CHAPTER XXVII

CONCLUSION

Home Again

Mistress Ellen was a wise woman; she had brought me out of the Tower that I might recover, away from the scenes which were full of memories of our dear lady; and now, when I was slowly regaining my health in the poor lodgings, which were all we could afford, knowing that the best thing for me would be some useful occupation, she urged that I should begin at once upon the task which my dear lady had left to me.

I therefore sat down before a quantity of clean blank writing paper, a pot of ink and a stock of new quill pens. There were the materials for the framework of my book, and I had the will to do it, yes, and the ability, for I could write a pretty hand and string sentences together, as my lady knew, and my brain was teeming with the facts I had to tell; but there was something lacking, because now I could not write a word. Whenever I lifted up my pen to try and set one down a shadow came between me and the paper, so that I could see nothing except the dear face of my lover as I saw it last when he raised his hand to hide his eyes, and a voice said in my heart, 'He is not dead yet, though he is condemned. He is languishing in the Tower prisons, condemned to death, yes, but not dead yet, and while there is life there is hope.'

Yet I had been told there was none for those who entered the Tower by the Traitors' Gate.

I was sitting one day as usual before my writing materials, unable to set down a word, and thinking over all this again and again, when there was a loud knocking at the house door, and presently our landlady came up to us ushering a visitor into the room.

It was Jack Fish, and the sight of his broad face and burly figure brought to my mind most vividly the times when, with Sir Hubert, I had met with him before. Almost I saw again the half-filled cart in the old shed in Sussex, and, through the dim light, my dear knight's handsome face emerging from the heap of straw in the corner at the sound of this good man's cheery voice, assuring us that he would send our enemies away. Also I seemed to hear again the rolling of the coach and trampling of horses' feet upon the queen's highway, later on, as Master Fish's voice pointed out our danger and particularly mine in the coach, suggesting that I should leave it and escape on horseback, which advice, being carried out, saved me from again falling into my enemy's hands; and, most of all, the sight of Master Jack Fish brought to my mind vividly my dear imprisoned knight.

'Poor child!' said my visitor, forgetting everything except my youth and sorrow of heart. 'Poor child! Thou hast had a hot place in the battle! Thy loving heart again put thee in the position of the greatest danger!' and he turned his head aside, for big tears were rolling down his honest cheeks.

I wept, too, then, though I had been thinking that I had no more tears to shed, and the page that I was to write upon became wet and bleared.

'What have they done to her?' I heard Master Fish inquiring aside of Mistress Ellen, adding low, 'Don't tell me that they tortured her in the Tower, or----' in his mighty indignation he became inarticulate, but made a gesture as if he could kill some one.

'The torturer was Grief, and the instrument that was used was the child's heart,' answered my companion very softly. 'It is a size too big for her weak frame,' she added.

'Aye, aye.' He muttered something which I could not hear, but Mistress Ellen's rejoinder startled me--

'Hair is a mere detail. It began to grow grey when her lover was brought into the Tower, and became white the day we lost our lady.'

Jack Fish began to walk up and down the room in no little agitation. Suddenly he stopped short and returned to me.

'Would it comfort thee, dear,' he said, with great gentleness, 'to know that thou hast been avenged in Sussex, where that brute, Sir Claudius Crossley, in endeavouring to escape from the just punishment of his ill deeds, came into collision with a party of rough fellows, some of whom had once been his devoted followers in deeds of violence, who, turning upon him when he was down, seized and drowned him in the very same pond by the roadside in which he had himself been used to drown witches?'

I shuddered.

'Poor wretch!' I said. 'May God have prepared him for his end!'

'And now,' said my visitor, 'we must look to thee.' For he perceived that his information about Sir Claudius had scarcely enlivened me. 'We must look to thee,' he repeated. 'Thou hast had it a bit rough,' he added tenderly. 'Sometimes the storm of life gathers and breaks upon one all at once--but it spends itself--it spends itself,' he faltered and almost broke down, because for the first time I looked up and he saw my eyes, 'and then, for all the future,' he continued hurriedly, 'there is a great calm. God grant that it may be so with thee, my child!' and he laid his hand tenderly upon my poor spoilt head.

Then I opened my heart to the good man, telling him all about my dear lady's execution, and that my true lover, Sir Hubert Blair, still lay in the Tower under sentence of death, adding that it was my dread, night and day, that they would take his life in the same way as that in which they had already taken my poor mistress's.

