CHAPTER VIII.
THE KEY OF THE CIPHER
Where is the man who does not persuade himself that when he gratifieshis own curiosity he does so for the sake of his womankind? So RichardTalbot, having made his protest, waited two days, but when next he hadany leisure moments before him, on a Sunday evening, he said to hiswife, "Sue, what hast thou done with that scroll of Cissy's? I trowthou wilt not rest till thou art convinced it is but some lyinghoroscope or Popish charm."
Susan had in truth been resting in perfect quietness, being extremelybusy over her spinning, so as to be ready for the weaver who came roundperiodically to direct the more artistic portions of domestic work.However, she joyfully produced the scroll from the depths of the casketwhere she kept her chief treasures, and her spindle often paused in itsdance as she watched her husband over it, with his elbows on the tableand his hands in his hair, from whence he only removed them now andthen to set down a letter or two by way of experiment. She had to bepatient, for she heard nothing that night but that he believed it wasFrench, that the father of deceits himself might be puzzled with thething, and that she might as well ask him for his head at once aspropose his consulting Master Francis.
The next night he unfolded it with many a groan, and would say nothingat all; but he sat up late and waked in early dawn to pore over itagain, and on the third day of study he uttered a loud exclamation ofdismay, but he ordered Susan off to bed in the midst, and did not utteranything but a perplexed groan or two when he followed her much later.
It was not till the next night that she heard anything, and then, inthe darkness, he began, "Susan, thou art a good wife and a discreetwoman."
Perhaps her heart leapt as she thought to herself, "At last it iscoming, I knew it would!" but she only made some innocent note ofattention.
"Thou hast asked no questions, nor tried to pry into this unhappymystery," he went on.
"I knew you would tell me what was fit for me to hear," she replied.
"Fit! It is fit for no one to hear! Yet I needs must take counselwith thee, and thou hast shown thou canst keep a close mouth so far."
"Concerns it our Cissy, husband?"
"Ay does it Our Cissy, indeed! What wouldst say, Sue, to hear she wasdaughter to the lady yonder."
"To the Queen of Scots?"
"Hush! hush!" fairly grasping her to hinder the words from beinguttered above her breath.
"And her father?"
"That villain, Bothwell, of course. Poor lassie, she is ill fathered!"
"You may say so. Is it in the scroll?"
"Ay! so far as I can unravel it; but besides the cipher no doubt muchwas left for the poor woman to tell that was lost in the wreck."
And he went on to explain that the scroll was a letter to the Abbess ofSoissons, who was aunt to Queen Mary, as was well known, since an opencorrespondence was kept up through the French ambassador. This lettersaid that "our trusty Alison Hepburn" would tell how in secrecy anddistress Queen Mary had given birth to this poor child in Lochleven,and how she had been conveyed across the lake while only a few hoursold, after being hastily baptized by the name of Bride, one of thepatron saints of Scotland. She had been nursed in a cottage for a fewweeks till the Queen had made her first vain attempt to escape, afterwhich Mary had decided on sending her with her nurse to DumbartonCastle, whence Lord Flemyng would despatch her to France. The Abbesswas implored to shelter her, in complete ignorance of her birth, untilsuch time as her mother should resume her liberty and her throne. "Orif," the poor Queen said, "I perish in the hands of my enemies, youwill deal with her as my uncles of Guise and Lorraine think fit, since,should her unhappy little brother die in the rude hands of yondertraitors, she may bring the true faith back to both realms."
"Ah!" cried Susan, with a sudden gasp of dismay, as she bethought herthat the child was indeed heiress to both realms after the young Kingof Scots. "But has there been no quest after her? Do they deem herlost?"
"No doubt they do. Either all hands were lost in the Bride of Dunbar,or if any of the crew escaped, they would report the loss of nurse andchild. The few who know that the little one was born believe her tohave perished. None will ever ask for her. They deem that she hasbeen at the bottom of the sea these twelve years or more."
"And you would still keep the knowledge to ourselves?" asked his wife,in a tone of relief.
"I would I knew it not myself!" sighed Richard. "Would that I couldblot it out of my mind."
"It were far happier for the poor maid herself to remain no one's childbut ours," said Susan.
"In sooth it is! A drop of royal blood is in these days a mere drop ofpoison to them that have the ill luck to inherit it. As my lord saidthe other day, it brings the headsman's axe after it."
"And our boy Humfrey calls himself contracted to her!"
"So long as we let the secret die with us that can do her no ill.Happily the wench favours not her mother, save sometimes in a certainlordly carriage of the head and shoulders. She is like enough to someof the Scots retinue to make me think she must take her face from herfather, the villain, who, someone told me, was beetle-browed andswarthy."
"Lives he still?"
"So 'tis thought, but somewhere in prison in the north. There havebeen no tidings of his death; but my Lady Queen, you'll remember,treats the marriage as nought, and has made offer of herself for themisfortune of the Duke of Norfolk, ay, and of this Don John, and I knownot whom besides."
"She would not have done that had she known that our Cis was alive."
"Mayhap she would, mayhap not. I believe myself she would do anythingshort of disowning her Popery to get out of prison; but as mattersstand I doubt me whether Cis--"
"The Lady Bride Hepburn," suggested Susan.
"Pshaw, poor child, I misdoubt me whether they would own her claim evento that name."
"And they might put her in prison if they did," said Susan.
