“Compose yourself, I pray your Highness,” replied Lady Hertford, secretly enjoying her distress, though feigning sympathy. “I feel for your situation, and will lend you help, if you are disposed to receive it. If you would effectu ally cure yourself of this unworthy passion—for so I must needs call it, though Sir Thomas is my husband’s brother—which you have allowed to obtain dominion over you, go to-morrow at noon to Lady Herbert’s chamber in the north gallery, and you shall hear enough to convince you of your lover’s perfidy.”
“Hath Elizabeth agreed to meet him there?” demanded Catherine, becoming as white as ashes.
“Your Highness will see,” rejoined Lady Hertford. “If you will leave the matter to me, I will contrive that you shall be an unseen and unsuspected witness of the interview.”
“Do what you will, countess,” said Catherine. “Prove him forsworn, and I will stifle every feeling I have for him, even if I expire in the effort.”
“Proof shall not be wanting, trust me,” replied Lady Hertford. “But I do this in the hope of curing your Highness, and from no other motive.”
“I know it, and I shall be forever beholden to you,” rejoined the wounded queen, gratefully.
“It will be needful to the full success of the plan that your Highness put constraint upon yourself during the rest of the evening,” observed Lady Hertford. “Let not Sir Thomas or the Lady Elizabeth fancy they are suspected.”
“The task will be difficult,” sighed Catherine, “but I will strive to perform it.”
“Doubt not I will be as good as my word,” said Lady Hertford. “Your Highness shall be present at the rendezvous, and shall have the power to surprise them, if you see fit. I now humbly take leave of your Grace.” And she mentally ejaculated, as she quitted the queen, “At length I have avenged the affront! No, not altogether—but to-morrow it shall be fully wiped out.”
| Go to Table of Contents |
Chapter XII
OF THE INTERVIEW BETWEEN SIR THOMAS SEYMOUR AND THE PRINCESS ELIZABETH; AND HOW IT WAS INTERRUPTED
Next morning, Sir Thomas Seymour did not quit his chamber in the Wardrobe Tower until close upon the hour appointed for his interview with the Princess Elizabeth. Full of ardor, and confident of success, he then prepared to set forth. Ugo Harrington, who had assisted him to decorate his person, and just before his departure had handed him a pair of perfumed gloves, attended him to the door, and wished him “buona riuscita.” But it may be doubted whether the esquire’s look was in entire accordance with the sentiment he expressed. There was more of malice in his smile than good will.
As Seymour traversed the long and winding corridors of the palace in the direction of the apartments assigned to his sister, Lady Herbert, his stately figure and superb attire attracted the admiration of the various subordinate officers of the household thronging the galleries, and, with one accord, they agreed that he was the noblest personage about the court.
“Sir Thomas looks as brave as a king,” observed a master-cook, who was dressed in damask satin, with a chain of gold about his neck.
“His highness the lord protector cannot compare with him,” remarked an equally gaily-attired clerk of the kitchen.
“All the court ladies and gentlewomen, they say, are dying of love for him—and no wonder!” said a spruce clerk of the spicery.
“You should see him in the tilt-yard, good sirs,” quoth a fat sewer of the hall.
“Or in the manage, or the fencing school,” observed a tall henchman. “No man can put a horse through his paces, or handle the rapier, like Sir Thomas Seymour.”
“The king’s highness ought to bestow the Lady Elizabeth’s Grace in marriage upon him,” observed a simpering page. “There is none other so worthy of her.”
“That may be, or it may not,” said Xit, who was standing among the group. “When the curtain is raised, then what is behind it shall be disclosed,” he added, mysteriously.
“What mean’st thou by that, little Solon?” cried the page. “Wouldst intimate that thou knowest more than we who are in constant attendance on his majesty?”
“What I know, I know—and it shall never be confided to thee, on that thou mayst depend,” rejoined Xit.