‘Do you think, sir,’ cried she, ‘to scold me? Do you think me so light as to forget? I am of longer memory than you. Trust Gordon, said you! Trust Gordon? I would as lief trust Judas that sold his master, or Zimri that slew his.’
Young Gordon held his peace, not knowing how to wrangle with a woman. At the door there was some commotion—hackbutters looking about for orders, the captain of the guard forbidding the entry, his hand uplifted to shut men out. They told her that Lady Huntly was there.
‘Let her in,’ says the Queen. ‘I will show her this son of hers.’
The widow came, feeling her way down the hall; distracted with grief, using her hands like a blind man. Beside her, really leading her, was a tall girl, exceedingly handsome, dark-haired, pale, with proud, shut lips. She looked before her, at nothing in particular—neither at the young Queen stormy on her throne, nor at the circle of watchful men about her, nor at her brother’s bowed head, nor at the full doorways. She saw nothing, seemed to take no part, to feel no shame. Except the Queen only, she seemed the youngest there; with the Queen, whose eyes she held from the beginning, she was the only girl among these grim-regarding men.
‘Who is that? Who is that girl?’ the Queen asked Lethington, without ceasing to look.
‘Madam, it is the Lady Jean Gordon.’
‘She has a frozen look, then. Why does she not see me? Is she blind?’
‘They say she is proud, madam.’
‘Proud? What, to be a Gordon?’
She watched her the whole time of the process, finding her a cold copy of her brother, admitting freely her great beauty, admiring (while she grudged) her impassivity. She herself was all on edge, quivering and intense as a blown flame, her face hued like the dawn, her eyes frosty bright. The other was so still! But the Queen was never quiet. Her eyelids fluttered, the wings of her nose; her foot tapped the stool; she saw everything, heard every breath. Jean Gordon had no colour, and might have been carved in stone—a sightless, patient and dumb goddess, staring forward out of a temple porch. Huddling in her great chair, resting her chin on her hand, her elbow on her knee, Queen Mary watched her closely, sensing an enemy; and all this while Lady Huntly called upon God and man to testify to Gordon’s bane.
‘Malice,’—thus she ended her wailing,—‘Malice hath wrought this woe; far-reaching, insatiable malice! There was one that craved a fair earldom, and another the fair trappings of a house: there was one must have the land, and another the good blood. Foul fare they all—they have their desires in this world! Where is Huntly? He is dead. Where is my fine son John? Dead! dead! Where is Adam, my pretty boy? Fetters on his ankles, madam, the rats at his young knees. Come, come, come: you shall have all the Gordons. There you have the heir, and here the widow, and here the fatherless lass. Let them plead for your mercy if they care. I have no voice left but a cry, and no tears but bloody tears. What should I weep but blood?’
The Queen still looked at Jean Gordon. ‘Do you plead, mistress?’ she asked her.
‘I do not, madam.’
She turned unwillingly to Gordon. ‘What do you plead, sir?’
‘Nothing, madam.’
She flew out at them all. ‘Insolence! This is not to be borne. You think to save your faces by this latter pride. You should have been proud before—proud enough not to promise and to lie. You expect me to be humble, to sue you to plead! If my mercy is not worth your asking, it is not worth your receiving. My Lord Gordon, surrender yourself to the law’s discretion. Madam, you gain nothing by your reproaches; and you, young mistress, nothing by your silence. The council is dissolved.’
Lord Gordon walked into ward. The Queen told Lethington that all the forms of law must be observed; by which Lord Gordon’s execution was to be understood.
When she reached Holyrood she sent for Adam Gordon: this shows you that a thaw had set in. She received him in private, alone. This proves that she wanted something yet from the Gordons.
The lad stood shamefully by the door, red with shame, and by shame made sullen. But the Queen had melted before he came; the tears stood waiting in her eyes. ‘Oh, Adam, Adam Gordon, they have hurt you! And you have hurt me!’ She held out her arms.
He looked at her askance, he fired up, he gulped a sob; and then he jumped forward into the shelter of her and cried his heart out upon her bosom. After a time of mothering and such-like, he sat by her knee and told her everything.
His father’s exorbitant pride, Findlater’s ambitions, the clamours of the clan and want of ready pence, had undone the house of Huntly. Findlater was restless. He knew that the country would have him chief; he knew that he was a better man than his father or the heir; and old Huntly knew it too, and would never lag behind. His brother Gordon, said Adam, was an honest man. For why? He had refused to bear arms against her Majesty, when it came to that or ruin. That hurt him so much with the kindred that he had gone away. If he was a coward, Adam held, such cowardice was very noble courage. ‘And be you sure, madam, from what I am telling you, that he loves you over-well.’
‘He should love his wife, my child.’
‘His wife, indeed! Not he!’ cried Adam. ‘Why, he loved your Majesty from the very first, and begged you to trust him. And should he go back upon his word?’
‘Well,’ said the Queen, smiling, ‘maybe I will try him again.’
‘So please your Majesty, think of this,’ Adam said. ‘A man, they say, weds with his hand. But he loves not with the hand.’
‘Would you wed with the hand, boy?’
He blushed. ‘I would, madam, if I must. But I would cut it off first.’
The Queen was delighted with him. She asked about his sister—was very curious. How old was his sister Jean? She was told. Nineteen years! Younger than herself, then—and looking so much older. Was she affianced? Not yet? What made the men such laggards in the North? She looked proud and cold: was she so indeed?
‘She is cold,’ says Adam, ‘until you warm her.’
‘A still girl,’ says the Queen.
And Adam, ‘Ay, deep and still.’
The Queen became pensive.
‘I think I might be pleased with her in time.’
Adam knew better. ‘No, no, madam. She is not one for your Majesty.’
‘How so?’
‘Madam, so please your Majesty, when you love it is easy seen, and when you hate also. All your heart beats in your face. But Jean hides her heart. If she loves, you will never see it. If she hates, you will never know it, until the time comes.’
‘And when should that be, Adam?’
‘Eh,’ says he, ‘when she has you fast and sure.’
This singular character attracted the Queen. She thought much of Lady Jean Gordon, and for many days.
Hateful ceremonies were enacted over the ruins of the house of Huntly. The old Earl in his coffin was set up in the Parliament-house and indicted of his life’s offence: a brawling indeed in the quiet garden of death. They flung shame upon the witless old head; they stripped the heedless old body of the insignia it wore. The Queen made a wry face when she heard of it.
