Part 4

A fortnight later, of a Sunday morning, the Lord Chamberlain of England was disturbed out of his usual equanimity. As he was treading the rushes in the presence-chamber of the royal palace at Greenwich, his eye busy in inspection--for the Queen would soon pass on her way to chapel--his head nodding right and left to archbishop, bishop, councillors of state, courtiers, and officers of the crown, he heard a rude noise at the door leading into the antechapel, where the Queen received petitions from the people. Hurrying thither in shocked anxiety, he found a curled gentleman of the guard, resplendent in red velvet and gold chains, in peevish argument with a boisterous seigneur of a bronzed, good-humored face, who urged his entrance to the presence-chamber.

The Lord Chamberlain swept down upon the pair like a flamingo with wings outspread. “God’s death! what means this turmoil? Her Majesty comes hither!” he cried, and scowled upon the intruder, who now stepped back a little, treading on the toes of a huge sailor with a small head and bushy red hair and beard.

“Because her Majesty comes I come also,” the seigneur interposed, grandly.

“What is your name and quality?”

“Yours first, and I shall know how to answer.”

“I am the Lord Chamberlain of England.”

“And I, my lord, am Lemprière, Seigneur of Rozel--and butler to the Queen.”

“Where is Rozel?” asked my Lord Chamberlain.

The face of the seigneur suddenly flushed, his mouth swelled, and then burst.

“_Where is Rozel!_” he cried, in a voice of rage. “Where is Rozel! Have you heard of Hugh Pawlett?” he asked, with a huge contempt--“of Governor Hugh Pawlett?” The Lord Chamberlain nodded. “Then ask his Excellency when next you see him, Where is Rozel? But take good counsel and keep your ignorance from the Queen,” he added. “She has no love for stupids.”

“You say you are butler to the Queen? Whence came your commission?” said the Lord Chamberlain, smiling now; for Lemprière’s words and ways were of some simple world where odd folk lived, and his boyish vanity disarmed anger.

“By royal warrant and heritage. And of all of the Jersey Isle, I only may have dove-cotes, which is the everlasting thorn in the side of De Carteret of St. Ouen’s. Now will you let me in, my lord?” he said, all in a breath.

At a stir behind him the Lord Chamberlain turned, and with a horrified exclamation hurried away, for the procession from the Queen’s apartments had already entered the presence-chamber: gentlemen, barons, earls, knights of the garter, in brave attire, with bare heads and sumptuous calves. The Lord Chamberlain had scarce got to his place when the Chancellor, bearing the seals in a red silk purse, entered, flanked by two gorgeous folk with the royal sceptre and the sword of state in a red scabbard, all flourished with fleurs-de-lis. Moving in and out among them all was the Queen’s fool, who jested and shook his bells under the noses of the highest.

It was an event of which the Seigneur of Rozel told to his dying day: that he entered the presence-chamber of the royal palace of Greenwich at the same instant as the Queen--“Rozel at one end, Elizabeth at the other, and all the world at gaze,” he was wont to say, with loud guffaws. But what he spoke of afterwards with preposterous ease and pride was neither pride nor ease at the moment; for the Queen’s eyes fell on him as he shoved past the gentlemen who kept the door. For an instant she stood still, regarding him intently, then turned quickly to the Lord Chamberlain in inquiry, and with a sharp reproof, too, in her look. The Lord Chamberlain fell on his knee, and with low, uncertain voice explained the incident.

Elizabeth again cast her eyes towards Lemprière, and the court, following her example, scrutinized the seigneur in varied styles of insolence or curiosity. Lemprière drew himself up with a slashing attempt at composure, but ended by flaming from head to foot, his face shining like a cock’s comb, the perspiration standing out like beads upon his forehead, his eyes gone blind with confusion. That was but for a moment, however, and then, Elizabeth’s look being slowly withdrawn from him, a curious smile came to her lips, and she said to the Lord Chamberlain, “Let the gentleman remain.”

The Queen’s fool tripped forward and tapped the Lord Chamberlain on the shoulder. “Let the gentleman remain, gossip, and see you that remaining he goeth not like a fly with his feet in the porridge.” With a flippant step before the seigneur, he shook his bells at him. “Thou shalt stay, Nuncio, and, staying, speak the truth. So doing, you shall be as noted as a comet with three tails. You shall prove that man was made in God’s image. So lift thy head and sneeze--sneezing is the fashion here; but see that thou sneeze not thy head off as they do in Tartary. ’Tis worth remembrance.”