'If they do I shall die,' I wailed. '_I cannot live! I cannot live if Hubert is beheaded too!_'

Master Jack Fish looked very grave. He was thinking, as he afterwards told me, of the hundreds of rebels who were being condemned to death on all sides, and that the prisons were full, and even the poor men were packed into the churches, to await their turn to hang upon the gibbets set up by the roadsides and elsewhere. Sir Thomas Wyatt was to be beheaded on April 11, and it was not likely that Sir Hubert Blair, who had aided and abetted him in everything, would be set free.

'There is only one person in the land who can do it,' he said at length. 'Queen Mary can pardon your lover, if she likes.'

Queen Mary, the murderer, as she seemed to me, of her poor young relation, my dear mistress, and of many, many more. Was it likely that a heart so hard could be touched by another woman's woe? Was it possible that the hand which signed Lady Jane's death warrant would sign the pardon of a much more aggressive rebel at my request? Yet memory recalled to me a woman, unhappy, lying sleepless on her bed, to whom I sang, with the result that my singing touched her heart, arousing generosity and kindness. Could I possibly obtain the chance once more of singing to her, and then, haply, pleading, pleading as for my life and more than life, that she would spare my lover?

I broke out into eager words, acquainting Master Fish with the manner in which I got into the Tower before to go to my dear lady, by singing to the queen, and then winning the boon from her; and he listened very feelingly, almost as much excited about the matter as I was. When I had told him all, he asked the name of the physician by whose means I had obtained access to the queen, and where he lived; and when I acquainted him with the fact that it was Dr. Massingbird, who had a surgery in the Strand, though he was frequently at Court, he left me in haste, saying that he would go to see what could be done.

* * * * *

They had taken me to the queen, in her palace at Westminster, by Her Majesty's command. She was not now sorrowfully lying on a sleepless bed, but sitting in state, in a magnificent reception-room, and surrounded by great Court ladies. I stood up before her to sing, and every one was silent, waiting to hear the sweet and thrilling sounds which were to proceed from my young lips: and I was bidden to begin, and asked what I was waiting for, and told not to be frightened, and encouraged, kindly enough at first, and then impatiently.

For this terrible thing happened to me. I could not sing a note. Now, in the extremity of my need, when so much depended on my singing, though I opened my mouth, no sound proceeded from it. My voice had gone.

'Sing!' commanded Queen Mary, in her deep voice. 'Begin at once.'

I looked at her, at that awful woman who had killed my lady, and who was killing such large numbers of those who had rebelled against her, and less than ever could I sing; for a feeling of disgust and hatred was surging up within me, whilst my brain teemed with the reproaches I dared not utter, even if I could.

'Massingbird'--the queen's voice seemed to come from a great distance now, as she spoke to the physician who took me to her--'what is the meaning of this? I allowed you to bring here the girl with the wonderful voice, who sang to me in the Tower, that time I suffered so much from sleeplessness, and you have brought this girl who cannot sing, and who cannot be the same girl as the lovely one who sang to me before.'

'Madam, she is the same girl, I assure your Majesty,' said the Court physician in his courtliest tone.

'She cannot be the same!' cried the queen angrily. 'This is no young girl with golden hair and a sweetly pretty rosebud face. This is a woman, with a sad, pale countenance, and--and white hair.'

'It is sorrow,' said the physician gently, 'which has changed the pretty child into the grief-stricken woman, and a terrible anxiety and dread is even now crushing her heart and killing her.'

'Killing her?' cried the queen incredulously.

'Yes, killing her. Death has already laid his hand upon her hair--her pretty golden hair--bleaching it white, then, going downwards, he has taken her voice--we did not know that until she stood up here to sing----'

'Pooh!' exclaimed Mary, still angrily. 'What stuff! She looks a peevish woman,' and, disgustedly, 'she cannot sing.'

Then Dr. Massingbird's indignation overmastering his habitual caution, he exclaimed--

'Can the caged lark sing? Can those whose "tears have been their meat day and night" sing? Can the broken heart burst forth into singing? Can the mourner sing for joy and gladness? This poor young lady,' he turned to me, laying a kind, fatherly hand upon my shoulder, 'this poor young lady has lost her best friend on the scaffold, and her lover, a lad of twenty-one, lies in the Tower under sentence of death. These things have bleached her hair and taken the colour from her face; moreover, as we have just discovered, they have robbed her of her voice.'