‘Whose is the vulture-mind in this?’ she asked, but received no reply from her stony brother. She bade them stop their nasty play and deliver up the corpse to Lady Huntly to be buried. Then she learned that the widow and her daughter and the condemned lord had been present. She turned pale: ‘I had no hand in this—I had no hand!’ she cried out breathlessly, and was for telling the mourners. Adam Gordon told her that they would be very sure of it.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘I will trust them to be as true-minded as thou.’
She shortly refused to allow Gordon’s execution, and told her brother so.
‘You and your friends,’ said she, ‘have paddled your hands long enough. Go you to your homes and wash. The Lord Gordon shall go to Dunbar to await my pleasure.’
‘Tell him,’ she said to Adam, ‘that because he asked not his life I give it him; and say also that I trust him to make no escape from Dunbar. Remind him of his words to me aforetime. If I trust him again he must not prove me a fool.’
They say that, at this pungent instance of royal clemency, Lady Huntly broke down, fell before her, and would have kissed her feet. The Queen whipped them under her gown.
‘Get up, madam. But get up! That is no place for the afflicted. You do not see your daughter there.’
It was very true. Lady Jean stood, composed and serious.
‘How shall I find the way into that fenced heart?’ thinks the Queen.
But now she turned her face eagerly towards England, whither, Mr. Secretary Lethington assured her, ran an open, smiling road.
The ranging eye of the Muse, sweeping up the little with the big, rediscerns Monsieur de Châtelard, like a derelict ladybird, tide-swept into Scotland once more. It is true, unfortunately, that you have not yet done with this poet, though the time is at hand.
He came warily pricking back in October; and, nosing here and there, found a friend in a certain portly Italian gentleman, by name Signior David, who professed to be deeply attached to him on very short notice, and whose further employment was, discoverably, that of foreign secretary to her Majesty. Needing alliances—for his venture was most perilous—Monsieur de Châtelard had sought him out; and found him writing in a garret, wrapped in ample fur. A cup of spiced wine stood by him, a sword and toothpick lay to hand: no Italian needs more. He was a fine, pink, fleshy man, with a red beard, fluff of red hair in his ears, light eyelashes, blue eyes. His hair, darker than his beard, was strenuous and tossed.
He was not very clean, but his teeth were admirable. Monsieur de Châtelard, coming in with great ceremony, credentials in hand, hoped that he might have the satisfaction of making Signior David a present.
The Italian was franchise itself. ‘Per la Madonna, my lord, you may make me many presents. I will tire you out at that pastime.’ He ran his eye over the Marquis D’Elbœuf’s letter. ‘Aha, we have here Monsieur de Châtelard, poet, and companion of princes! Sir,’ said he, ‘let two adventurous explorers salute each other. If I were not a brave man I should not be here; still less would your honour. A salute seems little testimony between two such champions. You are Amadis, I am Splandian. We should embrace, Monsieur de Châtelard.’
They did; the poet was much affected. ‘I come with my life in my hands, Signior David.’
‘Say, rather, on the tips of your fingers, dear sir!’
‘You see in me,’ continued the Frenchman, ‘a brave man. You said as much, and I thank you. But you see more. You see a poet.’
‘Aha!’ cries the other, tapping his chest with one finger; ‘and here is the little fellow who will sing your verses as merrily as you make them.’
‘Allow me to perorate,’ says Monsieur de Châtelard. ‘You see also, signore, a disgraced lover of the Queen, who nevertheless returns to kiss the hand that smote him.’
‘Sanguinaccio! my good friend,’ Signior David replied: ‘I hope I don’t see a fool.’
Monsieur de Châtelard considered this aspiration with that gravity it deserved. He hesitated before he made answer. ‘I hope not, Signior David,’ he said wistfully; ‘but, as a lover, I am in some doubt. For a lover, as you very well know, is not (by the nature of his case) many removes from a fool. He may be—he is—a divine fool. Fire has touched his lips, to make him mad. He speaks—but what? Noble folly! He does—but what? Glorious rashness!’
‘Undoubtedly,’ said the Italian. ‘But does he not know—when a Queen is in the case—that he has a neck to be wrung?’
‘He knows nothing of such things. This is the sum of his knowledge—I love! I love! I love!’
The Italian looked at him with calmness. ‘I speak for my nation,’ he said, ‘when I assure you that an Italian lover knows more than that. He considers means, and ends too. Hungry he may be; but how shall he be filled if you slit open his belly? He may be thirsty; but if you cut his throat? However, I am speaking into the air. Let us be reasonable. How can I serve you, dear sir?’
‘Signior David,’ says the poet, ‘I shall speak openly to you. Howsoever brave a man may be, howsoever dedicated to impossible adventure, there is one wind which, blowing through the forest, must chill him to the heart. It is the wind of Indifference. By heaven, sir, can you sing before mutes, or men maimed of their hands? And how are you and I to do admirable things, if no one admires, or cares whether we do them or not? The thought is absurd. Here, in this grey Scotland, which is Broceliande, the enchanted forest hiding my princess, I suffer acutely from my solitude. Formerly I had friends; now I have none. Sir, I offer you my friendship, and ask yours again. Be my friend. Thus you may serve me, if you will.’
The Italian took up the fringe of his beard and brushed his nose with it. ‘I must know one little thing first. What do you want with your enchanted princess in the middle of your forest? Everything?’
Monsieur de Châtelard opened wide his arms, strained them forward, clasped them over his bosom, and hugged himself with them.
‘Everything,’ he said; and the Italian nodded, and sank into thought.
‘If I assist you to that, good sir,’ says he presently, looking at his client, ‘it will be a very friendly act on my part.’
‘Sir,’ replied the Frenchman, ‘I require a friendly act.’
Signior David looked down, ever so lightly, at the jewel in his hand, which the poet had put there. ‘But!’ and he raised his eyebrows over it, ‘it will be impossible for future rhapsodists to devise an act more friendly than this! It might be—I do not say that it will be, for I am a simple scribe, as you see—it might be a partaking which Achilles would never have allowed to Patroclus.’
‘But you, signore, are not Achilles,’ urged Monsieur de Châtelard.
The Italian shrugged. ‘I have not yet found Achilles in this country; but many have offered themselves to be Patroclus. ‘Come,’ he added, with a pleasant grin, ‘Come, I will serve you. We will be friends. For the moment I recommend discretion. Her Majesty returned but two days ago, and is already in the midst of affairs. This annoys her extremely. She thought she had done with business and might begin her dancing. But I cannot think that she will dance very long, the way matters are tending.’
