A merry company was gathered on the terrace, which, fronting the ill-fated Cardinal Wolsey's rooms, descended in elegantly sloping grades down to the old Pond Garden, giving an exquisite view across the tall, trim hedges, the parterres gay with late summer flowers, and the green bosquets of lilac and yew, to the serpentine river and distant landscape beyond.
Mary Tudor had indeed finished her afternoon orisons. She had recited her rosary in the chapel, kneeling before the altar and surrounded by her maids-of-honour: no doubt she had prayed for the Virgin's help to aid her in the accomplishment of the one great wish which lay so near to her heart.
She was this afternoon expecting the arrival of a special envoy from His Holiness the Pope, and had to curtail her prayers in consequence. She had strolled back to the terrace, because His Eminence the Cardinal de Moreno was there, the ambassador of His Most Catholic Majesty the King of Spain, also the Duc de Noailles, who represented the King of France, and Scheyfne, who watched over the interests of the Emperor Charles V in this game of political conflicts, wherein the hand of the Queen of England was the guerdon.
Mary Tudor watched them all with a sleepy eye. She felt dreamy and contented this beautiful afternoon: was not the envoy from Rome bringing her a special blessing from His Holiness? and what could that blessing be but the love of the one man in all the world to whom she would gladly have given her hand to hold and her lips to kiss?
She sighed as she settled herself down on the straight-backed chair which she affected. Noailles and Scheyfne hurried eagerly towards her. His Eminence bowed low as she approached, but her eyes wandered restlessly round her in search of the one form dear to her, and she frowned impatiently when she missed the proud, handsome face, whose smile alone could bring hers forth in response.
She listened with but half an ear to Noailles' platitudes, or to His Eminence's smooth talk, until close by she heard the well-known step. She did not turn her head. Her heart, by its sudden, rapid beating, had told her that he was there.
Mary Tudor was not quite forty then, a woman full of the passionate intensity of feeling, characteristic of the Tudors, neither beautiful nor yet an adept at women's wiles; but when she heard Wessex' footsteps on the flagstones of the terrace, her whole face lighted up with that radiance which makes every woman fair—the radiance of a whole-hearted love.
"Nay, my lord Cardinal," she said with sudden impatience, "Your Eminence has vaunted the beauties of Spain long enough to-day. I feel sure," she added, half turning towards Wessex, "that His Grace, though a truant from our side, will hold a brief for Merrie England against you."
The Duke, as he approached, scanned with a lazy eye the brilliant company gathered round the Queen; an amused smile, made up partly of sarcasm, wholly of insouciance, glimmered in his eyes as he caught the frown, quickly suppressed, which appeared on the Cardinal's shrewd, clever face.
"Nay, His Eminence hath but to look on our Sovereign Lady," he said, as he gallantly kissed the tips of the royal hand, graciously extended to him, "to know that England hath naught to envy Spain."
Mary, with the rapid intuition of the woman who loves, seemed to detect a more serious tone in Wessex' voice than was his wont. She looked inquiringly at him. The thoughts, engendered in his mind by Everingham's earnestness and enthusiasm, had left their shadow over his lighter mood.
"You look troubled, my lord!" she said anxiously.
"What trouble I had Your Grace's presence has already dispelled," he replied gently.
It amused him to watch the discomfited faces of his political antagonists, whose presence now Mary seemed completely to ignore. Her whole personality was transformed in his presence: she looked ten years younger; her heavy, slow movements appeared suddenly to gain in elasticity.
She rose and beckoned to Wessex to accompany her. Neither Noailles nor Scheyfne cared to follow, fearing a rebuke.
His Eminence the Cardinal de Moreno alone, seeing her turn towards the gardens, ventured on a remark.
"At what hour will Your Majesty deign to receive the envoy of His Holiness?" he asked unctuously.
"As soon as he arrives," replied the Queen curtly.
His Eminence watched the two figures disappearing down the stone steps of the terrace. There was a troubled, anxious look in his keen eyes. The first inkling had just dawned upon him that perhaps he might fail in his mission after all.
A new experience for the Cardinal de Moreno.
When Philip of Spain desired to wed Mary of England he chose the one man in all Europe most able to carry his wishes through. A perfect grand seigneur, veritable prince of the Church, but a priest only in name, for he had never taken Holy Orders, His Eminence shone in every circle wherein he appeared, through the brilliancy of his intellect, the charm and suavity of his manner, and above all by that dominating personality of his, which willed so strongly what he desired to obtain.
