‘Right so. But not ships—then.’
‘And I thought you meant they must have told her they’d do it off their own bat, without getting her into a row with Philip. Was I right?’
‘Near enough for a Minister of the Queen. But remember she gave the lads full time to change their minds. She was three long days at Rye Royal—knighting of fat Mayors. When she came back to Brickwall, they met her a mile down the road, and she could feel their eyes burn through her riding-mask. Chris Hatton, poor fool, was vexed at it.
‘“You would not birch them when I gave you the chance,” says she to Chris. “Now you must get me half an hour’s private speech with ’em in Brickwall garden. Eve tempted Adam in a garden. Quick, man, or I may repent!"’
‘She was a Queen. Why did she not send for them herself,’ said Una.
The lady shook her head. ‘That was never her way. I’ve seen her walk to her own mirror by bye-ends, and the woman that cannot walk straight there is past praying for. Yet I would have you pray for her! What else—what else in England’s name could she have done?’ She lifted her hand to her throat for a moment. ‘Faith,’ she cried, ‘I’d forgotten the little green shoes! She left ’em at Brickwall—so she did. And I remember she gave the Norgem parson—John Withers, was he?—a text for his sermon—"Over Edom have I cast out my shoe.” Neat, if he’d understood!’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Una. ‘What about the two cousins?’
‘You are as cruel as a woman,’ the lady answered. ‘I was not to blame. I told you I gave ’em time to change their minds. On my honour (ay de mi!), she asked no more of ’em at first than to wait a while off that coast—the Gascons’ Graveyard—to hover a little if their ships chanced to pass that way—they had only one tall ship and a pinnace—only to watch and bring me word of Philip’s doings. One must watch Philip always. What a murrain right had he to make any plantation there, a hundred leagues north of his Spanish Main, and only six weeks from England? By my dread father’s soul, I tell you he had none—none!’ She stamped her red foot again, and the two children shrunk back for a second.
‘Nay, nay. You must not turn from me too! She laid it all fairly before the lads in Brickwall garden between the yews. I told ’em that if Philip sent a fleet (and to make a plantation he could not well send less), their poor little cock-boats could not sink it. They answered that, with submission, the fight would be their own concern. She showed ’em again that there could be only one end to it—quick death on the sea, or slow death in Philip’s prisons. They asked no more than to embrace death for my sake. Many men have prayed to me for life. I’ve refused ’em, and slept none the worse after; but when my men, my tall, fantastical young men beseech me on their knees for leave to die for me, it shakes me—ah, it shakes me to the marrow of my old bones.’
Her chest sounded like a board as she hit it.