Monsieur de Châtelard went away, to brace himself for the opening scene of a new act. He came often back again to see his friend, to submit to his judgment such and such a theory. How should the lover encounter his mistress, against whose person he had dared, but not dared enough, the storming of the sweet citadel? Here was the gist of all his inquiry.
‘Show yourself, dear sir, show yourself!’ was his friend’s advice, whose own tactics consisted in never showing himself and in making his absence felt.
The Frenchman, finally, did show himself, with very little result one way or the other. The Queen, occupied as she had been with Huntly’s ruin, and now with the patching up of a comfortable fragment out of it, hardly knew that he was there. This was the way of it. A lightly-built young man with a bush of crimped hair sprang out of the press in hall at the hour of the coucher, and fell upon his knees. ‘Ha, Monsieur de Châtelard, you return?’ If she smiled upon him, it was because she smiled on all the world when the world allowed it.
‘Sovereign, the poor minstrel returns!’
‘I hope he will sing more tunefully. I hope he will follow the notes.’
‘All the notes of the gamut, Princess; faithfully and to the utterance.’
She nods and goes her way, to think no more about him.
From this unsubstantial colloquy, the infatuated gentleman drew the highest significance. Why, what are the notes of the chant which a lover must follow? There is but one note; the air is a wailing monotone: Hardiesse, Hardiesse, Hardiesse! O Queen, potent in Cyprus, give your vassal effrontery!
Amantium iræ! She had hopes that the piping times were come, with an air cleaner for the late storms. She had won back young Adam Gordon, as you know, and sealed him to her by kisses and tears. She had hopes of his elder brother, now a faithful prisoner at Dunbar. James Earl of Moray proved a kinder brother than Lord James Stuart had ever been; Ruthven was gorged, somnolent now, like a sated eagle, above the picked bones of Huntly. Morton was at Dalkeith, out of sight, out of mind; Mr. Secretary wrote daily to England, where Sir James Melvill haggled with bridegrooms; Mr. Knox reported his commission faithfully done. He had laboured, he said, and not in vain. Her Majesty knew that the two lords, Bothwell and Arran, had been reconciled. He took leave to say that, since her expedition to the North, he had rarely seen a closer band of friendship between two men, seeming dissimilar, than had been declared to every eye between the Earls Arran and Bothwell.
The news was good, as far as it went; it made for the peace which every sovereign lady must desire. So much she could tell Mr. Knox, with truth and without trouble. But—but—the Earl of Bothwell came not to the Court. He had been seen in town, in September, when she was fast in the hills; he was now supposed to be at Hailes; had been at Hamilton, at Dumbarton, at Bothwell in Clydesdale. Why should he absent himself? If by staying away he hoped to be the more present, he had his desire. The Queen grew very restless, and complained of pains in the back. What he could have had to do with these is not clear; but the day came very soon when she had a pain in the side—his work.
That was a day when there was clamour in the quadrangle, sudden rumour: the raving of a man, confused comment, starting of horses, grounding of arms; the guard turned out. The Queen was at prayers—which is more than can be said for the priest who should have lifted up her suffrages; for if she prayed the mass through, he did not. The poor wretch thought the Genevans were after him, and his last office a-saying. Whatever she thought, Queen Mary never moved, even though (as the fact was) she heard quick voices at the chapel doors, and the shout, ‘Hold back those men!’
She found Lethington waiting in the antechapel when she entered it. He was perturbed.
‘Well, Mr. Secretary, what have my loving subjects now on hand?’
He laughed his dismay. ‘Madam, here is come, with foam on his lips, my Lord of Arran, the Duke’s son.’
‘Doth he foam so early?’ says she. ‘Give him a napkin, and I will see him clean.’
Presently they admitted the disordered man, frowning and muttering, much out of breath, and his hair all over his face. Kirkcaldy of Grange held his arm; the Secretary and Lord Lindsay hovered about him; through the half-open door there spied the anxious face of Des-Essars.
‘Speak, my Lord Arran,’ says the Queen.
‘God save us all, I must, I must!’ spluttered Arran, and plunged afresh upon his nightmare.
If that can be called speech which comes in gouts of words, like tin gobbling of water from a neck too narrow, then Lord Arran spoke. He wept also and slapped his head, he raved, he adjured high God—all this from his two knees. Mystery! He had wicked lips to unlock. He must reveal horrid fact, devilish machination, misprision of treason! God knew the secret of his heart; God knew he would meet that bloody man half-way. In that he was a sinner, let him die the death. Oh, robber, curious robber! To dare that sacred person, to encompass it with greedy hands—robbery! God is not to be robbed—and who shall dare rob the King, anointed of God? Such a man would steal the Host from the altar. Sorcery! sorcery! sorcery!
When he stopped to gasp and roll his eyeballs in their sockets, the Queen had her opportunity. She was already fatigued, and hated noises at any time. ‘Hold your words, my lord, I beg of you. Who is your bloody man? Who steals from a king, and from what king steals he? Who is your sorcerer, and whom has he bewitched? Yourself, by chance?’
Arran turned her the whites of his eyes—a dreadful apparition. ‘The Earl of Bothwell’—he spoke it in a whisper—‘the Earl of Bothwell did beguile me.’
‘Then I think he did very idly,’ said the Queen. ‘He has been profuse of his sorcery. Tell your tale to the Lord of Lethington, and spare me.’
And away she went in a pet. Let the Earl of Bothwell come to her or not, she did not choose to get news of him through a fool.
Yet the fool had had seed for his folly. He was examined, produced witnesses; and his story bore so black a look that the council confined him on their own discretion until the Queen’s pleasure could be known. Then her brother, Mr. Secretary and others came stately into her cabinet with their facts. Mr. Knox, said they, had waited upon the Earl of Bothwell to urge a reconciliation with Lord Arran. The Hepburn had been very willing, had laughed a good deal over the cause of enmity—a kiss to a pretty woman, etc.—in a friendly manner. The two lords had met, certain overtures were made and accepted. Very well; her Majesty had observed with what success Mr. Knox had done his part. But wait a little! Friendship grew apace, until at last it seemed that the one Earl cared not to lose sight of the other. Incongruous partnership! but there were reasons. A few weeks later my Lord of Bothwell invites his friend to supper, and then and there proposes the ravishment of the Queen’s person—no less a thing!