Willed it at times—so his enemies said—without scruple. Well, perhaps! and if so, why not? would be His Eminence's own argument.
Heaven had given him certain weapons: these he used in order to get Heaven's own ends. And in the mind of the Cardinal de Moreno, Heaven was synonymous with the political interests of the Catholic Church. England was too fine a country to be handed over to the schismatic sect without a struggle, the people were too earnest, too deeply religious to be allowed to remain in the enemy's camp.
And His Eminence was not only fighting for an important political alliance for his royal master, but also for the reconquest of Catholic England. Wessex, a firm yet unostentatious adherent of the new faith, was to him an opponent in every sense.
When the Cardinal first landed in England he had been assured that the volatile and nonchalant Duke would never become a serious obstacle to Spanish plans.
The Duke? Perhaps not. But there was the Queen herself, half sick for love! and women's follies have ere now upset the most deeply laid, most important plans.
"Ah, my friend!" sighed His Eminence with ill-concealed irritation, as the Marquis de Suarez came idly lounging beside him, "alas! and alack-a-day! when diplomacy hath to reckon with women. . . . Look at that picture!" he added, pointing with be-ringed, slender, tapering finger to the figures of Wessex and Mary Tudor disappearing amid the bosquets of the park, "and think that the destinies of Europe depend upon how a woman of forty can succeed in chaining that butterfly."
Don Miguel too had followed with frowning eyes the little comedy just enacted upon the terrace. His intellect, though perhaps not so keen as that of his chief, was nevertheless sufficiently on the alert to recognize that Mary Tudor had distinctly intended to administer a snub to the entire diplomatic corps, by her marked preference for Wessex' sole company.
"Chance certainly, seems against your schemes and mine, my lord Cardinal," he said; "for that butterfly is heart-free and indolent, whilst the woman of forty is a queen."
"Indolent, yes," mused His Eminence, "but ambitious?"
"His friends will supply the ambition," rejoined Don Miguel; "and the Crown of England is a heavy prize."
The Cardinal did not speak for a moment. He seemed buried in thought.
"I was thinking of the beautiful Lady Ursula Glynde," he said meditatively after a while.
"Beautiful indeed. But His Grace is never allowed to see her."
"But when he does——"
"Oh! if I judge him rightly, when he does see her—she is passing beautiful, remember—his roving fancy will no doubt be enchained for—shall we say—half an hour—perhaps half a day. . . . What then?"
"Half an hour!" mused the Cardinal. "Much may be done in half an hour, my lord Marquis."
"Bah!"
"In half an hour a woman, even if she be a queen, might become piqued and jealous, and the destinies of Europe will be shaped accordingly."
His keen grey eyes were searching the bosquets, trying to read what went on behind the dark yew hedges of the park.
"To think that the fate of Catholic Europe should depend upon the chance meeting of a young girl and a Court gallant," sighed Don Miguel impatiently.
"The fate of empires has hung on more slender threads than these ere now, my son," rejoined His Eminence quietly; "diplomacy is the art of seeming to ignore the great occasions whilst seizing the small opportunity."
He said nothing more, for at that same moment there came to his ears, gently echoing across the terrace, the sound of a half-gay, half-melancholy ditty. A pure, girlish voice was singing somewhere within the Palace, like a young caged bird behind the bars, at sight of the brilliant sunshine above.
Don Miguel gave a short sarcastic laugh.
"The Lady Ursula's voice," he said.
Then he pointed to the more distant portion of the garden, where Wessex and Mary were once more seen strolling slowly back towards the terrace.
A look of expectancy, of shrewd and sudden intuition crept into the Cardinal's handsome face. The eyes lighted up as if with a quick, bright, inward vision, whilst the thin lips seemed to close with a snap, as if bent on guarding the innermost workings of the mind.
He took his breviary from his pocket and began walking along the flagstones of the terrace in the direction whence the song had come. His head was bent; apparently he was deeply absorbed in the Latin text.
Don Miguel had not followed him. He knew that his chief wished to be alone. He watched the crimson robes slowly fading away into the distance. The Cardinal presently disappeared round the angle formed by Wolsey's rooms. Beyond these were the fine chambers built by Henry VIII. The sweet song still came from there, wafted lightly on the summer breeze.