“A musician,” said Catherine, more graciously; “now am I reconciled. Like Saul, my soul finds consolation in music; it seems my lord privy seal would send me a female David! Well, well, leave me, maiden; I am weary, and I would not have you think your queen a sour and uncharitable woman with no lenient word for youth. Go eat and sleep, and to-morrow we will be merry.”

[52]

CHAPTER V THE GENTLEMAN IN THE RUSSET CLOAK

Queen Catherine’s prediction that life at Kimbolton would be gloomy for a young girl, seemed likely to be fulfilled. Happily, for Mistress Betty’s comfort, she had already undergone such discipline in both poverty and solitude that she was better fitted to endure restraint and depressing surroundings than others of her years. Sir William Carew and Master Raby bade her farewell the morning after her arrival, and from that time she encountered no very friendly treatment, except from Sir Edmund Bedingfield. The queen was never unkind, but she looked upon Betty with suspicion, and a settled conviction existed in her mind that the young girl was a spy of my lord privy seal, while her three attendants, all women who were devoted to her person, resented still more intensely the presence of the new lady-in-waiting. At the same time, Betty’s youth, beauty, and many attractions won upon them, in spite of themselves, and they could not be harsh or malicious to so[53] charming a creature. After the first week or two they relaxed a little in their manner toward her, and gradually she won her own place in the little household, though she was never trusted in any confidential matter; and often, at her approach, conversation was hushed or writing materials put aside, and an artificial manner assumed, as before a stranger. Intensely as Betty resented the distrust and coldness, she was not without a feeling of thankfulness that her sympathies would never be appealed to, that they seemed to have no wish to work upon her for any of their secret purposes. That there was much scheming she could not doubt from many little indications, and from occasional passages in the conversation, she learned that Catherine was still industriously employed in appealing both to the Emperor Charles and to the new pope. To all these matters Betty tried to close her eyes and ears, and indeed it seemed to her that it could not last long; it required no very observant eye to see that the queen was suffering from some malady even more dangerous than grief and mortification. There were many days when the royal sufferer never left her bed, and at such times she seemed to find genuine consolation in Betty’s harp and her clear,[54] sweet 

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