At this point of the recital her hand, which had been very fidgety, went up to her lip, pinched and held it.
‘Continue, my lord,’ she said, ‘but—continue!’
‘I am slow to name what I have been slow to believe,’ says my lord of Moray, conscious of his new earldom, ‘and yet I can show your Majesty the witness.’
The plan had been to surprise her on her way from Perth to the South, take her to Hamilton, and marry her there by force to the Earl of Arran. Bothwell was to have been made Chancellor for his share. He had asked no greater reward. The Queen looked down to her lap when she heard this. What more? My lord of Arran concealed his alarms for the moment, and told no one; but the secrecy, the weight of the burden, worked upon him until he could not bear himself. Before the plot was ripe he had confessed it to half-a-dozen persons. Bothwell threatened him ravenously; his mind gave way—hence his frantic penance. Here was a budget of treason for the Queen to take in her hands, and ponder, wildly and alone. Alone she pondered it, in spite of all the shocked elders about her.
If he had done it! If he had—if he had! Ah, the adventure of it, the rush of air, the pounding horse, and the safe, fierce arms! Marry her to Arran, forsooth, and possess her at his magnificent leisure: for of course that was the meaning of it. Arran and his Hamiltons were dust in the eyes of Scotland, but necessary dust. He could not have moved without them. Thus, then, it was planned—and oh! if he had done it! So well had she learned to school her face that not a man of them, watching for it, expecting it, could be sure for what it was that her heart beat the tattoo, and that the royal colours ran up the staff on the citadel, and flew there, straining to the gale. Was it maiden alarm, was it queenly rage, that made her cheeks so flamy-hot? It was neither: she knew perfectly well what it was. And what was she going to do in requital of this scandalous scheme? None of them knew that either; but she again knew perfectly well what she was about. She was about to give herself the most exquisite pleasure in life—to deal freely, openly, and as of right, with her secret joy; to handle in the face of all men the forbidden thing, and to read into every stroke she dealt her darling desire. None would understand her pleasure, none could forbid it her; for none could under-read her masked words. And her face, as glacial-keen as Athena’s, like Antigone’s rapt for sacrifice; her thoughtful, reluctant eyes, her patient smile, clasped hands, considered words—a mask, a mask! Hear the sentences as they fell, like slow, soft rain, and listen beneath for the exulting burthen: ‘If he had! Oh, if he had!’
‘My lords, this is a fond and foolish adventure, proceeding from a glorious heart to a distempered head. My dignity may suffer by too serious care for it. But as I may not permit any subject of mine to handle my person, to deal familiarly with my person, even in thought, I must take as much notice of it as the fact deserves. Let the Lords Arran and Bothwell be committed to ward during pleasure. Prepare such writs as are needful. They shall see my sign-manual upon them.’
She rose, they with her, and went across to the curtain of the private rooms; she held the curtain as she stayed to look back.
‘Be secret, Mr. Secretary, and swift.’
‘I shall obey your Majesty in all things.’
Sitting alone and very still, she wrought her hardest to be offended at this tale, as became a sovereign lady. She bit her red lip over it, frowned, covered her eyes—acting a horror which she could not feel. Resolutely then she uncovered them again, to look it in the face and see it at its worst. But what she saw, and exulted to see, was a Man. And the face of the man was broad-jowled, flushed, and had a jutting under-jaw; its mouth snarled as it laughed, its eyes were bloodshot and hardily wicked, it was bearded from the throat. Wicked, daring, laughing Bothwell—hey, yes, but a Man!
His plot—how could she but admire it as a plot? It was a chain of fine links. Arran was heir-presumptive, and would hold the South; Arran’s sister married to Huntly’s son—there’s for the North. In the midst, Bothwell with the wittold’s wife—herself. Now, if that were the plan, then Bothwell was her lover. Observe the plain word: her lover, not her adoring slave. Also, if that were the plan, and Arran a catspaw, then Bothwell would be her master. Another plain word for a plain proposal, with which no woman, be she chaste or frail, is altogether offended.
Certainly this young woman was not offended, as she dallied with each thought in turn—weighing, affecting to choose. Lover! Master! This saucy, merry robber. How should she be offended? It was only a thought. Lancelot had loved his queen, and Tristram his. Let the plot be put before these two to judge, Lancelot would have laughed and Tristram grieved. Arran had been like Tristram, and she curled her lip to think of him, and laughed aloud as she chose for Lancelot. Ah, how can you be offended with Love and his masterful ways? Or with the blithe lover, who laughs while he spoils you? It is son naturel; and must we not follow our nature? Love, which made George Gordon glum, made Bothwell merry. He would go, humming the same southern air, to battle or to bride-bed, to midnight robbery or the strife of love. He was a man, do you see? They had such in France, a plenty; but in Scotland what had they but pedlars, hagglers, cattle-drovers, field-preachers? What other in Scotland would have shaped such a plan as this, and gaily opened it to a fool? The Earl of Morton, do you suppose—that thick schemer? Her brother Moray, the new Earl, sour, careful merchant of his store? Dead old Huntly, John of Findlater, wordy, bickering hillmen? Or George Gordon, chastened and contrite at Dunbar? Not one of them, not one. Gordon was her lover—accorded. But Gordon made eyes,—and this other, plans to carry her off. Oh, here is the difference between a boy’s kisses and a man’s. The one sort implies itself, the other all the furious empery of love.
The slim, pale, wise young witch that she looked—sitting here alone, spelling out her schemes, glancing sidelong from her hazel eyes! Tenez, she was playing with thoughts, like a girl hot upon a girl’s affair. Not thus meditates a prince upon his policy! She began to walk about, looked out of window, fingered the arras; and all the while was urging herself to princely courses. As a prince, she would certainly make a high alliance; as a prince, she must show disorderly subjects that she was not to be touched too familiarly. The man must be reminded; prison walls would cool his fevers. Let him think of her in confinement. When he came out she would be affianced, perhaps wedded—safe in either case. Then it would be lawful to see him again, and—and—oh, what a laughing Lancelot went there!
