A deep blush came into Betty’s face.
“I saw Lord Raby but once before he went away,” she answered, “and he told me but little, albeit I have heard much since.”
Taking a grim pleasure in the recital, Lady Crabtree told the story of the ambush and the rescue, and her sharp eyes did not lose a blush or quiver of the face beside her.
“’Tis a mercy that the matter is so ended,” Betty said in a low voice; “now I think he will scarcely dare to show his face again.”
Old Madam laughed harshly. “Little you know of Barton Henge,” she said; “he will remember the injury and the disgrace until he has avenged it. Lay no such unction to your soul; he is a devil and he will do a devil’s work.”
With these threatening words still ringing in her ears, Betty went with a heavy heart to take up her life again with this strange woman.
For a while, however, all hearts were absorbed in the terrible tidings that came from London. The indictment and the trial of a Queen of England, the pitiful spectacle of a woman who had sacrificed all to obtain a crown now forced to such a shameful ignominy. The minds of honest Englishmen were stunned; the sadness of the fate of Catherine was as nothing compared with this.
Moved by pity for the wretched queen, awed by the recognition of the fearful workings of retribution, Betty Carew was filled with amazement, sympathy, unbelief. Finding small matter in common with old Madam, the young girl was much alone. Sitting in her own room, which overlooked the river, or walking through the garden and orchards of the manor house, her mind found plenty of food for reflection. In a few short months she had attended two queens, each doomed to misery,—one a sternly virtuous woman, dying as a Christian should; the other—she could not think of Anne’s great beauty, the attraction of her manner, without commiseration. She had seen her in a brief hour of triumph at Catherine’s death; she knew that it was commonly reported that her malice had pulled down the great cardinal, but she could only think of her in her distress; she heard still her shrieks in the wizard’s house, her anguish at the sight of the king’s gift to Jane Seymour.
Betty had been ten days at Deptford, and one morning walked alone in the apple orchard. Beneath her feet the soft green turf was broken here and there by the gnarled root of an apple tree; overhead the low boughs made a network, white and pink with bloom, and through the beauty of the fragrant blossoms she saw the soft blue sky, and before her, through the trees, was the river. The birds sang with the joy of the spring. She went on down to the river bank, and watched the wherries going to London; then, as she came slowly back, she looked up and saw, coming through the avenue of trees, a stalwart figure, and a face she knew. She had not seen Simon Raby since that morning in the quadrangle court, and she blushed a little as she saw the glad look on his face. But she had profited by her lessons in the world, and she met him with an air of demure dignity.
“You are welcome, my Lord Raby,” she said gravely; “you have been long in Sussex, and I was sorry that you went on so sad an errand. Sir, I am an orphan too, and do commiserate your case.”