Rozel’s self-importance and pride had returned. The blood came back to his heart, and he threw out his chest grandly; he even turned to Buonespoir, whose great figure might be seen beyond the door, and winked at him. For a moment he had time to note the doings of the Queen and her courtiers with wide-eyed curiosity. He saw the Earl of Leicester, exquisite, haughty, gallant, fall upon his knee, and Elizabeth slowly pull off her glove and with a none too gracious look give him her hand to kiss, the only favor of the kind granted that day. He saw Cecil, her minister, introduce a foreign noble, who presented his letters. He heard the Queen speak in a half-dozen different languages, to people of various lands, and was smitten with due amazement.

But as Elizabeth came slowly down the hall, her white silk gown fronted with great pearls flashing back the light, a marchioness bearing the train, the crown on her head glittering as she turned from right to left, her wonderful collar of jewels sparkling on her uncovered bosom, suddenly the mantle of black, silver-shotted silk upon her shoulders became to Lemprière’s heated senses a judge’s robe, and Elizabeth the august judge of the world. His eyes blinded again, for it was as if she were bearing down upon him. Certainly she was looking at him now, scarce heeding the courtiers who fell to their knees on either side as she came on. The red doublets of the fifty Gentlemen Pensioners--all men of noble families proud to do this humble yet distinguished service--with battle-axes, on either side of her, seemed to Lemprière on the instant like an army with banners threatening him. From the antechapel behind him came the cry of the faithful subjects who, as the gentlemen-at-arms fell back from the doorway, had but just caught a glimpse of her Majesty--“Long live Elizabeth!”

It seemed to Lemprière that the Gentlemen Pensioners must beat him down as they passed, yet he stood riveted to the spot. And, indeed, it was true that he was almost in the path of her Majesty. He was aware that two gentlemen touched him on the shoulder and bade him retire; but the Queen motioned to them to desist. So, with the eyes of the whole court on him again, and Elizabeth’s calm, curious gaze fixed, as it were, on his forehead, he stood still till the flaming Gentlemen Pensioners were within a few feet of him and the battle-axes were almost over his head.

The great braggart was no better now than a wisp of grass in the wind, and it was more than homage that bent him to his knees as the Queen looked him full in the eyes. There was a moment’s absolute silence, and then she said, with cold condescension:

“By what privilege do you seek our presence?”

“I am Raoul Lemprière, Seigneur of Rozel, your high Majesty,” said the choking voice of the Jerseyman.

The Queen raised her eyebrows. “The man seems French. You come from France?”

Lemprière flushed to his hair--the Queen did not know him, then! “From Jersey Isle, your sacred Majesty.”

“Jersey Isle is dear to us. And what is your warrant here?”

“I am butler to your Majesty, by your gracious Majesty’s patent, and I alone may have dove-cotes in the isle; and I only may have the perquage--on your Majesty’s patent. It is not even held by De Carteret of St. Ouen’s.”

The Queen smiled as she had not smiled since she entered the presence-chamber. “God preserve us,” she said, “that I should not have recognized you! It is, of course, our faithful Lemprière of Rozel.”

The blood came back to the seigneur’s heart, but he did not dare look up yet, and he did not see that Elizabeth was in rare mirth at his words; and though she had no ken or memory of him, she read his nature and was mindful to humor him. Beckoning Leicester to her side, she said a few words in an undertone, to which he replied with a smile more sour than sweet.

“Rise, Monsieur of Rozel,” she said.

The seigneur stood up, and met her gaze faintly.

“And so, proud seigneur, you must needs flout e’en our Lord Chamberlain, in the name of our butler with three dove-cotes and the perquage. In sooth thy office must not be set at naught lightly--not when it is flanked by the perquage. By my father’s doublet, but that frieze jerkin is well cut; it suits thy figure well--I would that my Lord Leicester here had such a tailor. But this perquage--I doubt not there are those here at court who are most ignorant of its force and moment. My Lord Chamberlain, my Lord Leicester, Cecil here--confusion sits in their faces. The perquage, which my father’s patent approved, has served us well, I doubt not, is a comfort to our realm and a dignity befitting the wearer of that frieze jerkin. Speak to their better understanding, Monsieur of Rozel.”