She kept her own counsel, having made up her own mind, and contrived to seem severe without being so. The Earl of Arran was sent to Dumbarton, a nominal confinement; but Bothwell was warded in Edinburgh Castle, the length of a street away. ‘He is more dangerous, it seems, the farther off he is lodged,’ she gave as her reason. It was easy to learn that he made good cheer, kept a generous table, saw his friends and had all the Court news; not quite so easy to pretend not to learn it. Yet, I suppose, she knew by the next day everything that he had said or done overnight. Des-Essars was go-between, not officially, of course, but as by accident. Few beside Mary Livingstone remarked that this discreet and demure youth was off duty for half the day at a time. Then Bishop Hepburn, my lord’s reprobate, chuckling uncle, came to Edinburgh, and sauntered up and down the hill as he chose; an old hand at a game as old as Troy town. Playing a round at cards with the Queen, he treated the late escapade as a family failing. But this was a false step of his: the Queen was not to be caught.
‘When you say that the thing was folly, you are more cruel than I have been. I have punished your nephew for presumption and crime, but have never accused him of being a fool. However, since you are in a position to judge, I am willing to take it from you.’
He stood corrected, but did not cease to observe. The Queen’s circumspection filled him with wonder, and at the same time taught him, by its accuracy, all he wanted to know. His lesson pat, he went up to the Castle again.
‘Nephew,’ he said, ‘the cage-door is not set open, but I believe you have only to turn the handle when you please.’
‘I shall not turn it just yet awhile, my good lord bishop,’ said the Earl, playing a tune upon his knee; ‘I find this a fine post of observation.’
It was Mary Livingstone who first found out the truth of matters, and by plunging into the fire to save her mistress succeeded in nothing but burning herself. When, after a sharp examination, she learned where Des-Essars had spent his free days, she could not contain herself. ‘Fine use for pages! Fine use!’
This provoked a quarrel. The Queen stamped her foot, flung up and down, shed tears. ‘You are too masterful, my girl, too much the husband. You mistake a game and play for a bout-at-issue. I do not choose to be mistressed by a maid of honour. There must be an end of this.’
Livingstone listened gravely. ‘Do with me as you will, madam. Put me in my place. What is your pleasure?’
‘To rule my people, child.’
‘Rule, madam, rule. Command me in anything. Forbid me everything, but one thing.’
‘I shall forbid you what is unwholesome for you, and for me also.’
‘You shall not forbid me to love you,’ said the maid, very white.
‘Nay, that I cannot do!’ cried the Queen, laughing and weeping at once. So they kissed.
But, for all that, she removed Livingstone from her side, and chose Fleming. Mr. Secretary, acceptable widower in that lady’s sight, rubbed his hands over the choice; and Fleming herself was so sweetly gratified that nobody could grudge her her promotion. She was a gentle-natured, low-voiced, modest girl, with the meek beauty of an angel in a Milanese picture. Older than the Queen, she looked younger; whereas Livingstone was younger and looked older. No doubt this one felt her fall; but, being as good as gold and as proud as iron, she held her head the higher for her lower degree, and smiled benevolently at the raptures of the new favourite.
‘My dear,’ she said to Fleming, ‘do not think that I grudge thee. In truth, I do not. What I said was done advisedly. I knew what must come of it; I sought it, and shall put up with it. I have a deal to think on, these days, and my thoughts will be my night-company.’
‘She will never love me as she loves thee,’ says Fleming; and was answered:
‘I care not greatly if she do or no; nor will I measure loves with any one. Our affair the now is to get her fast wedded.’
‘So saith Mr. Secretary at all hours,’ said Fleming.
But Livingstone tossed her head. ‘Fine he knows the heart of a lass, your Lethington body!’
Fleming looked serious. ‘He hath spoken to me of my Lord of Lennox,’ she said, in a lower tone. ‘This lord is near akin to our mistress; nearer, if the truth were known, than the Duke. He hath a likely son in England, a noble young man—my Lord of Darnley. The Queen of England holds him dear, and (they say) looketh to him to be her heir.’
Livingstone made an outcry. ‘Then she looketh askew! It is well known to her and hers who the heir of England is. Who should it be but our own lady?’
But Fleming persisted in her quiet way. ‘Mr. Secretary speaks of him as a hopeful prince—having seen and had speech with him. I do but use his own words. Sir James Melvill writes of him. Mr. Randolph owns him to be something, though unwillingly. And, says Mr. Secretary, we may depend upon it that when Mr. Randolph admits some grace in a Scots lord, there is much grace.’
Livingstone’s open eyes showed that the thing had to be considered. ‘There may be some promise in all of this,’ says she. ‘What you tell me of Mr. Randolph gives me thoughts. Had he nothing more to own? Has Mary Beaton got nothing from him?’ English Mr. Randolph, you must know, was apt to open his heart to Mary Beaton when that brown siren called for it.
‘He told Mary Beaton,’ Fleming replied, ‘that the Queen of England valued one lord no more than other, until—until—I know not how to put it. In fine, he said, that if any lord of her court was sought after by another, then his Queen would need that lord more than any other. Do you follow?’
‘Ay,’ says Livingstone, ‘I follow thee now. My lord of Darnley, he is called? Why, let him come up then: we can but look at him.’
‘Oh, my dear chuck,’ Fleming protested, ‘princes are not wed by the eyes’ favour.’
‘They have the right to be,’ said her mate; ‘and it is only thus, let me tell you, that our Queen will be well wedded.’ She grew exceedingly serious. ‘Look you, Fleming, she is in danger, she is dangerous. I know very well what is passing up and down between this and the Castle rock. Ask me not—seek not to learn. It is not enough for her that she contract with this man or that. I tell you, she must want him.’
Fleming blushed painfully, but there was no gainsaying the truth. ‘It is true, she hath a great spirit.’
‘Ay,’ muttered Livingstone grimly, ‘and needeth a greater.’
‘They say,’ Fleming continued, ‘that the Lord Darnley’s is a royal soul.’
And Livingstone ended the council. ‘Let the young man come up. We can but look at him.’
Mary Livingstone, the divorced, had a secret of her own, but made very light of it. The Master of Sempill demanded her person; said he could not be denied. Her father was willing, and his father more than willing; yet she laughed it all away. ‘I am husband of the Queen of Scots,’ she said, ‘or was so yesterday. What should I do with the Master?’
The old lord, her father, tapped his teeth. ‘You speak pleasantly, daughter, of a pleasant privilege of yours. But the Master is a proper man, who must have a better answer.’
‘Let him bide till I am ready,’ says the good Livingstone.
‘I doubt he will do it, my lass. He may spoil.’
‘Then he is not worth the having, my lord,’ replied the maid. ‘What use have I for perishable goods?’
The Master chose to wait; and when the Court moved to Saint Andrews he waited in Fife.
