Floods of light were again streaming through the lofty halls of Holyrood. Music was pealing loud and harmonious above the ringing of wine-cups, the clatter of a banquet and the merry din of voices. Massive plate, emblazoned with the royal arms of Scotland, glittered on the board; silks, satins, and jewels shone and sparkled around it. In goblets of gold the red wine bubbled to the brim, and stately heads were bent, and bright eyes glistened while gallants laughed and whispered, and ladies blushed and smiled. All that luxury could lavish, all that refinement could require, enhanced the splendour of the feast. Tall, elaborate devices of architecture, mythology, and fancy, peering from amongst winter plants and flowers, decked the tables; whilst the very claws of the pheasants and moor-fowl were gilt ere they were served; the peacock roasted, yet not despoiled of his sleek plumage, offered a lordly delicacy; and the boar’s head, garnished with rosemary, grinned its fierce welcome with the customary apple in its mouth.
At a cross-table, behind a huge candelabra, shedding a refulgent light on her features, and in front of a sideboard piled with rich plate and burnished trenchers, till she seemed literally enshrined in gold, sat the Queen, with the most distinguished of her nobility on either hand. Her face was radiant with animation, for pomp and pleasure were not without their charms to her impressible nature; and her manner, as her guests could not but observe, combined inimitably the cordiality of the hostess with the dignity of the sovereign. Her Maries were placed at the adjoining tables, and more fortunate than their mistress, had at least the chance of sitting next those individuals in whose conversation they took especial pleasure. These lotteries, however, are very apt to turn up an unreasonable proportion of blanks, and while Mary Carmichael could not even see where Walter Maxwell was supping, and Mistress Beton, to her dismay, found herself placed three seats off from the English Ambassador, Mary Hamilton alone saw the seat next her occupied by the person whose society she liked best in the world, and none but herself knew how she trembled when her cup was filled by the poet Chastelâr.
Is it not always so? We take incalculable pains to prepare for our festivities; how anxious we are that they should go off well; how engrossed is the butler with his plate-basket and his ice-pail; how concerned the host that my lord’s venison should not be overdone. Every plait must be laid to a hair’s-breadth in the glistening tresses of the lady of the house. Two mirrors satisfy her, at last, that folds and flounces and flowers are still adjusted to a nicety, but still there weighs on her mind the list of precedence, and the probable contingency that the most important guest may not turn up at all. Perhaps it may come across even her conventional mind that there are games for which it is scarce worth while to purchase such expensive candles, and that a two o’clock dinner with the children is a more agreeable repast, after all. Ay! even at the best, there is a speck on the épergne, an earwig in the flower-basket, a flavour of wormwood in the liquid amber called champagne. Surgit amari over and over again! Perhaps it was not so in that banquet of which the halt and the maimed and the blind were invited to partake. Perhaps there are no insects in a dinner of herbs; no heart-burnings in the crust we share with hunger; no bitter drop in that cup, though it be but cold water, wherewith we pledge celestial charity, and ‘entertain an angel unawares.’
Chastelâr was flushed and preoccupied; thus much was apparent to the eyes that watched him with such eager interest. Ever and anon he glanced uneasily towards the royal table, but ere long something he noticed there seemed to give him intense satisfaction, and filling his goblet to the brim, he devoted himself, like an accomplished gallant, to his fair neighbour. Such is the nature of his sex. A woman always feels a little humbled when she thinks she has been too gracious, even towards a favourite; a man, on the contrary, though his affections may be fixed elsewhere, considers it due to himself to be as captivating as he can. And then they talk of female vanity and female love of admiration.
‘I was sorry for my young knight to-day,’ said Mary Hamilton, not, it must be confessed, very truthfully, and without raising her eyes to her companion’s face. ‘Poor boy! he would have been so pleased to win. I wish he had carried off the prize.’
Chastelâr could not forbear giving her a meaning look.
‘And yet you did not choose him,’ he said. ‘He was given you by the Queen. Did he really carry your good wishes with him, Mistress Hamilton? I marvel his lance could fail; if I had thought that, mine would hardly have been so steady.’
He scarce knew what he was saying. Flushed with success; intoxicated with his own wild happiness; excited as such imaginative natures are by music, lights, wine, and beauty, he was in that reckless mood which drains pleasure eagerly from every cup, and thinks not of to-morrow.
‘You are jesting with me,’ she answered, in a low, trembling voice.
Oh! had he known how these light words of his thrilled to that kind unsuspecting heart, he would have spared her for very pity’s sake.
‘Nay, fair mistress,’ he replied, gaily, ‘I do not jest with you; there are some with whom to break jests is like breaking lances, sharp-pointed ones, too, and ending in a combat à l’outrance. I am afraid of you, Mistress Hamilton.’
‘Why so?’ she asked, looking up at him with her clear, guileless eyes. ‘Am I so very formidable? You do not seem much afraid of anything to-night.’
A gleam of triumph shot from his eyes, and once more he glanced towards the upper end of the hall, then lowering his voice, he whispered—
‘There are contests in which to win is as perilous as to lose. There are lists in which the true knight fights unarmed whilst his adversary is clothed in steel. Give me my coup-de-grâce, Mistress Hamilton,’ he added, with a bright smile, ‘I must depart now to prepare for the masque. Before I go I yield me “rescue or no rescue.”’