'Is this true?' The queen's deep voice asked the question of me, but the effort of trying to answer it, of attempting to express some of the words of pleading for my lover and of beseeching for his life, was more than I could bear, and I fell down unconscious at Queen Mary's feet.

* * * * *

When I came to myself, the queen was holding a cup to my lips, and calling upon me at the same time to wake up and hear some joyful news.

I opened my eyes and looked into her face incredulously. What joyful news could there be for me, who had parted company with joy long since? Sorrow I knew, and pain and disappointment, but not joy. It was so long since joy had visited me that I could scarcely believe in its possibility.

'Come! Come! Try to rouse yourself,' said Dr. Massingbird. 'Her Majesty is going to be very good to you.'

Then my lips moved.

'No,' I said, 'do not deceive me. I could not even sing to her. I lost the opportunity which you were so good as to get for me,' and I sighed heavily, having hoped so much from it.

Then Mary spoke.

'Meg Brown,' she said, and the old assumed name startled me, 'I am going to give your lover, Sir Hubert Blair, a free pardon----'

'What,' I interrupted, turning excitedly to the physician, 'what is her Majesty saying? _I cannot understand, I cannot understand!_' and I put my hand to my head.

The physician explained that the queen was about to pardon my beloved.

'Yes, that I am,' said Mary, quite good-naturedly. 'The rascal does not deserve it. But I do it for your sake, because I think you have suffered quite enough.'

'And I have not even pleaded for him!' I said to myself, and must have spoken aloud, for the queen answered--

'Your white hair and your sorrowful face, together with your good friend's words, have pleaded for your lover more eloquently than any singing could have done.'

Then, gazing at me, she added--

'Take her away, Dr. Massingbird; she is looking very ill. I will make out the proper papers and send them to Sir Thomas Brydges, who will do the rest. 'Margaret'--she spoke to me--'what you need now, to restore you to health, are happiness and country air. You must let Sir Hubert Blair take you home to your father's house near Brighthelmstone. (These last words disclosed the fact that Queen Mary knew who I was.)

* * * * *

Of the meeting with my dear one, when he came to me out of the Tower, I cannot adequately write--such times are not for strangers' eyes--the relief and joy of it are thrilling my heart even yet, after ten years, as they will no doubt for the whole of my remaining life.

From the Tower Sir Hubert came to me in the poor lodgings in Fleet Street, and they were poor no longer; and praise and thanksgiving ascended from them to Almighty God, who had softened Queen Mary's heart and given back my lover from the jaws of death.

We only remained in London until after the execution of that brave knight, Sir Thomas Wyatt, whom we were allowed to visit first, though unable to obtain any remission of his sentence. Sir Hubert witnessed his execution, and told me afterwards that nis manner to the last was brave and undaunted, and that, far from incriminating others, in order that he might gain favour for himself, as did some, he, being afraid that Princess Elizabeth might be implicated in his insurrection, proclaimed from the scaffold, before he suffered, that she and the Earl of Courtenay had nothing to do with it. His saying that so publicly, in all probability, saved Princess Elizabeth's life; as Queen Mary, incensed and alarmed for her own safety and the safety of her monarchy, was already planning her sister's doom.

Sir William and Lady Caroline Wood, meanwhile, succeeded in escaping to Holland, the former having been too much mixed up with Wyatt's insurrection to hope for safety in a land reeking with the blood of those who had taken part in it.

Hubert took me home to my father's house near Brighthelmstone, where I received a cordial welcome from him and Hal and Jack, and all the servants, amongst whom I found poor Betsy, who, being excluded from the Tower whilst I was with Lady Jane, and, being left without means, had trudged all the way to my father's house on foot, to beseech him to begin another insurrection by calling upon all Sussex to take up arms, and come to fetch me out of the Tower before I was burned alive and beheaded.

'Betsy has led me such a life with her tongue,' said my father, 'that I have threatened to turn her out of the house many and many a time, but she would not go,' and he laughed, drew me to him, and kissed me. 'I was very anxious about you, Margaret,' he said more gravely, 'and made many inquiries as to your welfare, but I could not deprive poor Lady Jane of your help and the solace of your presence at such a time.'