"They would be sure to do so, sooner or later. Here has my lord beenrecounting in his trouble about my lady's fine match for her Bess, allthat hath come of mating with royal blood, the very least disasterbeing poor Lady Mary Grey's! Kept in ward for life! It is a cruelmatter. I would that I had known the cipher at first. Then she mighteither have been disposed of at the Queen's will, or have been sentsafe to this nunnery at Soissons."
"To be bred a Papist! Oh fie, husband!"
"And to breed dissension in the kingdoms!" added her husband. "It isbest so far for the poor maiden herself to have thy tender hand overher than that of any queen or abbess of them all."
"Shall we then keep all things as they are, and lock this knowledge inour own hearts?" asked Susan hopefully.
"To that am I mightily inclined," said Richard. "Were it blazed abroadat once, thou and I might be made out guilty of I know not what forconcealing it; and as to the maiden, she would either be put in closeward with her mother, or, what would be more likely, had up to court tobe watched, and flouted, and spied upon, as were the two poorladies--sisters to the Lady Jane--ere they made their lot hopeless bymarrying. Nay, I have seen those who told me that poor Lady Katherinewas scarce worse bested in the Tower than she was while at court."
"My poor Cis! No, no! The only cause for which I could bear to yieldher up would be the thought that she would bring comfort to the heartof the poor captive mother who hath the best right to her."
"Forsooth! I suspect her poor captive mother would scarce be pleasedto find this witness to her ill-advised marriage in existence."
"Nor would she be permitted to be with her."
"Assuredly not. Moreover, what could she do with the poor child?"
"Rear her in Popery," exclaimed Susan, to whom the word was terrible.
"Yea, and make her hand secure as the bait to some foreign prince orsome English traitor, who would fain overthrow Queen and Church."
Susan shuddered. "Oh yes! let us keep the poor child to ourselves. I_could_ not give her up to such a lot as that. And it might im
perilyou too, my husband. I should like to get up instantly and burn thescroll."
"I doubt me whether that were expedient," said Richard. "Suppose itwere in the course of providence that the young King of Scots shouldnot live, then would this maid be the means of uniting the two kingdomsin the true and Reformed faith! Heaven forefend that he should be cutoff, but meseemeth that we have no right to destroy the evidence thatmay one day be a precious thing to the kingdom at large."
"No chance eye could read it even were it discovered?" said Susan.
"No, indeed. Thou knowest how I strove in vain to read it at first,and even now, when Frank Talbot unwittingly gave me the key, it wasdays before I could fully read it. It will tell no tales, sweet wife,that can prejudice any one, so we will let it be, even with the babyclouts. So now to sleep, with no more thoughts on the matter."
That was easy to say, but Susan lay awake long, pondering over thewonder, and only slept to dream strange dreams of queens andprincesses, ay, and worse, for she finally awoke with a scream,thinking her husband was on the scaffold, and that Humfrey and Cis werewalking up the ladder, hand in hand with their necks bared, to followhim!
There was no need to bid her hold her tongue. She regarded the secretwith dread and horror, and a sense of something amiss which she couldnot quite define, though she told herself she was only acting inobedience to her husband, and indeed her judgment went along with his.
Often she looked at the unconscious Cis, studying whether the child'sparentage could be detected in her features. But she gave promise ofbeing of larger frame than her mother, who had the fine limbs andcontour of her Lorraine ancestry, whereas Cis did, as Richard said,seem to have the sturdy outlines of the Borderer race from whom herfather came. She was round-faced too, and sunburnt, with deep grayeyes under black straight brows, capable of frowning heavily. She didnot look likely ever to be the fascinating beauty which all declaredher mother to be--though those who saw the captive at Sheffield,believed the charm to be more in indefinable grace than in actualfeatures,--in a certain wonderful smile and sparkle, a mixed pathos andarchness which seldom failed of its momentary effect, even upon thosewho most rebelled against it. Poor little Cis, a sturdy girl of twelveor thirteen, playing at ball with little Ned on the terrace, and comingwith tardy steps to her daily task of spinning, had little of theprincess about her; and yet when she sat down, and the management ofdistaff and thread threw her shoulders back, there was something in thepoise of her small head and the gesture of her hand that forciblyrecalled the Queen. Moreover, all the boys around were at her beck andcall, not only Humfrey and poor Antony Babington, but Cavendishes,Pierrepoints, all the young pages and grandsons who dwelt at castle orlodge, and attended Master Sniggius's school. Nay, the dominiehimself, though owning that Mistress Cicely promoted idleness andinattention among his pupils, had actually volunteered to come down toBridgefield twice a week himself to prevent her from forgetting herLilly's grammar and her Caesar's Commentaries, an attention with whichthis young lady would willingly have dispensed.
Stewart, Lorraine, Hepburn, the blood of all combined was a perilousinheritance, and good Susan Talbot's instinct was that the young girlwhom she loved truly like her own daughter would need all the morecareful and tender watchfulness and training to overcome any tendenciesthat might descend to her. Pity increased her affection, and evenwhile in ordinary household life it was easy to forget who and what thegirl really was, yet Cis was conscious that she was admitted to theintimacy and privileges of an elder daughter, and made a companion andfriend, while her contemporaries at the Manor-house were treated aschildren, and rated roundly, their fingers tapped with fans, theirshoulders even whipped, whenever they transgressed. Cis did indeedlive under equal restraint, but it was the wise and gentle restraint offirm influence and constant watchfulness, which took from her the wishto resist.
Unknown to History: A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland Page 8