‘You have a merciful jailer,’ was all she could trust herself to reply; but as he rose from his seat and left the hall, Mary Hamilton’s eyes followed him with a wistful, longing gaze, and Mary Hamilton’s heart thrilled in her bosom, with a keen sense of pleasure that was not far removed from pain.
Meanwhile the banquet progressed merrily, not uncheered by those lively strains that have made Scotch music, from time immemorial, so appropriate to all scenes of merry-making or excitement. Wine, too, flowed freely, for the stalwart barons would, indeed, have deemed themselves wanting in respect to their sovereign had they stinted their accustomed measure because they sat at a queen’s table. Thirsty souls they were, some of those iron old paladins, and quaffed such mighty draughts as their degenerate descendants would scarce believe; but it was observed that those among them who were most liberal in their potations, became also graver, more dignified and sententious, in proportion to the quantity they imbibed.
Here and there a vacant seat might be perceived, as several gallants quitted the feast by stealth to prepare for the coming pageant, which was tacitly conceded to be a surprise.
Ere long the lower tables, at the extremity of the hall, were drawn, and their occupants, gathering round the royal circle, began to display that flutter of expectation which pervades all assemblies when there is anything to be seen.
Presently two grave ushers with white wands threw open the folding-doors, and, amidst peals of laughter from the men, and exclamations of astonishment, not without a shriek or two, from the ladies, in rushed a troop of satyrs, and commenced clearing a space in the middle of the hall for the further exhibition of the performances.
These masquers were in uncouth and fantastic disguise: their flesh-coloured coverings were adorned with wreaths of oak-leaf and ivy; horns sprouted from their brows; goat-skins covered their nether limbs, which terminated in cloven feet; and long tails depended from their backs, which they brandished in their hands, and used as whips to clear a passage in the throng.
The Queen clapped her hands, and laughed aloud. ‘None but Sebastian could have plotted this,’ she exclaimed. ‘Come hither, ’Bastian, that we may thank thee for thine ingenious device.’
The satyr thus summoned, who seemed indeed the leader of the rest, and no mean representative of the god Pan, approached the royal presence with quaint reverence, beating a measured dance with his cloven feet, and brandishing his tail the while.
James Geddes, the fool, in an irrepressible state of excitement, could not forbear imitating his gestures with a grotesque fidelity that provoked shouts of laughter.
Sebastian, somewhat irritated, and taking advantage of his position, struck at him viciously with his tail; but the fool, familiar with such salutes, dodged it adroitly, and the blow fell across the shapely leg of the English ambassador, who winced, and turned crimson with the pain.
Mr Randolph, however, had far too much self-command to betray his anger, which was little alleviated by the laughter that the Queen could not repress.
‘How now?’ quoth the statesman, trying hard to force a smile; ‘is Pan like Atropos, that he spares neither Wisdom nor Folly, but smites down all alike?’
‘It’s the knave aye gets the fule’s arles,’[7] remarked James; ‘or he wadna be siccan a knave; an’ it’s the fule aye tynes[8] them, or he wadna be siccan a fule!’
[7] Wages.
[8] Losses.
And so speaking, he sat composedly down at the Queen’s feet, pulling a grimace at the same time that was too much even for the Earl of Moray’s gravity.
The satyrs then proceeded to enclose a space for the coming masque. So thorough was their disguise as to baffle even the keen eyes of those who were most interested in their identity; and as the sylvan monsters ranged themselves on each side the hall, soft voices behind them whispered—
‘Are you Sholto?’ or, ‘It must be Archibald!’ to receive no more satisfactory answer than a stifled laugh.
A flourish of music now announced the continuation of the pageant, and the three planets, Mercury, Mars, and Venus, made their appearance, habited in robes of silver gauze and spangles: the first, winged strictly according to mythology at head and heel; the God of War, armed with glittering helmet, flashing buckler, and greaves of burnished gold; and the Queen of Beauty, represented by young George Douglas, extremely embarrassed with her draperies, and blushing as Venus surely, save on one memorable occasion, never blushed in her life.
These representations of the starry host were then succeeded by the Nine Muses, all in different colours, and, notwithstanding their beardless faces and classical folds, displaying legs unusually muscular for Muses, and also a good deal more limb than is customary with that sex to which the ‘tuneful Nine’ are supposed to belong.
Melpomene, too, could not forbear laughing outright; Clio, albeit the daughter of memory, forgot whether she was herself or Urania; and Terpsichore, somewhat flushed with sack, caught her feet in her petticoats, and narrowly escaped the indignity of entering the royal presence on her head. They trooped off, however, after making their obeisance to the Queen, and ranged themselves in front of the satyrs on either side the hall.
After them a score of cavaliers, mounted on the well-known hobby-horse, of which the sweeping housings concealed its rider’s real legs, whilst his false ones dangled outside in ludicrous union with its gambols, plunged and frolicked into the apartment. Half were represented as huntsmen, half as heathen Turks, and they blew their horns, or brandished their scimitars, with an energetic gravity edifying to behold. One truculent-looking Saracen earned immortal honour by the life like manner in which he backed his hobby-horse the whole length of the hall, and then caused it to rear straight on end ere he took up his position, counterfeiting inimitably the coquetry of the practised rider, and the repressed mettle of the unwilling yet obedient steed. Some of the courtiers whispered that it was Lord John Stuart; others, the Grand Falconer; not a few believed it to be the Warden of the Marches in disguise; but the better informed were all the time aware that it was no less a personage than Her Majesty’s head cook.
