Suddenly she turned to Lempriere again. “You came, then, to speak for this Michel de la Foret, the exile--?”
“And for the demoiselle Angele Aubert, who loves him, your Majesty.”
“I sent for this gentleman exile a fortnight ago--” She turned towards Leicester inquiringly.
“I have the papers here, your Majesty,” said Leicester, and gave a packet over.
“And where have you De la Foret?” said Elizabeth. “In durance, your Majesty.”
“Three days gone,” answered Leicester, a little gloomily, for there was acerbity in Elizabeth’s voice. Elizabeth seemed about to speak, then dropped her eyes upon the papers, and glanced hastily at their contents.
“You will have this Michel de la Foret brought to my presence as fast as horse can bring him, my Lord,” she said to Leicester. “This rascal of the sea--Buonespoir--you will have safe bestowed till I recall his existence again,” she said to a captain of men-at-arms; “and you, Monsieur of Rozel, since you are my butler, will get you to my dining-room, and do your duty--the office is not all perquisites,” she added smoothly. She was about to move on, when a thought seemed to strike her, and she added, “This Mademoiselle and her father whom you brought hither-where are they?”
“They are even within the palace grounds, your imperial Majesty,” answered Lempriere.
“You will summon them when I bid you,” she said to the Seigneur; “and you shall see that they have comforts and housing as befits their station,” she added to the Lord Chamberlain.
So did Elizabeth, out of a whimsical humour, set the highest in the land to attend upon unknown, unconsidered exiles.
Five minutes later, Lempriere of Rozel, as butler to the Queen, saw a sight of which he told to his dying day. When, after varied troubles hereafter set down, he went back to Jersey, he made a speech before the Royal Court, in which he told what chanced while Elizabeth was at chapel.
“There stood I, butler to the Queen,” he said, with a large gesture, “but what knew I of butler’s duties at Greenwich Palace! Her Majesty had given me an office where all the work was done for me. Odds life, but when I saw the Gentleman of the Rod and his fellow get down on their knees to lay the cloth upon the table, as though it was an altar at Jerusalem, I thought it time to say my prayers. There was naught but kneeling and retiring. Now it was the salt-cellar, the plate, and the bread; then it was a Duke’s Daughter--a noble soul as ever lived--with a tasting-knife, as beautiful as a rose; then another lady enters who glares at me, and gets to her knees as does the other. Three times up and down, and then one rubs the plate with bread and salt, as solemn as St. Ouen’s when he says prayers in the Royal Court. Gentles, that was a day for Jersey. For there stood I as master of all, the Queen’s butler, and the greatest ladies of the land doing my will--though it was all Persian mystery to me, save when the kettle-drums began to beat and the trumpet to blow, and in walk bareheaded the Yeomen of the Guard, all scarlet, with a golden rose on their backs, bringing in a course of twenty-four gold dishes; and I, as Queen’s butler, receiving them.