The Court went thither with various great affairs in train, whose conduct throve in that shrill air. The Queen would work all the forenoon with Lethington and her useful Italian, play all the rest of the day, and to bed early. She played at housewifery: bib and tucker, gown pinned back, all her hair close in a clean coif. The life was simple, the air of homely keenness, the weather wintry; but the great fire was kind. All about her made for healthy tastes; inspired the hale beauty of a life within the allotted fence, a taskwork smoothly done, and God well pleased in His heaven. Lethington, a pliant man, lent himself to the Queen’s humour; Signior David was never known to be moody; there were Adam Gordon and Des-Essars to give their tinge of harmless romance—a thin wash, as it were, of water-colour over the grey walls. Sir James Melvill, too, who had been to England upon the high marriage question, and returned, and was now to go again, arrived, full of importance, for last words. It had come to this, that the Queen was now to choose a husband.
Sir James was struck by her modest air, that of a tutored maid who knows that she is called to matronhood. ‘Ecce ancilla Domini!’ In truth she was listening to those very words.
‘I shall strive in all things, Sir James Melvill, to please my good sister. Whether it be my Lord Robert[1] or my cousin Darnley, I trust I shall satisfy my well-wishers.’
Soft voice, lowly eyes, timid fingers! ‘Who has been pouring oil upon this beading wine?’ asked himself Sir James. Who indeed, but Saint Andrew, with his frosty sea-salt breath?
It was just at this time, as things fell out, that the Earl of Lennox, father to that ‘hopeful prince’ of Mary Fleming’s report, came to Scotland, as he said, upon a lawsuit concerning his western lands. But some suspected another kind of suit altogether; among whom, for the best of reasons, were the Queen’s brother James, and the Lord of Lethington the Secretary. Another was Signior David, dæmonic familiar of Monsieur de Châtelard.
[1] Lord Robert Dudley, later the too-famous Lord of Leicester.
At Saint Andrews the Queen lodged in a plain house, where simplicity was the rule, and she kept no state. The ladies wore short kirtles and hoods for their heads; gossiped with fishwives on the shore, shot at butts, rode out with hawks over the dunes, coursed hares, walked the sands of the bay when the sea was down. The long evenings were spent in needlework and books; or one sang, or told a tale of France—of Garin de Montglane or the Enfances Vivien. Looking back each upon his life in after years, Adam Gordon was sure that he had loved her best in her bodice of snow and grey petticoat; Des-Essars when, with hair blown back and eyes alight, she had led the chase over the marsh and looked behind her, laughing, to call him nearer. She was never mistress of herself on horseback, but stung always by some divine tenant to be—or to seem—the most beautiful, most baleful, most merciless of women. And although her hues varied in the house, so did not her powers. She was tender there to a fault, sensitive to change as a filmy wing, with quick little touches, little sighs, lowering of eyelids, smiles half-seen, provoking cool lips, long searching looks. She meant no harm—but consider Monsieur de Châtelard, drawn in as a pigeon to the lure!—she must always bewitch something, girl or boy, poet or little dog; and indeed, there was not one of these youths now about her who was not crazy with love. She chose at this time to be more with them than with the maids; a boy at heart herself, she was just now as blowsed as a boy. She used to sit whispering with them; told them much, and promised more than she told.
Monsieur de Châtelard—having ventured to present himself—expanded in the sun of that Peace of Saint Andrew until he resembled some gay prismatic bubble, which may be puffed up to the ceiling and bob there until it bursts. The Queen had forgiven him his trespass and forgotten it. She resumed him on the old footing, sang with him, let him whisper in her ear, dared greatly, and supposed all danger averted by laughter. Having high spirits and high health, she was in the mood to romp. So they played country games by the light of the fire: blind man’s buff, hot codlings, Queen o’ the Bean. You come to close quarters at such times. You venture: it’s in the bargain. If a Queen runs to hide she shall not blame a poet who runs to seek—or she should not. When, in the early spring, Mr. Secretary was gone to Edinburgh to see the Earl of Lennox about that suit of his—lawsuit or other—the Queen went further in her frolics. In the garden one day she found a dry peascod intact, nine peas in it. There is a country augury in this. Nothing would content her but she must put it on the lintel like a dairymaid, and sit conscious in the dusk until her fate crossed the threshold. Anon there stepped in Monsieur de Châtelard with a song. When the joke was made clear to him he took it gravely. An omen, an omen!
The sense of freedom which you have when you have made your election took her fancies a-romping as well as her humours. They strayed with Lord Bothwell on the Castle rock, they visited Lord Gordon at Dunbar. Allez, all’s safe now! Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die; let us take pity on our lovers, since to-morrow we are to wed. And—so we juggle with ourselves!—she wrote an unnecessary letter to the one in order that she might write an imprudent letter to the other.
‘Monsieur de Gordon,’ ran the first—and Adam carried it to Dunbar in his bosom—‘I am content to believe that your constancy in affliction proceedeth from a heart well-affected towards me at this last. You will find me always mindful of my friends, among whom I look to reckon yourself in time to come. Attachment to the prince floweth only from good faith towards God. Holding to the one, needs must it follow that you find the other. Your brother Adam will tell you the same.—Your good mistress, Marie R.’
Then she wrote this—for Des-Essars to deliver or perish; and you may catch the throb of the pulse in the lines of the pen:—
‘Monsieur de Bothwell, they tell me you deal more temperately in these days, having more space for a little thought the less your person is enlarged. They report you to me as well in body, the which I must not grieve for; but repining in mind. Can I be sorry, or wonder at it, seeing to what gusty airs your phrenzy drove you? This glove, which I send, is for one plain purpose. You see, my lord, that the fingers are stiff where water hath wetted them of late. You offended your Queen, who had always wished you very well: the tears were for sorrow that a heart so bold should prompt a deed so outrageous.’
Lord Bothwell, when he had this letter, sat looking at it and its guest for a long while, in a stare. His mouth smiled, but his eyes did not; and he sang softly to himself, La-la-la, and a la-la-laido! A night or two later, by means of the seal upon it and his uncle’s influence, he walked out of the Castle, and was presently in the Hermitage with Des-Essars. Hence he wrote to the Queen: ‘O Lady, O Sovereign! I shall carry a token upon my helm, and break lances under its whisper until I die,’—but neither signed nor dated the letter.
‘Say to your mistress, boy, that I gave you this; but breathe not a word of whence I wrote it. Disobey me, you who know me of old, and when I come again I will make of your skin but a leaky bottle of blood.’