Then came pilgrims decked with sandals and scalloped shell, leading with them bears, wolves, tigers, and an occasional unicorn; all these quadrupeds presenting alike the anomaly of a pair of hind legs jointed the wrong way, but performing their parts in other respects with decorous fidelity, and an obvious difficulty in keeping up with their leaders. These were succeeded by musicians bearing lutes, harps, wind instruments, and guitars, dumb indeed in reality, but going through all the motions of a lively measure, which the Queen’s real musicians were playing for their encouragement.
Next came two little cupids armed with silver bows and baldricks, their rosy limbs uncovered, and their golden curls mingling with the wings of gauze that stood from their shoulders. Pretty urchins they were, but somewhat too young for their task, and already rubbing their sleepy eyes with dimpled little fists. Hand in hand, they trotted into the hall boldly enough, but ere half the distance was accomplished their hearts failed them; they stopped, looked about them, and one began to cry. This was too much for his little companion’s philosophy, who incontinently followed his example, but both were immediately caught up by some of the ladies, and quickly caressed into composure. The Queen, too, had them brought to her forthwith, and soothing them with kind words and sweetmeats, sent them to bed happy and consoled.
During this unexpected interlude, the principal feature of the pageant, and one which had tasked to the utmost the ingenuity of its contrivers, now entered the hall. It consisted of a fleet of ships constructed of light wicker-work, and moved upon wheels, which were worked unseen from within. The sides of these galleys were formed of cloth, coloured to represent beams of cedar, fastened and inlaid with gold; the masts and spars were gilt, the tackle of silver tissue, and the sails of gauze. A murmur of admiration greeted the pageant as it glided up the hall with the stately motion of ships sailing over a smooth sea.
On the deck of each bark stood an unknown lord, dressed with the utmost magnificence, and closely-masked. So resolved were these silken pirates not to be identified, that their doublets, their hose, and even their gloves, were padded so as to conceal the shape of their figures, their limbs, and their very hands. They were known to be gallants of the Court, but that was all. The nobles laughed and applauded, their dames whispered and speculated, when, with a burst of music rising into loud, triumphant tones, the ships increased their speed, and the leading galley, closely followed by the rest, bore swiftly down upon the circle which contained the Queen and her ladies, with obvious intention of a capture.
Each masquer took a partner by the hand, and courteously entreated her in dumb show to enter his gorgeous bark. The Queen first set the example of compliance, and amidst shouts of admiration the barks veered round, and, doubly freighted, floated once more proudly down the hall.
Then the squadron divided, the sails were furled, the voyagers disembarked, and each gallant kneeling low as he gave his hand to his companion and helped her to alight, unmasked at the same instant, while the music changing to a merry lilt, the couples found themselves arranged in due order to tread a well-known measure called ‘the Purpose,’ on the polished floor.
This ‘Purpose,’ as it was called—a word which signified confidential conversation—was a dance resembling the cotillon so popular with our grandmothers, and not entirely despised to-day when lights are waning after a night of festivity, and gloves are soiled, and flowers faded, and cheeks begin to pale before the coming dawn. Then is the moment to infuse fictitious vigour borrowed from excitement into the closing scene—then the careful mother at the emptying doorway, with shawl and wrapper on her braceleted arm, waves her unwelcome summons to the bounding damsel, warmed up into bloom once more, and every turn is precious now because every turn must be the last. Then shall the prey, which has been playing round it all night, gorge the glittering bait for good and all. Wind up the reel, in with the tackle, out with the landing-net—goldfish or gudgeon, he is gasping helpless on the bank; but had it not been for the cotillon, he might have been wriggling his tail even now in derision through the elusive waters, might have despised the fire and ignored the frying-pan to this day.
The ‘Purpose’ was so called because the figure exacted that at stated intervals the couples should dance together through the doorway into an adjoining room, and having made the circuit of that apartment, should return, unbosomed of any secrets they might have had to interchange, to the rest of the laughing company. It was a figure obviously adopted for the triumph of coquetry, and the discomfiture of mankind.
The leading pirate had dutifully borne off the Queen, and when he unmasked, Mary discovered that Chastelâr was to be her partner in the dance. The poet’s manner was more full of deference than usual, but there was a light of unearthly happiness in his eye.
Randolph had secured Mary Beton, nothing loth. That very morning the ambassador had received instructions from his Government to leave no stone unturned till he had discovered the Queen’s predilections amongst the numerous marriages that were proposed to her, all and each of which gave Elizabeth such disquiet. He proceeded now deliberately to sound her principal maid-of-honour, under cover of making fierce love to her himself.
With the loud music and the long intervals of inaction there was ample opportunity for the process.
‘We shall soon have nobler doings even than these,’ observed Mr Randolph, whispering confidentially to his partner, ‘when another royal wedding gladdens the walls of Holyrood. Shall we dance the Spaniard’s bolero, or the Austrian’s gavolte, or our own old English brawl? Whatever be the measure, Mistress Beton, my only hope is that we may dance it together.’
Randolph looked very tenderly at her while he spoke, and his partner’s ruff heaved visibly.
‘Nay; you statesmen are too premature,’ she replied. ‘Ladies are not to be thus wooed and won in a day, much less queens. The Archduke, Don Carlos, Lord Robert—which of them can be called a fitting mate for our Sovereign? You must not hurry us thus, Mr Randolph; you are indiscreet.’