“Speak, Nuncio, and you shall have comforts, and be given in marriage, multiple or singular, even as I,” said the fool, and touched him on the breast with his bells.

Lemprière had recovered his heart, and now was set full sail in the course he had charted for himself in Jersey. In large words and larger manner he explained most innocently the sacred privilege of _perquage_.

“And how often have you used the right, friend?” asked Elizabeth.

“But once in ten years, your noble Majesty.”

“When last?”

“But yesterday a week, your universal Majesty.”

Elizabeth raised her eyebrows. “Who was the criminal, what the occasion?”

“The criminal was one Buonespoir, the occasion our coming hither to wait upon the Queen of England and our Lady of Normandy, for such is your well-born Majesty to your loyal Jersiais.” And thereupon he plunged into an impeachment of De Carteret of St. Ouen’s, and stumbled through a blunt, broken story of the wrongs and the sorrows of Michel and Angèle and the doings of Buonespoir in their behalf.

Elizabeth frowned and interrupted him. “I have heard of this Buonespoir, monsieur, through others than the Seigneur of St. Ouen’s. He is an unlikely squire of dames. There’s a hill in my kingdom has long bided his coming. Where waits the rascal now?”

“In the antechapel, your Majesty.”

“By the rood!” said Elizabeth, in sudden amazement. “In my antechapel, forsooth!”

She looked beyond the doorway and saw the great, red-topped figure of Buonespoir, his good-natured, fearless face, his shock of hair, his clear blue eye--he was not thirty feet away.

“He comes to crave pardon for his rank offences, your benignant Majesty,” said Lemprière.

The humor of the thing rushed upon the Queen. Never before were two such naïve folk at court. There was not a hair of duplicity in the heads of the two, and she judged them well in her mind.

“I will see you stand together--you and your henchman,” she said to Rozel, and moved on to the antechapel, the court following. Standing still just inside the doorway, she motioned Buonespoir to come near. The pirate, unconfused, undismayed, with his wide, blue, asking eyes, came forward and dropped upon his knees. Elizabeth motioned Lemprière to stand a little apart.

Thereupon she set a few questions to Buonespoir, whose replies, truthfully given, showed that he had no real estimate of his crimes, and was indifferent to what might be their penalties. He had no moral sense on the one hand, on the other, no fear.

Suddenly she turned to Lemprière again. “You came, then, to speak for this Michel de la Forêt, the exile--?”

“And for the demoiselle Angèle Aubert, who loves him, your Majesty.”

“I sent for this gentleman exile a fortnight ago--” She turned towards Leicester inquiringly.

“I have the papers here, your Majesty,” said Leicester, and gave a packet over.

“And where have you De la Forêt?” said Elizabeth.

“In durance, your Majesty.”

“When came he hither?”

“Three days gone,” answered Leicester, a little gloomily, for there was acerbity in Elizabeth’s voice.

Elizabeth seemed about to speak, then dropped her eyes upon the papers and glanced hastily at their contents.

“You will have this Michel de la Forêt brought to my presence as fast as horse can bring him, my lord,” she said to Leicester. “This rascal of the sea--Buonespoir--you will have safe bestowed till I recall his existence again,” she said to a captain of men-at-arms; “and you, Monsieur of Rozel, since you are my butler, will get you to my diningroom and do your duty--the office is not all perquisites,” she added, smoothly. She was about to move on when a thought seemed to strike her, and she added, “This mademoiselle and her father whom you brought hither--where are they?”

“They are even within the palace grounds, your imperial Majesty,” answered Lemprière.

“You will summon them when I bid you,” she said to the seigneur; “and you shall see that they have comforts and housing as befits their station,” she added to the Lord Chamberlain.

So did Elizabeth, out of a whimsical humor, set the highest in the land to attend upon unknown, unconsidered exiles.

VIII

Five minutes later Lemprière of Rozel, as butler to the Queen, saw a sight of which he told to his dying day. When, after varied troubles hereafter set down, he went back to Jersey, he made a speech before the royal court, in which he told what chanced while Elizabeth was at chapel.

