weariness to the flesh.”
There was a pause between them; they were approaching Deptford, and Betty’s mind was full of those last melancholy hours with the unhappy queen.
“Hast seen thy lover, Henge, of late?” Lady Crabtree asked, as they reached the landing.
Betty raised her head haughtily. “I pray you call him by some other name,” she said coldly; “I am happy that I have not seen him.”
“And did Master Raby—I beg his pardon—Lord Raby not tell thee of the game in Greenwich Park?”