‘And cannot you guess why I am so anxious for your mistress to marry?’ whispered the insidious statesman, pressing nearer to his listener. ‘Is it not that alone which will free her beautiful maidens from their self-imposed celibacy? Till that auspicious day even our thoughts are not our own, and a man of honour must be tongue-tied on the subject nearest his heart.’
Mary Beton blushed and trembled. It was almost a declaration, and from that impenetrable and capable man! The staid maid-of-honour was losing her head every moment.
‘It may come sooner than any of us think,’ she murmured, giving him her hand to lead her, as the dance demanded, on their tour through the rooms. ‘Sooner than any of us desire,’ she added, with a sudden resumption of her usual stateliness.
He pressed the hand affectionately, and his voice became exceedingly trusting and confidential. Mr Randolph was a man who never hesitated to waste a sprat for the purpose of catching a salmon.
‘It will not be Lord Robert,’ said he; ‘I can tell you that, though it is as much as my life is worth. But I would trust you with my head, beautiful Mistress Beton—far rather than my heart,’ he added, in a low fond voice; ‘were it not indeed too late to make that reservation.’
The light seemed to swim in Mary Beton’s eyes, and the music was like surging water in her ears. A true woman, despite her natural caution and her court education, she returned confidence for confidence.
‘They do talk of a bridegroom,’ she whispered. ‘It is a secret, Mr Randolph; but I feel I am safe with you. The Countess of Lennox has already suggested her son, and I think the Queen is not averse to the idea. If it should ever be,’ she added, with rising colour and some hesitation, ‘we shall be differently circumstanced, of course; and, in short, the future must always be uncertain for us all.’
He replied with less warmth than she perhaps expected; but his commonplaces were extremely polite, nay complimentary, and when he led her back to the company, there was that complacent expression on his countenance, which is worn by a man who finds in the hand dealt him the leading card of the game.
Far different was the ‘Purpose’ entertained by Walter Maxwell and Mary Carmichael, in their interval of conversation. With the frank kindliness of his nature, that honest gentleman had determined at least to ask an explanation, ere he condemned at once and for ever the woman he felt he still loved only too well.
With this intention he had joined the merry band of masquers, though his heart was sadly out of tune for mirth, and had carried off his mistress without hesitation from the fair circle who were waiting to be abducted. Nay, when he unmasked, and Mistress Carmichael, who had recognised him from the first, stole a look at his face, it wore its usual grave but kindly expression, and the displeasure which had so discomfited her all day, and spoilt her gaiety all night, had entirely disappeared. He was determined to be just and kind and temperate in his dealing with her, though more than life depended on the result.
When he spoke it was in a low, soft voice, but every syllable was strangely emphatic and distinct.
‘I behaved unkindly in the Queen’s Park,’ said he, ‘but I was hurt and offended at your conduct. Had I not cause?’
She blushed, yet her eye was bright with repressed exultation.
‘How have I offended you?’ she asked, quickly. ‘I would not do so willingly, you know.’
‘I thought you different from the others,’ he resumed, with more agitation. ‘In common charity I ask to be undeceived. Did I not see you in the Abbey garden the night before last?’
She trembled all over, but looked him full in the face nevertheless, yet so scared, so startled.
‘What then?’ she murmured, in obvious agitation.
‘You were not alone,’ he continued, with a severe brow; ‘who was your companion?’
She drew a long breath as if immensely relieved, nay, she almost smiled as she replied—
‘Then, you do not know? you cannot even guess?’
‘Had I known,’ he answered, significantly, ‘it would not have been the lady I should have questioned.’
She raised her head haughtily.
‘And by what right do you question the lady now?’ she exclaimed. ‘Am I answerable to Walter Maxwell for my conduct? I take leave to think, sir, you might be better employed than in watching my movements.’
He was growing very angry and consequently calmer every second.
‘You had rather give no explanation?’ he said, with studied politeness.
She bowed her head in silence, but the colour was fading faster and faster from her cheek.
‘You decline it,’ he added, still very low, but through his set teeth.
‘Distinctly!’ answered the lady, adding, as only a woman would at such a moment, ‘You are neglecting the figure, the dance is going on without you.’
After this the pair derived but small gratification, we imagine, from the amusements of the evening. Walter Maxwell took the earliest opportunity of departing to cool his irritation in the night air, whither, as we dislike seeing a strong man wrestling with pain, we will not follow him. Mary Carmichael, however, bore her part bravely to the end; and although her answers were at times a little absent, and her laughter somewhat misplaced, none could have guessed by her outward bearing that she had so recently seen the great stake of her life’s happiness set, played for, and lost. She was not the only gambler in the hall. There was one heart amongst those dancers within a few yards of her that had resolved to-night to play the great game in which the odds were incalculably against it, and which to lose was ruin entire and irretrievable. There were a couple now gracefully moving through the figure of ‘the Purpose,’ as the music swelled and sank in triumphant harmony or pleading sweetness, of whom one was enjoying unconsciously the gratification of the moment, gay, kindly, generous, and impressionable, yet calm and dignified because thinking no evil, and the other with beating heart and swimming brain was steeped to the lips in the intoxication of that madness which comes but once in a lifetime, and seems to have but one fatal and invariable result.