“There stood I, butler to the Queen,” he said, with a large gesture, “but what knew I of butler’s duties at Greenwich Palace! Her Majesty had given me an office where all the work was done for me. Odd’s life! but when I saw the Gentleman of the Rod and his fellow get down on their knees to lay the cloth upon the table, as though it was an altar at Jerusalem, I thought it time to say my prayers. There was naught but kneeling and retiring. Now it was the saltcellar, the plate, and the bread; then it was a Duke’s Daughter--a noble soul as ever lived--with a tasting-knife, as beautiful as a rose; then another lady enters who glares at me, and gets to her knees as does the other. Three times up and down, and then one rubs the plate with bread and salt, as solemn as St. Ouen’s when he says prayers in the royal court. Gentles, that was a day for Jersey. For there stood I as master of all, the Queen’s butler, and the greatest ladies of the land doing my will--though it was all Persian mystery to me, save when the kettle-drums began to beat and the trumpet to blow, and in walked bareheaded the yeomen of the guard, all scarlet, with a golden rose on their backs, bringing in a course of twenty-four gold dishes, and I, as Queen’s butler, receiving them.

“Then it was I opened my mouth, amazed at the endless dishes filled with niceties of earth, and the Duke’s Daughter pops onto my tongue a mouthful of the first dish brought, and then does the same to every yeoman of the guard that carried a dish--that her notorious Majesty be safe against the hand of poisoners. There was I, fed by a Duke’s Daughter; and thus was Jersey honored; and the Duke’s Daughter whispers to me, as a dozen other unmarried ladies enter, ‘The Queen liked not the cut of your frieze jerkin better than do I, seigneur.’ With that she joins the others, and they all kneel down and rise up again, and, lifting the meat from the table, bear it into the Queen’s private chamber.

“When they return, and the yeomen of the guard go forth, I am left alone with these ladies, and there I stand with twelve pairs of eyes upon me, little knowing what to do. There was laughter in the faces of some, and looks less taking in the eyes of others; for my Lord Leicester was to have done the duty I was set to do that day, and he the greatest gallant of the kingdom, as all the world knows. What they said among themselves I know not, but I heard Leicester’s name, and I guessed that they were mostly in the pay of his soft words. But the Duke’s Daughter was on my side, as was proved betimes when Leicester made trouble for us who went from Jersey to plead the cause of injured folk. Of the earl’s enmity to me--a foolish spite of a great nobleman against a Norman-Jersey gentleman--and of how it injured others for the moment, you all know; but we had him by the heels before the end of it, great earl and favorite as he was.”

In the same speech Lemprière told of his audience with the Queen, even as she sat at dinner, and of what she said to him; but since his words give but a partial picture of events, the relation must not be his.

When the Queen returned from chapel to her apartments, Lemprière was called by an attendant, and he stood behind the Queen’s chair until she summoned him to face her. Then, having finished her meal and dipped her fingers in a bowl of rose-water, she took up the papers Leicester had given her--the Duke’s Daughter had read them aloud as she ate--and said:

“Now, my good Seigneur of Rozel, answer me these few questions: First, what concern is it of yours whether this Michel de la Forêt be sent back to France or die here in England?”

“I helped to save his life at sea--one good turn deserves another, your high-born Majesty.”

The Queen looked sharply at him, then burst out laughing.

“God’s life, but here’s a bull making epigrams!” she said. Then her humor changed. “See you, my butler of Rozel, you shall speak the truth, or I’ll have you where that jerkin will fit you not so well a month hence. Plain answers I will have to plain questions, or De Carteret of St. Ouen’s shall have his will of you and your precious pirate. So bear yourself as you would save your head and your honors.”

Lemprière of Rozel never had a better moment than when he met the Queen of England’s threats with faultless intrepidity. “I am concerned about my head, but more about my honors, and most about my honor,” he replied. “My head is my own, my honors are my family’s, for which I would give my head when needed, and my honor defends both until both are naught--and all are in the service of my Queen.”

Smiling, Elizabeth suddenly leaned forward, and, with a glance of satisfaction towards the Duke’s Daughter, who was present, said:

“I had not thought to find so much logic behind your rampant skull,” she said. “You’ve spoken well, Rozel, and you shall speak by the book to the end, if you will save your friends. What concern is it of yours whether Michel de la Forêt live or die?”

“It is a concern of one whom I’ve sworn to befriend, and that is my concern, your ineffable Majesty.”

