was finished?’ said Una.
‘The dance,’ the lady replied offendedly. ‘And a pair of green shoes.’
‘I don’t understand a bit,’ said Una.
‘Eh? What did you make of it, young Burleigh?’
‘I’m not quite sure,’ Dan began, ‘but – ’
‘You never can be – with a woman. But – ’
‘But I thought Gloriana meant the cousins to go back to the Gascons’ Graveyard, wherever that was.’
‘’Twas Virginia afterwards. Her plantation of Virginia.’
‘Virginia afterwards, and stop Philip from taking it. Didn’t she say she’d lend ’em guns?’
‘Right so. But not ships —then.’
‘And I thought you meant they must have told her they’d do it off their own bat, without getting her into a row with Philip. Was I right?’
‘Near enough for a Minister of the Queen. But remember she gave the lads full time to change their minds. She was three long days at Rye Royal – knighting of fat Mayors. When she came back to Brickwall, they met her a mile down the road, and she could feel their eyes burn through her riding-mask. Chris Hatton, poor fool, was vexed at it.
‘“You would not birch them when I gave you the chance,” says she to Chris. “Now you must get me half an hour’s private speech with ’em in Brickwall garden. Eve tempted Adam in a garden. Quick, man, or I may repent!"’
‘She was a Queen. Why did she not send for them herself,’ said Una.
The lady shook her head. ‘That was never her way. I’ve seen her walk to her own mirror by bye-ends, and the woman that cannot walk straight there is past praying for. Yet I would have you pray for her! What else – what else in England’s name could she have done?’ She lifted her hand to her throat for a moment. ‘Faith,’ she cried, ‘I’d forgotten the little green shoes! She left ’em at Brickwall – so she did. And I remember she gave the Norgem parson – John Withers, was he? – a text for his sermon – "Over Edom have I cast out my shoe.” Neat, if he’d understood!’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Una. ‘What about the two cousins?’
‘You are as cruel as a woman,’ the lady answered. ‘I was not to blame. I told you I gave ’em time to change their minds. On my honour (ay de mi!), she asked no more of ’em at first than to wait a while off that coast – the Gascons’ Graveyard – to hover a little if their ships chanced to pass that way – they had only one tall ship and a pinnace – only to watch and bring me word of Philip’s doings. One must watch Philip always. What a murrain right had he to make any plantation there, a hundred leagues north of his Spanish Main, and only six weeks from England? By my dread father’s soul, I tell you he had none – none!’ She stamped her red foot again, and the two children shrunk back for a second.
‘Nay, nay. You must not turn from me too! She laid it all fairly before the lads in Brickwall garden between the yews. I told ’em that if Philip sent a fleet (and to make a plantation he could not well send less), their poor little cock-boats could not sink it. They answered that, with submission, the fight would be their own concern. She showed ’em again that there could be only one end to it – quick death on the sea, or slow death in Philip’s prisons. They asked no more than to embrace death for my sake. Many men have prayed to me for life. I’ve refused ’em, and slept none the worse after; but when my men, my tall, fantastical young men beseech me on their knees for leave to die for me, it shakes me – ah, it shakes me to the marrow of my old bones.’
Her chest sounded like a board as she hit it.
‘She showed ’em all. I told ’em that this was no time for open war with Spain. If by miracle inconceivable they prevailed against Philip’s fleet, Philip would hold me accountable. For England’s sake, to save war, I should e’en be forced (I told ’em so) to give him up their young lives. If they failed, and again by some miracle escaped Philip’s hand, and crept back to England with their bare lives, they must lie – oh, I told ’em all – under my sovereign displeasure. She could not know them, see them, nor hear their names, nor stretch out a finger to save them from the gallows, if Philip chose to ask it.
‘“Be it the gallows, then,” says the elder. (I could have wept, but that my face was made for the day.)
‘“Either way – any way – this venture is death, which I know you fear not. But it is death with assured dishonour,” I cried.
‘“Yet our Queen will know in her heart what we have done,” says the younger.
‘“Sweetheart,” I said. “A queen has no heart.”
‘“But she is a woman, and a woman would not forget,” says the elder. “We will go!” They knelt at my feet.
‘“Nay, dear lads – but here!” I said, and I opened my arms to them and I kissed them.
‘“Be ruled by me,” I said. “We’ll hire some ill-featured old tarry-breeks of an admiral to watch the Graveyard, and you shall come to Court."
‘“Hire whom you please,” says the elder; “we are ruled by you, body and soul"; and the younger, who shook most when I kissed ’em, says between his white lips, “I think you have power to make a god of a man."
‘“Come to Court and be sure of it,” I says.
‘They shook their heads and I knew – I knew, that go they would. If I had not kissed them – perhaps I might have prevailed.’
‘Then why did you do it?’ said Una. ‘I don’t think you knew really what you wanted done.’
‘May it please your Majesty,’ the lady bowed her head low, ‘this Gloriana whom I have represented for your pleasure was a woman and a Queen. Remember her when you come to your kingdom.’
‘But did the cousins go to the Gascons’ Graveyard?’ said Dan, as Una frowned.
‘They went,’ said the lady.
‘Did they ever come back?’ Una began; but – ‘Did they stop King Philip’s fleet?’ Dan interrupted.
The lady turned to him eagerly.
‘D’you think they did right to go?’ she asked.
‘I don’t see what else they could have done,’ Dan replied, after thinking it over.
‘D’you think she did right to send ’em?’ The lady’s voice rose a little.
‘Well,’ said Dan, ‘I don’t see what else she could have done, either – do you? How did they stop King Philip from getting Virginia?’
‘There’s the sad part of it. They sailed out that autumn from Rye Royal, and there never came back so much as a single rope-yarn to show what had befallen them. The winds blew, and they were not. Does that make you alter your mind, young Burleigh?’
‘I expect they were drowned, then. Anyhow, Philip didn’t score, did he?’
‘Gloriana wiped