Woe to the idolater! It is written on the tables of stone: Woe to the idolater! Be the image what it may, wood brass, or marble, or one ‘a little lower than the angels,’ whom the worshipper must needs exalt above the Being to whom the heavenly Host itself is but as dust in the hollow of a man’s hand. The punishment shall not come from abroad; it shall not be wrought by foreign enmity, nor owe its keenest pang to foreign injustice. If so, the sting would be extracted; the vengeance incomplete. No; Dagon alone shall crush the deluded votary who grovelled at Dagon’s pedestal. It is the hand he trusted that shall strike him to the heart, the feet he kissed that shall spurn him in the dust. When he shall have stripped himself of all to do his false god service; when he shall have lost his friends, his wealth, his fame, his self-respect, and forfeited his honour, and pawned his birthright, then, and not till then, shall the image of stone rock and totter and fall upon him and crush him to powder. Were there no world but this, it would indeed be better for that man that he had never been born.
The Dagon of to-night was fair to look on, queenly and graceful and gloriously beautiful. It seemed unnatural to refuse her homage; it seemed ecstasy to kneel and supplicate and adore. The worshipper was in the wildest stage of his idolatry. He looked for no greater glory than to lay down life and heart and soul at her feet.
What good results could come from such a link between the lovely Queen of Scotland and the infatuated minstrel of France?
CHAPTER XVII.
Mary Stuart still wore in her bosom the gold heart that had been won by Chastelâr in his victory of the day. This it was that had so elated him at the banquet; this it was that gave him courage in the dance to speak words of love to his Queen.
The distant music had subsided to a low, plaintive strain; the apartment into which, in their turn, the two had seemed to float upon those floods of melody was bathed in a subdued and softened light; the odour of perfumes loaded the atmosphere; and the sounds of far-off revelry did but add to the languor and seclusion of the scene. Mary’s cheek was a shade paler and her step scarce so buoyant as usual. She seemed fatigued, and whilst awaiting the louder peal of music that should summon them back to the dance, the Queen seated herself on a low chair near the doorway, and fixed her eyes upon the floor with a dreamy, listless gaze. Chastelâr remained standing, bent over her chair as if fascinated, spell-bound. The music sank lower and lower, and they were alone!
At last the Queen raised her eyes to his, and what she saw there brought the blood reddening to her brow. It broke the charm, however, and the poet found his voice to speak, though his lips trembled so that he could scarcely form his words. He knelt before her as he would have knelt to a saint.
‘Ah! madam,’ he exclaimed in broken accents, ‘accept my homage, my thanks, my everlasting gratitude. This is the day in Chastelâr’s life that he had better lay him down and die in his great happiness, for the sun can never shine on such another for him again.’
She smiled on him, half-kindly and half-pitiful.
‘Why should you thus thank me, Chastelâr?’ she said. ‘What have I granted to my Troubadour that is not richly merited by one so loyal, so devoted, and so true?’
She spoke lightly and playfully, yet was there a tone of repressed feeling in her voice. No woman alive could have looked unmoved on the depth of intense devotion that glowed in Chastelâr’s face.
‘Ay, madam,’ he replied, ‘you have ever been kind and condescending and gracious to your slave. You know not what your notice is to him: how he watches every turn of your face, and hangs on every word of your lips. What the blessed sunlight is to creation—its hope, its love, its pride, its whole existence—such is your presence, O Mary! O my Queen! to me.’
‘Nay,’ she replied, half-rising from her seat, and looking round as though not caring that their dialogue should be overheard; ‘nay, Chastelâr, how you are trenching on your own prerogative, and wasting on my solitary ear the materials for a sonnet which should delight the whole Court. I cannot listen to such compliments from my Troubadour, save in verse.’
‘You will listen to them thus,’ he exclaimed, eagerly. ‘You will allow me to lay at your feet a volume I have long wished, but not dared, to pray you to accept. May I experience this great happiness? Is it a promise?’
She bowed her fair head in acquiescence, and her colour went and came. Queen though she were, Mary Stuart was also a woman to the heart’s core; and it was not in woman’s nature but to experience a tinge of gratification and triumph in an authority so despotic, a dominion so complete as this.
Emboldened by the permission, he hurried on:—
‘I would lay all I have—my fame, my happiness, my life, nay, my very soul—at your Majesty’s feet, and thank and bless you, even did you trample them to dust. O madam! have you not read of such devotion? can you not believe in it? Do you not know that there may exist a love so pure, so holy, so self-denying, that its blessing and its privilege is to give all and ask for nothing in return?’
Again she looked around her, startled and confused, but there were no listeners near. Still the strain of ‘the Purpose’ stole soft and low and soothing on her ear. She resolved she must never hear him speak again like this; but the moments were all the more precious at the time. It would be too unkind to check him harshly now. He was madly in love with her, no doubt; and his punishment would come quite soon enough: meantime, she thought it better to treat the whole affair playfully.
‘I too can write verses,’ said she, with a bright smile. ‘Shall I repeat you a couplet or two I composed to-day? They are not amiss, Chastelâr, at least for a queen! and considering they are in rhyme, they are tolerably true—too true, I fear; the more the pity. Listen, Troubadour, and take a lesson in your own trade; moreover, beseech you, mark the moral, for that is the whole merit of the stave:—
‘And yet, madam, there are chains that the slave hugs to his bosom,’ answered Chastelâr, gazing on her with looks of imploring affection; ‘there is a labour of love that is sweeter than the profoundest repose; there is a pain that we prize and cherish, clasping it tighter and tighter till it pierces to our hearts, and so we die.’
‘Such chains I would not lay on my servants,’ said the Queen: ‘such labour I would never impose; such pain I could not bear to inflict.’