'Nor did I wish to leave her,' I rejoined. 'Indeed, I could not have done so.'

And then I took my dear Hubert to see Master Montgomery, who was mightily pleased with him, and told us that he had prayed for me every day since first I went to Isleworth, in the old church in which he ministered. He was immensely interested to hear of all that I had passed through, and the work that had been given me to do, and my love for my dear lady, of whose terrible fate he had only hitherto received a garbled and imperfect account. And, as I told him the sad story, lit up here and there with gleams of beauty from my lady's faith and hope, sitting safely there in his quaint study, between him and my dear knight, the whole history took shape in my mind, and I knew how I should best be able to tell it with pen, ink and paper.

A few days after that we heard that Master Montgomery, together with other Protestant ministers, was to be turned out of his benefice; but before that happened he married me and Sir Hubert Blair in the old church, where my mother was buried, and where I had worshipped almost all my life.

The living was then handed over to a Roman Catholic priest, and my father took his good old friend, Master Montgomery, into his own house, where he prayed and preached to the household, in our private chapel, besides instructing my brothers in Greek and Latin, and the way in which they should conduct themselves, and the Faith as it is revealed to us in the Testament of our Lord.

My dear husband carried me off to his beautiful place, Harpton Hall, where I have found a most happy home with him, and where our good friend, Master Jack Fish, often visits us, bringing with him his estimable wife, who is no other than Mistress Ellen: for, after my departure from London, discovering that they were congenial souls, and she being in great need of a protector, and his chivalrous nature requiring some one to protect, they agreed to marry. Saul, who is Master Fish's servant, usually accompanies them, and always looks for a little kindly notice from me, and a few words, showing that I have not forgotten how he helped me in the past, when I was in danger of what was for me far worse than death.

Here, too, my brothers, Jack and Hal, now bearded men, delight to come. For the shooting, or the fishing, or the hunting, they say, though I know that they like to see their sister incidentally, and her husband too, whom they admire greatly.

And here I have, at length, after long years, completed the task given to me by my dear lady, in memory of whom I have named our little daughter Jane, whilst our boy, our only son, we called Tom, after Sir Thomas Wyatt, in the hope that he may grow as brave and heroic as the knight in, we trust, a far happier cause.

The sun is sinking in the west as I lay down my pen, and the shadows fall across the old stone sundial on the lawn, around which Sir Hubert has had inscribed, in letters of gold--

'Hold to the Road that leads Above; and Justice with Prudence by all means pursue.'

And I think that I hear again the sweet tones of my lady's voice saying--

'It is like our dear Lord's teaching, though it was uttered more than four centuries before He came to live as a Man upon earth.'

And those other words, spoken long afterwards--

'A Greater than Plato said, "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a Crown of Life." That is the best Crown, Margery.'

THE END

EPILOGUE

My task is done--not brilliantly, not at all brilliantly, but to the best of my poor ability, and I turn away from the thought of this world's little criticisms, which may assail and rend my work, to the consideration of how it looks in my own eyes, how it would look in the serious eyes of Lady Jane, if she surveyed it all as searchingly as she studied her beloved Plato; and lastly, and most importantly, how it may appear in the eyes of our Heavenly Father.

And first, as to myself, I have sighed, smiled, and then again wept over these pages, as in them I relived through the exciting, tragic happenings of the year of my life which changed me from a thoughtless child into an extremely earnest-hearted woman, and I think, as the record has taken such deep hold of me, it will also impress others, and know that it will do so in proportion to the greatness of their souls. For little souls find only small things everywhere, whilst big ones, like my Lady Jane's, find things so great and glorious as to lift them over life's petty details into the vast, wide prospects of the children of God, who see from the Delectable Mountains straight into the Heart of the Kingdom.

As to the way in which Lady Jane would regard this book were she looking at it, I have no fear. She would see that I have in every respect endeavoured to fulfil her wish that I should represent facts as I saw them, and not as they appeared to be to others.

And with regard to the aspect my poor little work has in the eyes of our Heavenly Father, it is impossible to know. I can only pray Him to mercifully grant that what is false and unworthy in this narrative may be forgotten, whilst what is good, true and beautiful, may sink deeply into the hearts of its hearers, and always, always be remembered as long as life shall last.

MARGARET BROWN.