“Who the friend?”

“Mademoiselle Aubert.”

“The betrothed of this Michel de la Forêt?”

“Even so, your exalted Majesty. But I made sure De la Forêt was dead when I asked her to be my wife.”

“Lord! Lord! Lord! hear this vast infant, this hulking baby of a seigneur, this primeval innocence! Listen to him, cousin,” said the Queen, turning again to the Duke’s Daughter. “Was ever the like of it in any kingdom of this earth? He chooses a penniless exile--he, a butler to the Queen, with three dove-cotes and the perquage--and a Huguenot withal. He is refused; then comes the absent lover oversea, to shipwreck; and our seigneur rescues him, ‘fends him; and when yon master exile is in peril, defies his Queen’s commands”--she tapped the papers lying beside her on the table--“then comes to England with the lady to plead the case before his outraged sovereign, with an outlawed buccaneer for comrade and lieutenant. There is the case, is’t not?”

“I swore to be her friend,” answered Lemprière, stubbornly, “and I have done according to my word.”

“There’s not another nobleman in my kingdom who would not have thought twice about the matter, with the lady aboard his ship on the high seas--’tis a miraculous chivalry, cousin,” she added to the Duke’s Daughter, who bowed, settled herself again on her velvet cushion, and looked out of the corner of her eyes at Lemprière.

“You opposed Sir Hugh Pawlett’s officers who went to arrest this De la Forêt,” continued Elizabeth. “Call you that serving your Queen? Pawlett had our commands.”

“I opposed them but in form, that the matter might the more surely be brought to your Majesty’s knowledge.”

“It might easily have brought you to the Tower, man.”

“I had faith that your Majesty would do right in this, as in all else. So I came hither to tell the whole story to your judicial Majesty.”

“Our thanks for your certificate of character,” said the Queen, with amused irony. “What is your wish? Make your words few and plain.”

“I desire before all that Michel de la Forêt shall not be returned to the Medici, most radiant Majesty.”

“That’s plain. But there are weighty matters ’twixt France and England, and De la Forêt may turn the scale one way or another. What follows, beggar of Rozel?”

“That Mademoiselle Aubert and her father may live without let or hindrance in Jersey.”

“That you may eat sour grapes ad eternam? Next?”

“That Buonespoir be pardoned all offences and let live in Jersey on pledge that he sin no more, not even to raid St. Ouen’s cellars of the muscadella reserved for your generous Majesty.”

There was such humor in Lemprière’s look as he spoke of the muscadella that the Queen questioned him closely upon Buonespoir’s raid; and so infectious was his mirth as he told the tale that Elizabeth, though she stamped her foot in assumed impatience, smiled also.

“You shall have your Buonespoir, seigneur,” she said; “but for his future you shall answer as well as he.”

“For what he does in Jersey Isle, your commiserate Majesty?”

“For crime elsewhere, if he be caught, he shall march to Tyburn, friend,” she answered. Then she hurriedly added: “Straightway go and bring mademoiselle and her father hither. Orders are given for their disposal. And to-morrow at this hour you shall wait upon me in their company. I thank you for your services as butler this day, Monsieur of Rozel. You do your office rarely.”

* * * * *

As the seigneur left Elizabeth’s apartments he met the Earl of Leicester hurrying thither, preceded by the Queen’s messenger. Leicester stopped and said, with a slow, malicious smile, “Farming is good, then--you have fine crops this year on your holding?”

The point escaped Lemprière at first, for the favorite’s look was all innocence, and he replied: “You are mistook, my lord. You will remember I was in the presence-chamber an hour ago, my lord. I am Lemprière, Seigneur of Rozel, butler to her Majesty.”

“But are you, then? I thought you were a farmer and raised cabbages.” And, smiling, Leicester passed on.

For a moment the seigneur stood pondering the earl’s words and angrily wondering at his obtuseness. Then suddenly he knew he had been mocked, and he turned and ran after his enemy; but Leicester had vanished into the Queen’s apartments.

The Queen’s fool was standing near, seemingly engaged in the light occupation of catching imaginary flies, buzzing with his motions. As Leicester disappeared he looked from under his arm at Lemprière. “If a bird will not stop for the salt to its tail, then the salt is damned, Nuncio; and you must cry _David!_ and get thee to the quarry.”