He looked up brightly.
‘Say you so, madam?’ he replied; ‘then indeed do you give me new life, and something to live for. You graciously accepted that trinket from me to-day; and the proudest moment of my existence was when I saw it on your breast to-night; that gold heart is but an emblem of mine own; it is yours, my Queen, if you will deign to take it. Do with it what you will; keep it, or break it, or cast it scornfully away.’
He took the Queen’s hand as he spoke, and pressed it fervently to his lips; but he had gone too far, and Mary, rising from her chair, snatched her hand from him, and drew herself to her full height.
‘You forget,’ she said; ‘you must surely forget where we are, and to whom you speak! This is Holyrood, Monsieur Chastelâr, the royal palace of the kings of Scotland; and I am Mary Stuart, its mistress and its Queen. Lead me back, sir, to the dancers; the music warns us; and do not expect to be forgiven if you should so far presume again.’
She spoke angrily, yet some feeling of compunction smote her the while; and perhaps she was not quite so angry as she looked. She gave him her hand to lead her back to the dance with lofty condescension; and it was remarked on her return to the hall, by more than one acute observer, that the Queen seemed to have quite recovered her fatigue, and that her colour was deeper, her glance brighter, and her step firmer than during the earlier part of the evening. One pair of eyes, too, that never left him save when they met his own, that shone with liquid lustre when he was present, and filled many a time with unbidden tears when he was far away, gazed wistfully on Chastelâr to-night, and a fond heart wondered why his face was so pale, and his manner so dejected and wild and sad.
Mary Hamilton was one of those characters less rare in her own than in the stronger sex, with whom, to use the poet’s expression, ‘love is its own avenger.’ For such, happiness, when it does come, should indeed be intense, for their sufferings are acute, their doubts harassing, their self-depreciation unsparing in proportion to the abandonment with which they merge their whole existence in that of another. It is good to love for those who can love wisely, but, alas! for the self-inflicted tortures of the heart that loves too well.
The revel was at its height; louder and louder pealed the music, faster and faster flew the dancers; all seemed bent on the enjoyment of the hour, and resolved that the concluding scene of the festival should be the wildest and merriest of the night. To look at those panting forms, flushed cheeks, bright eyes, and floating tresses, who would have believed but that here, if anywhere, was to be found the gaiety that flings itself without reservation into the pleasures of the moment? Who would have thought there could be room for care or sorrow in the fair bosoms heaving proudly under pearls and gold, or detect the ring of spurious metal in the joyous tones that told of gratified vanity and partial approbation, and careless, thoughtless mirth?
It is better to leave your partner when you have shawled her deftly at the door; there she bids you a cordial, perhaps even a tender ‘good-night’ with her mask on, the same mask you always see, that is painted in such a radiant smile. It comes off though in her dressing-room, when the aching temples are released from their garland, and the shining tresses are unbound, and the being that you have envied as a model of good sense, gaiety, and content, sits her down with a weary sign, and dismissing you and your platitudes, with which she seemed so highly delighted, from her thoughts, leans her head upon her hand, while the hot tears trickle through her fingers for the sake of somebody you never saw or heard of, who is far, far away.
Perhaps you are even with her; perhaps you, too, meeting her gloved hand in the dance, wince under the senseless exterior which you assume with your evening clothes, in painful consciousness that you cannot quite forget a Somebody of your own, the very rustle of whose dress was music to your ears in the olden golden days that are spent and vanished like a dream; ay, though you seemed so gay and caustic and debonair in the cloak-room a while since, when you walk out into the night, the stars you loved to watch for her sake long ago, look down upon you more in pity than reproach, and the sighing wind reminds you, as it never fails to do, of the gentle face that was all your trust and treasure once, that is lost to you now for evermore. There is no need for you to hum the refrain of that beautiful song, wailing for ‘the tender grace of a day that is dead.’ Are you likely to forget it, clinging as it does about your heart like ice, and chilling you to the marrow even now? Never mind! you have ‘done your ball’ handsomely and creditably, both to self and partner; it matters little that you are a couple of well-dressed hypocrites, covering your respective sores under broadcloth and Mechlin lace; you have offered your incense at the conventional altar; you have sacrificed religiously to society; you are at liberty to take off your trappings now, and wash the paint from your wan faces, and go both of you away by yourselves, to be as wretched as you please.
The Queen and her Maries danced on, fresh and gay to the very last. Even the musician’s well-trained fingers seemed less untiring than the ladies’ feet. But the revel came to an end soon after midnight, and the sentinels at the palace gates, relieved at that hour, glanced admiringly after the noble groups that departed in quick succession; some of the older and statelier forms, be it observed, walking with a more staid and solemn air than usual, attributable to the excess of the Queen’s hospitality, and the excellence of the French wines that graced her table.
There were two individuals, however, now strolling away arm-in-arm with an appearance of great cordiality, who never suffered their brains to be heated beyond their self-control, and who, relying on their wits as the good swordsman on his blade, were careful to keep those weapons constantly bright and keen and tempered for immediate use. They were engaged, even in this friendly promenade, in a kind of moral fencing-bout, with muffled points indeed, and bloodless intentions, yet such as should prove to each his adversary’s strength against the future possibility of a real encounter.
Said Mr Randolph to Secretary Maitland—
‘The revel hath indeed sped gaily. I never witnessed a merrier even at the English court, where my royal mistress hath always given so hearty a welcome to the Lord of Lethington. The masques were quaint, the music exquisite, the supper beyond all praise. Holyrood was indeed to-night one blaze of splendour.’