Des-Essars gave his pledge, and kept it for some time.
If the Queen said nothing about all this to her maids, it is no wonder. She had done foolishly, and knew it in part, and took secret glory in it. At certain still hours of the day, when she could afford herself the luxury of lonely thought, she would go over what she had done, phrase after phrase of her letter; recover the trembling with which she had put in the glove; picture its receipt, read and re-read his words. And then, as she thought, the heat of her cheeks burnt up all thought; and, as she stayed to feel her heart beat, it drummed in her ears like nuptial music. But they frightened her, these signs and wonders; she ran away from herself—into the maids’ closet, into the hall among the lounging men, into the windy weather—and cooled her cheeks with the salt sea-spray, and drowned the clamour of her heart in the rude welcome of March.
Monsieur de Châtelard, with the lover’s keen eye, saw that she was fluttered, watched her everywhere. About this time also he consulted his friend.
‘Monsieur de Riccio,’ he said, ‘there are signs of the rising of sap. The birds pair, the festival of Saint Valentine the Bishop is come and gone. Why do I linger?’
‘Peste!’ said the Italian, who had other things to think of: ‘how should I know?’
‘By sympathy,’ his friend reproached him: ‘by the stricken heart. For you also have loved.’
‘Dear sir,’ replied the other, stretching his long legs to the full, ‘I have love and to spare at this time. Or put it, I am beloved. Monsieur de Moray, her Majesty’s brother, loves me dearly, or so he says; Monsieur de Lennox is his rival for my favours. Ha, they kiss my hands! I am touched; I have to decide—like a girl. To you, then, I must briefly say, The times are ripe. Go you and anoint for the bridal. I tell you that this very night—if you so choose it—you may be the happiest of men.’
Monsieur de Châtelard lifted high his head. ‘Be sure of my friendship for ever, Signior David.’
He threw his cloak over one shoulder and went out.
‘Pig and pig’s son!’ said Signior David, returning to his love-letters.
He had two letters under his hand. One told him that he might consider himself fortunate to have been chosen an instrument to further the designs of Providence in this kingdom. The Lord of Lethington (it said) was possessed of the writer’s full mind upon a momentous step taken of late towards the highest seat, under God, of any in the land. ‘I cannot answer,’ it continued, ‘for what Mr. Secretary may discover to you upon your approaching him with the words “Kirk and Realm” upon your lips, saving that, whatever it be, it will be coloured with my friendship, which hopes for yours again.’ There was no name at the foot.
‘Aut Moray aut diabolus!’ however, said the Italian to himself; ‘and why the devil my Lord of Moray desires his sister to wed the heir of Lennox, I have no particle of understanding. Maybe that he hopes to ruin her with the English; maybe with the Scots. Certainly he hopes to ruin her somewhere.’
The other letter was signed ‘freely by its author—‘Matho Levenaxe’—and besought Signior David’s furtherance of his son’s, the Lord Darnley’s, interests; who had come post into Scotland upon affairs connected with his lands, and was prompted by duty and conscience ‘to lay homage at the feet of her who is, and ever must be, the Cynosure of his obedient eyes.’ There was much about merit, the Phœnix, the surcharged heart of a father, ties of blood—common properties of such letters; and the unequivocal suggestion that favour would meet favour half-way.
These documents were vastly agreeable to the Italian. They invited him to be benevolent and lose nothing by it.
One of these honourable persons desired to ruin the bride, the other to prosper the bridegroom. Well and good. And he, Signior David? What was his desire? To prosper alike with bride, bridegroom, and the exalted pair, his correspondents. Va bene, va bene. His business was therefore simple. He must engage the bride to contract herself—but with enthusiasm; for without that she would never budge. And how should that be done? Plainly, by the way of disgust. She must be disgusted with amours before she could be enamoured of marriage. And how? And how? Ha! there was Monsieur de Châtelard.
In some such chop-logic fashion his mind went to work: I do not pretend to report his words.
He lost no time in accosting Mr. Secretary, on an early day after his return to Saint Andrews, with his master-word of ‘Kirk and Realm.’ The Secretary had not much taste for Signior David. ‘I see that you have a key to my lips,’ he said. ‘You may rifle by leave, if you will let the householder know just what you are taking out of his cupboard.’
‘Eh, dear sir,’ cried the other, ‘how you reprove me beforehand! Your cupboard is safe for me. I wish to know how I can serve Milord of Moray; no more.’
The Secretary narrowed his eyes and whistled a little tune. ‘You can serve him very simply. You write our mistress’s letters? Now, the pen is in touch with the heart. There flows a tide through the pen; but after a flowing tide comes the ebb. The ebb, the ebb, Signior Davy!’
‘True, dear sir——’
‘Why, then, consider the wonders of the pen! It forms loving words, maybe, to the Queen our good sister, to the Most Christian King our brother-in-law, to our uncle the Cardinal, to our cousin Guise, to our loving cousin Henry Darnley; and by the very love it imparts, by tender stroke upon stroke, the ebb, Signior Davy, carries tenderness back; in smaller waves,’tis true, but oh, Signior Davy, they reach the heart! And how widely they spread out! To suffuse the great sea! Is it not so?’
‘The image is ingenious and poetical,’ said the Italian. ‘I confess that I have a feeling for poetry. I am a musician.’
The Secretary put a hand upon his shoulder. ‘Set my words to music, my man. You shall hear them sung at a marriage door. All Scotland shall sing them.’
‘Do you think Monsieur de Moray will sing them?’
The Secretary touched his mouth. ‘Our present music,’ he said, ‘should be chamber-music, not brayed from the housetops out of brass. But I am no musician. Let us talk of other things. I have May in my mood, do you know. This day, Signior David, May hath shone upon December. Do you see a chaplet on my silver pow?’
‘Ah! La Fiamminga has been kind?’ asked the Italian, knowing with whom he had to deal.
