mind. Even across the Channel the truth was evident to Charles. At long last, he gave in to the pleas of Prince Philip and sent the longed — for letter, recalling him.
Straining the poor man’s courtesies to the end, with tears and supplications, Mary bid him good-by, extracting from him avowed promises of an early return. Gone now was the love—the sun that had shone so briefly. Gone was the one restraining factor that had held her fanatic religious excesses in leash. Was the fault for Philip’s desertion in herself? It could not be! Her unbalanced mind looked outward—to her Kingdom and the heresies rife in it. Here must be the cause… The ungodliness of England had turned Philip from her!
To be near her now was to be in danger, for all except her priests and her still-prevaricating physicians. In her heart she must have known the truth of her fancied condition. Still she persisted in believing it to be true, grasping any false persuasion that came her way, daily driving herself nearer and nearer the edge of insanity.
And there, in the same household, lived Elizabeth—balancing, as it were, on the edge of a cliff—forgotten by Mary, except at odd intervals, intervals Elizabeth herself prayed would not come.
Nevertheless, there came a day when she walked into one of the rooms of the palace at Whitehall, with one of the Queen’s guards in attendance behind her. She looked round the empty room.
“The Queen is not here.”
“The Queen bade me bring you hither, lady. She will be here. Your pardon.” He bowed and went down the wide eaiicrv.
Elizabeth looked after the man’s retreating figure as though she would have hurried after him. A strange, helpless look. She took up her stand in the angle of the door and wall, and waited.
It was not long before voices reached her, and she stiffened, bracing herself, and unconsciously shrinking a little against the wall. The deep, hoarse tones of Mary’s voice, the sonorous murmur that was Gardiner’s …
Elizabeth’s brain strained in a desperate prayer. The whole world knew of the dark tragedy which brooded over the palace of England… That Philip was weary of his middle-aged, ailing wife and had gone to Spain, irate with a cold, inflexible anger worse than any storms. The people of England would not let him be crowned King… His Queen’s recurrent hopes of a child had proved to be a hysterical delusion… Philip was cheated in everything for which he had undertaken the marriage, and he would have no more of it.
Oh God! ran Elizabeth’s frantic plea, let but this fancied babe she thinks she carries be a babe of flesh … and let her bear it, and bring her reason back… Let Philip love her.
… Let her forget me. … Help me, dear God…
They came into the room, sweeping past the corner where she stood, not seeing her. Mary was speaking:
. . no more of it. I’ll have no more of it. These burnings will be done in a manner different to this! We’ll make no more pageantry out of it. How many went to the fire yesterday?”
“Six, Your Majesty. Six men and women.”
Gardiner’s voice was discreetly without emphasis; but a gleaming satisfaction sounded in it.
Elizabeth shut her eyes, tensed her whole body to still the sick shudder which pierced her. Mary’s frenzied holocaust was searing her kingdom now, the flames and the black smoke streaming to heaven till the eyes of men were blinded with them, and the stench of burning flesh damning the free air they breathed.
… Her people would not be shepherded into the Kingdom of Heaven? Then, they should be charred into the depths of hell … until none were left but the faithful, the remnant of true believers…
It was not only her fanatic dogma that goaded her on. Her own anguish of frustrated passion and vain hopes possessed her.
There was a madwoman on the throne…
“Six heretics!” The words echoed in the room. “Six rotten souls hastened to hell. And a crowd of two thousand Englishmen cheer them, bid them be of good hope, as though they were martyrs.”
“It has been like this since Ridley and Latimer burned,” Gardiner said as though offering some explanation.
“What are your priests about,” she raged, “that they cannot teach what is heaven and what is hell? Hell is to tremble at! Can they not see in the burning flesh of the heretics what may hereafter be their own punishment?”
“They have been taught to love the devil,” Gardiner told her.
Mary wrung her jeweled hands together.
“ Tis judgment on England for her sins. The judgment I must bear, for I am England.”
“God knows the judgment is not on you. You have but erred in being too merciful. You must not rest till every little root and tendril is scorched and the soil clean for the true seed.”
“Hereafter, these burnings shall be done privately,” Mary said stubbornly. “Make no more show of it. Who goes to the stake shall go alone, in secret.”
“And lose the example of God’s holy wrath?” Gardiner ejaculated. “Nay, Your Majesty! Better, far better, you sent out word that any man or woman in a crowd that sees a man burned and utters one word of comfort shall burn with him. If you must burn a hundred men and women tied together, at one time, you must do so. They must learn to fear God.”
In his vehemence, a thread of saliva ran down his gray beard.
Behind the door, Elizabeth pressed the knuckles of one hand against her mouth. She swallowed violently. She felt herself hideously likely to be sick on the spot…
Mary groaned aloud.
“Were but my Philip here, they never would affront me thus.” She peered up at Gardiner from where she sat, and Elizabeth saw a dreadful vacant look, a helpless look, in her face.
“Do you think he is angry with me? ”
“Dear madam,” Gardiner answered coolly, “why should the Prince be angry with you? He loves you—you are his wife.”
“He came here to be King,” Mary said starkly, “and yet they never crowned him. Parliament never let him be crowned… Think you had he been crowned King of England he ever would have left England before his heir could be born?”
“Your Majesty, you know his father needs him.”
Gardiner spoke wearily, as to an importunate child.
“Who needs him most?” Mary demanded roughly. “Charles, the Emperor, or I, his wife, these long months pregnant with his heir? Who needs him? …
“Bishop,” she ordered suddenly, “go get you to prayer. There’s not enough praying done in the realm. God looks in the heart of England and I tremble for what He finds here. Bishop—I have lost Philip—”
“Your Majesty—” Gardiner strove to break the flow of agonized speech.
“And I know why,” Mary went on, unhearing. “This court is black with sin. This court of mine crawls with the filth of evil. There are women here, women who, with the perversions of their flesh, tempted him. He fled from them. He fled from them to God. That’s why he is not here—
“He does not love England, England is cold, and Spain is warm. … In Spain the sun shines down all days of the year. God smiles on Spain, for Spain is godly…
“Bishop, you are right: there must be more purgings in this land. Go get you to prayer… We must make the sun shine here…”
“Your Majesty—” Gardiner succeeded in getting her wild eyes focused on his face, and moved his head, indicating Elizabeth. iMary stared at her in a long silence.
“What do you here?” she croaked in a loud, harsh voice. “You sent for me.” Elizabeth was so rigid with horror and dread that she could barely move her lips.
“Did I?” Mary said vaguely. “What for? I do not want you. Philip is gone, and ’twas he who asked me to show you mercy. Philip is gone—”
“He will be back when the babe is born,” Elizabeth said in a whisper.