‘And our Scottish ladies?’ asked the Secretary, who had not failed to observe his companion’s attention to Mistress Beton, and, suspecting his design, glanced curiously at his face to gather what he could from that inscrutable volume.
The Firth down yonder sleeping in the moonlight, could not have been less unruffled than the Englishman’s countenance; nevertheless, his language was too enthusiastic to be sincere.
‘They are above all praise,’ said he. ‘Were I one of those soft-headed, iron-handed paladins of fifty years ago, I would break any number of lances in maintaining your Queen and her Maries to be the brightest bevy of beauty in Christendom! But those follies went out with the mass to make room for others! And, by the way, what thinks worthy Master Knox and his godly party of all this feasting and fiddling and mummery?’
‘There is a strong feeling of religion amongst our townsfolk,’ was the guarded answer, ‘combined with loyalty to Her Majesty.’
‘Then they desire to see her wedded,’ resumed Randolph. ‘It rejoices me to hear this, guessing, as I think I can, at the Queen of England’s wishes. Frankly now, and between friends, hath your beautiful Mistress no predilection for any of her wooers?’
‘I am only a statesman,’ answered Maitland, laughing. ‘I can fathom a plot or an intrigue; but a woman’s schemes are far too deep for me. I believe, however, that on this subject ladies are not prone to speak their real minds.’
‘Lord Robert Dudley is a stanch Protestant?’ proceeded Randolph, interrogatively; ‘and a comely, personable nobleman besides?’
‘Would your mistress like to part with him to mine?’ said the other, with increasing mirth. ‘If Dudley aims at a crown-matrimonial, Mr Randolph, he need not cross the Tweed to fetch it, or we are strangely misinformed in the North.’
‘Nay,’ answered the Englishman, ‘I will be frank with you. The Maiden Queen would be loathe to resign either title. But it is not on her marriage that the eyes of all Protestant Europe are fixed. The destiny of the Reformed Church will be strongly influenced by Mary Stuart’s choice of a husband.’
‘She will be guided doubtless in this, as in everything, by the wishes of her people and the advice of her royal cousin,’ was the diplomatic reply. ‘The Austrian and the Spanish match are alike distasteful. The Archduke is a greybeard, and Don Carlos a puling, sickly boy. You see, I can be candid with you. Our Queen will have none of these.’
Mr Randolph, in common with the general public, had known this important disclosure for weeks. It was his cue, however, to accept the communication for somewhat more than it was worth.
‘As we are in confidence, then,’ he continued, ‘I will round in your ear an idea of mine own. What if the Scottish Queen should unite herself to one of her own blood, and of suitable years, thus avoiding all foreign influences, the while she does no violence to her natural inclinations?—a goodly young gentleman, of honest nurture, and of the Reformed religion. Surely such a mate could be found amongst the noble families in both kingdoms.’
It was a leading suggestion, from which Randolph hoped to gather a corroboration of Mary Beton’s intelligence; but he had to do with one as skilled in state-craft as himself, and equally unhampered by compunctions as to truth or sincerity.
‘There is none that I can think of,’ replied Maitland, with an air of such exceeding candour that the other felt convinced he was telling him a lie—‘unless it be young Lord Darnley; and there are so many objections to his claim, that although it has often been considered, it has never been entertained for a moment. Is it possible that it would meet with your Court’s approval?’
‘I cannot answer without instructions,’ said Randolph, laughing: and wishing each other ‘good night,’ the well-matched pair separated, without either having gained a decided advantage in the encounter of their wits.
The Laird of Lethington, indeed, who had been acting on the defensive, was satisfied with his own reticence, although his suspicions were aroused, and the eternal question, ‘What is he aiming at?’ that haunts the diplomatist, followed him to his pillow; but Mr Randolph was puzzled and discomfited. He could not piece his information together as he liked into one of those perfect specimens of workmanship which he delighted to forward to Secretary Cecil for the inspection of his Queen. Nevertheless he sat up far into the night, writing a state-paper to the English grand vizier, and when it was finished, such is the inconsistency of man, dwelt with considerable complacency on the handsome stately image of the lady who had suggested it. The road to power is not often strewed with flowers. Mr Randolph had no objection to gather them when he could do so without going out of his way, though he was the last man to keep them when withered, or indeed care for them one jot after the first freshness was off their bloom.
But what were the musings of a weary courtier, or even the misgivings of a baffled diplomatist, to the tide of anxiety and anguish that surged through the overwrought brain of Chastelâr, till the poet felt as if he must go mad? Alas! for the gift, dangerous as it is brilliant, of a vivid imagination acting on a deep and tender heart. There are certain insects in the tropics, with which, unconscious of the cruelty, ladies are wont to trim their dresses, that sparkle like diamonds, when thus impaled in torture: while they suffer they glow, and when they cease to glow they die. So it is with certain temperaments, and those not the dullest nor the least amiable of their kind. Their very lustre arises from the pain that is goading them within. The flash that sets the table in a roar springs often from an aching heart: the glowing words that clothe immortal thoughts in godlike imagery rise to lips wet with the bitterest draught of all. Who can describe happiness so vividly as he who feels that it can never be his own? Who yearns for beauty with the thirst of him to whom all that is fairest in earth and heaven but mocks the impotence of his despair? If such temperaments enjoy keenly, and indeed it would be hard if they did not, they suffer with an intensity of pain that goads them nearly to madness, and causes them to rush into follies and extravagances such as less ardent natures are never tempted to commit.
