Emmuska Orczy - The Tangled Skein

However, for the moment she was spared the further discussion of this unpleasant topic, for a long, merry, girlish laugh was suddenly heard echoing through the great chambers beyond.

"Hush!" said the Duchess with reassumed severity, "'tis that misguided child herself. Now remember, ladies, not a word of all this. I must learn the truth on this scandal, and will set a watch to-night. But not a word to her."

The next moment the subject of all this animated conversation threw open the heavy oak door of the room. She came running in, with her fair hair flying in a deliriously mad tangle round her shoulders, her eyes dancing with glee, whilst above her head she was, with one small hand, flourishing a small piece of paper, the obvious cause of this apparently uncontrollable fit of girlish merriment.

The Duchess was frowning for all she was worth. Alicia and Barbara tried to look serious, but were obviously only too ready to join in any frolic which happened to be passing in Ursula Glynde's lively little head.

"Oh!" said the latter, as soon as she had partially recovered her breath. "Oh! I vow 'tis the best of the bunch."

With the freedom of a spoilt child, who knows how welcome are its caresses, Ursula sidled up to the Duchess of Lincoln and sat down upon the arm of her chair.

"Your Grace, a share of your seat I entreat," she said gaily, heedless of stern looks. "Nay! I'll die of laughing unless you let me read you this."

"Child! child!" admonished the Duchess, still trying to look severe, "this loud laughter is most unseemly – and your cheeks all ablaze! What is it now?"

"What is it, sweet Grace?" responded the young girl. "A poem! Listen!"

She smoothed out the piece of paper, spread it out upon her knee and began reading solemnly: —

"And beneath this sonnet," she continued, "a drawing – see! – a heart pierced by a dagger. His heart — my beauty which twinkleth like a starre!"

Who could resist the joy and gladness, the freshness, the youth, the girlishness which emanated from Ursula's entire personality? The two other girls pressed closely round her, giggling like school-children at sight of the rough, sentimental device affixed to the love poem.

The Duchess vainly endeavoured to keep up a semblance of sternness, but she could not meet those laughing eyes, now dark, now blue, now an ever-changing grey, alive with irrepressible mischief, yet full of loving tenderness. She felt that her wrath would soon melt in the sunshine of that girlish smile.

"Lady Ursula, this is most unseemly," she said as coldly as she could. "How came you by this poem?"

Ursula threw her arms round the feebly-resisting old dame.

"Hush!" she whispered, "in your dear old ears! I found it, sweet Duchess.. beside my stockings.. when I came out of my bath!"

"Horror!"

"Now, Duchess! dear, sweet, darling, beautiful Duchess, tell me, who think you wrote this poem? And who — who think you placed it near my stockings?"

The Duchess was almost speechless, partly through genuine horror, but chiefly because a sweet, fresh face was pressed closely to her old cheek.

"'Twas not the Earl of Norfolk," continued Ursula meditatively. She seemed quite unconscious of the enormity of her offence, and sought the eyes of her young friends in confirmation of these various surmises. "He cannot write verses. Nor could it be my lord of Overcliffe, for he would not know where to find my stockings."

"The vanity of the child!" sighed Her Grace. "Think you these great gentlemen would write verses to a chit of a girl like you?"

But her kind eyes, resting with obvious pride on the dainty figure beside her, belied the severity of her words.

"Yes," replied Ursula decisively, "bad ones! – not such beautiful verses as these."

Then she went on with her conjectures.

"And there's my lord of Everingham, and the Marquis of Taunton, and – "

"His Grace of Wessex," suggested Alicia archly, despite the Duchess's warning frown.

"Alas, no!" sighed Ursula, "for he has never been allowed to see me."

"Ursula!" came in ever-recurring feeble protests from the old dowager.

But the young girl was wholly unabashed.

"But he will see me – before to-night," she said.

The others exchanged significant glances.

"To-night?"

"Yes! What have I said? Why do you all look like that?"

"Because your conduct, child, is positively wanton," said the Duchess.

But Ursula only hugged the kind old soul all the more closely.

"Now – now," she coaxed, "don't be angry, darling. There! – look!" she added with mock horror, "your coif is all awry."

With deft fingers she rearranged the delicate lace cap over Her Grace's white curls.

"So," she said, "now you look pretty again – and your nice, fat cheeks have the sweetest of dimples. Nay, I vow, all these young gallants only sigh with love for me because you frown on them so!"

"What a madcap!" sighed the Duchess, mollified.

"You won't be angry with me?" queried the girl earnestly.

"Nay! that depends what mad pranks you have been after."

"Sh – sh! – sh! – 'tis a deadly secret. Barbara, Alicia, come a little closer."

She paused a moment, whilst all three of them crowded round Her Grace of Lincoln's chair.

Then Ursula said solemnly —

"The Queen is in love with my future husband!"

The Duchess of Lincoln nearly fell backwards in a faint.

"Ursula!" she gasped.

"Nay, that's not the secret," continued Ursula, quite unperturbed, "for that is town-talk, and every one at Court knows that she won't let him see me for fear he should fall in love with me. And my lord Cardinal is furious because he wants the Queen to marry Philip of Spain, and he is wishing His Grace of Wessex down there, where all naughty Cardinals go."

"Child!.. child!."

"But the days are slipping by, darling," added the young girl, with just a shade of seriousness in her eyes. "All these intriguers may fight as much as they like, but if I do not wed His Grace of Wessex, if he should be inveigled into marrying the Queen, I must to the convent. My dear father made me swear it on his deathbed, when I was beside myself with grief, and scarce knew what I did. 'There is but one true gentleman to whom I would trust my child,' he said to me; 'swear to me, Ursula, that if Wessex claims you not, that you will never marry any one else, but spend your days in happy singleness in a convent. Swear it, little one.' He was so ill, so dear, I swore and – "

"The convent is the proper place for such a feather-brain as yourself," concluded the Duchess with as gruff a voice as she could command.

"But I do not wish to be a nun," protested Ursula, as tears began to gather in her eyes, "and I do want to wed Wessex, who is handsome – and gallant – and witty – and – and," she added coquettishly, "when he sees me – I vow he'll not let me go to a convent either, so – "

She leant closer to the kind dowager and once more whispered confidentially in her ear.

"So, as the Queen is engaged in prayers for at least half an hour, I've sent His Grace word by one of the pages that the Duchess of Lincoln desired his presence in this chamber – here!"

But this was really past bearing.

"I!." exclaimed the Duchess in horror. "I?.. desire his presence?.. Merciful heavens! what will His Grace think?"

Once more Ursula, like the veritable child that she was, was dancing like mad round the room, now alone, clapping her tiny hands together, then seizing one of her companions by the waist, she whirled with her, round and round, until she fell back breathless against the Duchess's chair. And all the while her tongue went prattling on, now talking at top speed, anon singing out the words in the madness of her glee.