“And I hope, madam, to have the happiness of proving to you that I am none the less faithfully your servant,” replied Sir Thomas Cheney.
“You must admit now,” said Lady Anne, addressing her father and brother, the Earl of Wiltshire and the Viscount Rochford, who were both present, “that I succeed in doing what I undertake.”
“You succeed in what you undertake,” replied her father humorously, “but you are a long time in deciding what to do. For instance, Cardinal Wolsey finds himself to-day occupying a position in which he has no right to be.”
“Ah! well, he will not remain in it very long,” replied Anne Boleyn, petulantly. “This morning the king told me the ladies would attend the chase to see the new falcons the king of France has sent him by Monsieur de Sansac. I will talk to him, and insist on his having nothing more to do with this horrid cardinal, or I shall at once quit the court. But,” she added, pausing suddenly with an expression of extreme embarrassment, “how should I answer were he to demand what his eminence Monseigneur Wolsey had ever done to me?”
“Here, sister, here is your answer,” replied Viscount Rochford, taking a large manuscript book from his father’s portfolio. “Take it and read for yourself; you will find here all you would need for a reply.”
“That great book!” cried Anne, strongly opposed to this new commission, and pouting like a spoilt child. Taking the book, she read—skipping a great deal, however—a minutely detailed statement, formally accusing Wolsey of having engaged in a secret correspondence with France, and with the most adroit malice misrepresenting every act of his administration as well as of his private life.
“What! can all this be true?” cried Anne Boleyn, closing the book.
“Certainly true,” replied Rochford. “And furthermore, you should know, the cardinal, in order to reward Campeggio for the good services he has rendered you, has persuaded the king to send him home loaded with rich presents, to conciliate the Pope, he says, by his filial submission and pious dispositions, and incline him to a favorable decision. That is the way he manages,” continued Rochford, shrugging his shoulders, “and keeps you in the most humiliating position ever occupied by a woman.”
Hearing her brother speak thus, the beautiful face of Anne Boleyn became instantly suffused with a deep crimson.
“Oh! that odious man,” she cried passionately. “I shall no longer submit to it. It is to insult me he makes such gracious acknowledgments to that old cardinal. I will complain to the king. Oh! how annoying all this is, though,” and she turned the book over and over in her white hands.