Chastelâr left the hall tortured with shame and doubt and fear. Sometimes he wondered at his own recklessness, that could thus risk his very existence on a word; for he felt that if Mary were really offended, and he were banished from the Court, he had better die. Then he taxed the Queen with perfidy, injustice, hardness of heart. Anon, a softer feeling argued that his offence was not of so grievous a nature after all, that the Sovereign might pardon and look kindly on a confession of such devotion to the woman, nay, that it might have been welcome to her and expected long ago. But Mary’s image, rising from her chair in offended majesty, dispelled this brighter vision; and though his very heart was flooded with the remembrance of her beauty, the sense of hopelessness that had chilled it so often, seemed to creep over him and paralyse him as of old. At least he felt he could not bear her displeasure. She had turned away from him when he had sought her eye after the dance. Perhaps she was mortally offended, and would never speak to him again. Like all others under the same spell, he was totally incapable of judging his own case, and saw everything in a false light. He was even himself aware that he could no longer rely upon his faculties, and yet he felt an irresistible impulse goading him to action, no matter what. There is method in every phase of madness save one, and that is the madness of a man in love.
He paced his room in an agony of irresolution. At last he made up his mind to ask the Queen’s forgiveness. He could not sleep without it. He must have it this very night before she retired. He bethought him of the book that she had consented to accept. It was a happy idea: that unconscious little volume should befriend him. He would present it to her on his knees, and would read his sentence in the looks with which she received the token. He was more composed now, and felt as if he were about the most rational proceeding in the world.
Acting on this suggestion, Chastelâr, with his offering in his hand, stole softly through the gallery and up the staircase that led to the Queen’s private apartments. The lights were already extinguished, and none were moving in the palace, save one or two tired domestics, loitering drowsily to bed. With a beating heart and noiseless tread he reached the door of an ante-room that led to the Queen’s chamber, and paused for an instant to listen. The latch of the door clanked loudly as he opened it, but all was dark within.
Whilst deliberating whether to enter or not, a light shone along the passage, and a measured step, accompanied by the rustle of a lady’s dress, made his heart leap to his mouth. At this juncture, his presence of mind, which had so strangely abandoned him all night, came back in a moment. Without looking to identify the intruder, he laid his book upon the door-sill, and stooping down imprinted a kiss on the threshold, as one who takes his last leave of the shrine that guards his idol ere he retires. In rising he encountered the Queen herself, still in her robes of ceremony and alone. She was proceeding from the Countess of Argyle’s chamber to her own, and had dismissed all her attendants save the two that were even now waiting for her in her bedroom. She started when she saw Chastelâr, and the blood came to her cheek. Was it the light that shone round her like a glory in the poet’s heated imagination that produced the semblance, or was it his own fancy, or could it be reality? He thought her eyes looked wet with tears.
This was too much for his overwrought feelings. He flung himself at Mary’s feet, and taking the skirt of her robe in his hands, literally kissed the hem of her garment again and again.
‘Forgive me, madam, forgive me!’ he exclaimed, in broken accents, and weeping like a woman or a child. ‘I could not bear it; I could not rest; I felt I had offended you—I who would die to give you a moment’s pleasure. I was mad! I knew not what I did; but I crept here to lay my offering at your feet, and to pray for your forgiveness; although you would not know it, would never hear or heed me. Pardon! oh! pardon me, my Queen!’
She could not but pity him; she who was so good and tender-hearted and pitiful to all: his sorrow was so obvious, his misery so complete. She gave him her white hand and bade him rise to his feet; then she chid him gently, kindly, with a grave sorrow on her young face, like a mother who takes to task a dear but froward child.
‘You would not grieve me, Chastelâr,’ said she, ‘I know. Not one of my Scottish subjects is more loyal and true than my French minstrel. Give me your book; I will accept it as a pledge of your service and fidelity to your sovereign. To your sovereign,’ she added, with a significant look, before which his eyes were lowered, and his whole countenance fell. ‘I am not only Mary Stuart,’ she added—and perhaps it was but his fancy made him think there was a dash of sadness in her tone—‘I am the Queen of Scotland as well. This country, too, is not like France; there are grave eyes watching here to which the lightest matters are a scandal and an offence. Enough of this. I have resolved to trust you, Chastelâr: I will employ you in my service. You will be far from Holyrood, but you will be fulfilling my wishes and furthering my interests. To-morrow you will receive your instructions. Chastelâr, I can count on obedience. Farewell!’
There was a tone of sorrow in her voice, and she looked on him very sadly as she passed on into her apartments out of his sight.
Though he heard her words, they were unable to rouse him; though he saw the glance he appeared to heed it not; his frame seemed crushed and powerless; his head was sunk on his breast; when he lifted it, she was gone. Then he drew himself up and looked around him like a man who wakes from some ghastly dream. His face was very white when he walked away, and there was a smile on it not pleasant to behold. You may see such on the face of one who is sentenced to death.
Why should he be pitied? If a man must needs sit down to play his all, whose fault is it that he gets up a beggar? If he grasps at the phial, though it be marked ‘Poison,’ and drains it to the dregs, what is he to expect? Experience will not warn the gambler, he must go to the workhouse at last; nor reason stay the hand of the suicide, he must die like a dog—in a ditch.