He was glad to hear afterwards, when broken-hearted
Gillingham joined him, that the last words heard from
Antony Babington’s lips were— “Parce
mihi, Domine Jesu!”
“Is this my last journey?” said Queen
Mary, with a strange, sad smile, as she took her seat
in the heavy lumbering coach which had been appointed
for her conveyance from Chartley, her rheumatism having
set in too severely to permit her to ride.
“Say not so; your Grace has weathered many a
storm before,” said Marie de Courcelles.
“This one will also pass over.”
“Ah, my good Marie, never before have I felt
this foreboding and sinking of the heart. I
have always hoped before, but I have exhausted the
casket of Pandora. Even hope is flown!”
Jean Kennedy tried to say something of “Darkest
before dawn.”
“The dawn, it may be, of the eternal day,”
said the Queen. “Nay, my friends, the
most welcome tidings that could greet me would be that
my weary bondage was over for ever, and that I should
wreck no more gallant hearts. What, mignonne,
art thou weeping? There will be freedom again
for thee when that day comes.”
“O madam, I want not freedom at such a price!”
And yet Cicely had never recovered her looks since
those seventeen days at Tickhill. She still looked
white and thin, and her dark eyebrows lay in a heavy
line, seldom lifted by the merry looks and smiles that
used to flash over her face. Life had begun
to press its weight upon her, and day after day, as
Humfrey watched her across the chapel, and exchanged
a word or two with her while crossing the yard, had
he grieved at her altered mien; and vexed himself
with wondering whether she had after all loved Babington,
and were mourning for him.
Truly, even without the passion of love, there had
been much to shock and appal a young heart in the
fate of the playfellow of her childhood, the suitor
of her youth. It was the first death among those
she had known intimately, and even her small knowledge
of the cause made her feel miserable and almost guilty,
for had not poor Antony plotted for her mother, and
had not she been held out to him as a delusive inducement?
Moreover, she felt the burden of a deep, pitying
love and admiration not wholly joined with perfect
trust and reliance. She had been from the first
startled by untruths and concealments. There
was mystery all round her, and the future was dark.
There were terrible forebodings for her mother; and
if she looked beyond for herself, only uncertainty
and fear of being commanded to follow Marie de Courcelles
to a foreign court, perhaps to a convent; while she
yearned with an almost sick longing for home and kind
Mrs. Talbot’s motherly tenderness and trustworthiness,
and the very renunciation of Humfrey that she had
spoken so easily, had made her aware of his full worth,
and wakened in her a longing for the right to rest