‘You are pleased to say so,’ said the Secretary. ‘Know then, my dear sir, since there are to be no secrets to keep us apart, that I am a happy man. For, sitting with our mistress upon that great needlework of theirs, I found a certain fair lady very busy over a skewered heart. “Come hither, Mr. Secretary,” saith our mistress, with that look aslant which you know as well as I do, “Come hither,” saith she, “and judge whether Fleming hath well tinct this heart.” I overlooked the piece. “Oh, madam,” say I, “the organ should be more gules: this tincture is false heraldry. And the wound goes deeper.” My fair one, in a flutter, curtsied and left the presence. Then saith our Queen, with one pretty finger admonishing, “Fie, Mr. Secretary, if you read so well now, before the letter is in your hand, what will you do when you have it in your bosom to con at your leisure?” I had no answer for her but the true one, which was and shall ever be, “Why, then, madam, I shall have it by heart, and your Majesty two lovers in the room of one.” I put it fairly, I think; at least, she thanked me. Now, am I a happy man, Master David, think you? With the kindness of my prince and the heart of my dear! Sir, sir, serve the Queen in this matter of the young Lord of Darnley. He is in Scotland now; I believe at Glasgow. But we expect him here, and——Oh, sir, serve the Queen!’
The Italian, who was fatigued by a rhapsody which did not at all interest him, wagged his hands about, up and down, like a rope-dancer that paddles the air for his balance.
‘Va bene, va bene, va bene!’ he cried fretfully. ‘Understood, my good sir. But will this serve the Queen?’
‘If I did not think so,’ returned the Secretary—and really believed this was the answer—‘if I did not think so, would my Lord of Moray, should I, press it upon you?’
Signior David shrugged—but you could not have seen it. ‘What is this young man?’ he asked.
‘It is impossible that you know so little. He is of the blood royal by the mother’s side. He is next in title to this throne, and to the other after my mistress.’
The Italian waved all this away. ‘Understood! Understood already! Do you think I am a dunce? Why am I here, or why are you here, if I am dunce? I ask you again, What is he? Is he a man? or is he a minion—a half, a quarter man? Do you know, Mr. Secretary, that he has got to serve Dame Venus? Do you know that he may drown in the Honeypot? Pooh, sir! I ask you, can he swim? He will need the faculty. I could tell you, for example, of one lord——But no! I will not.’ He hushed his voice to an awed whisper, seeming to reason with himself: ‘Here, upon my conscience, is a woman all clear flame, who has never yet—never yet—met with a man. Here is a Cup of the spirit of honey and wine. Who is going to set the match to kindle this quick essence! Who is about to dare? Why, why, why,—all your drabbled Scotland may go roaring out in such a blaze! Corpo di sangue e sanguinaccio!’ His excitement carried him far; but soon he was beaming upon Lethington, reasonable again. ‘Let us change the figure, and come down. Dame Venus is asleep as yet, but uneasy in her sleep, stirring to the dawn. She dreams—ha! And maids belated can dream, I assure you. Is this young man a Man? Lo, now! There is my question of you.’
Mr. Secretary was alarmed. His teeth showed, and his eyes did not.
‘You go too near, you go too near.’
But the Italian was now calm.
‘My friend,’ he said, ‘I am not of your race—sniffing about, nosing for ever, wondering if you dare venture. I am at least a man in this, that I dare anything with my mind.’
Mr. Secretary agreed with him. ‘I assure you, Signior Davy,’ he said, ‘that my Lord of Darnley is a fine young man.’
The Italian threw up his hands. ‘Eh—allora! All is said, and I go to work. Sir, I salute you. Addio.’
And to work he went, in the manner already indicated:—‘To draw the Queen into the net of this fine young man but one thing is needful: she must run there for shelter. She is a quail at this hour, grouting at ease in the dusty furrow. If we are to help this favoured fowler we must send over her a kite.’
Alas for friendship! His kite of election was Monsieur de Châtelard. It will not be denied that the poet did his share; but there were two kites sent up. Sir James Melvill came back from England.
Meantime it should be said that there was truth in the report. The young Lord Darnley was actually in Scotland. Some held that he was in Lord Seton’s house in the Canongate, others that Glasgow had him. There was some doubt; but all the Court knew of his presence, and talked of little else. The Queen maintained her air of tutored virgin, while Mary Livingstone openly thanked God that Scotland owned a man in it at last. This honest girl had worked herself into a fevered suspicion of everything breeched at Court.
Sir James Melvill, when he sent up his name for an audience, had to run the cross-fire of the maids’ anteroom first. Few could bear the brunt better than he.
‘H’m, h’m, fair ladies, what am I to tell you? He’s a likely lad enough for a valentine; for a kiss-and-blush, jog-o’-my-knee, nobody’s-coming, pert jessamy. Oh, ay! He can lead a dance more than a little—Pavane, Galliard, what you will of the kind: advance a leg, turn a maid about, require a little favour, and ken what to do wi’t. He hath a seat for a horse, and a rough tongue for a groom. Ay, ay! young Adonis ardent for the chase, he is; and as smooth on the chin as a mistress.’
They laughed at him, while Master Adam of Gordon, page at the door, rubbed his own sharp chin, and could have sworn there was a hair. The usher came for Sir James, and cut pretty Seton short in her clamour for more.
He found his mistress and the Italian in the cabinet, their heads together over a chapter of Machiavel. He knew the book well, and could have sworn to the look of the close page. They sprang apart; at least Riccio sprang; the Queen looked up at the wall and did not face about for a while, but sat pondering the book, over which she had clasped her two hands. She was turning a ring about and about, round and round; and it seemed to Sir James, who saw most things, that this had been upon the book while the two heads were bent over it. They had been trying the Sortes, then!—the Sors Machiavelliana, eh?
When, after a time of suspense, she turned, to lift him a careless hand, limp to the touch and cold to kiss, he knew that she had been schooling herself. She was extremely composed—too much so, he judged; he had no belief in her languid manner. She asked him a few questions about her ‘good sister’; nothing of anybody else. What did her sister think of the marriage? Sir James lurked in the fastnesses of platitude. Her English Majesty had deeply at heart this Queen’s welfare; he turned it many ways, but always came back to that. As he had been sure she would, after a little of it, Queen Mary grew irritable, and drew out into the open. ‘Peace to your empty professions, Master Melvill. They are little to my liking. Did my sister send the Lord Darnley into Scotland?’
Here he had it. ‘Madam,’ quoth Sir James, ‘I will not affirm it. And yet I believe that she was glad for him to go.’
‘Why so? why so?’
‘I nail my judgment, madam, to this solid beam of truth, that my lord got his congé after but two refusals of it.’
‘Why should he be refused?’
‘Madam, for your Grace’s sake; because her English Majesty thinks meanly of him beside yourself.’
‘He is of royal blood—but let that be as it may. If he was first refused upon that account, why then was he afterwards allowed?’
Sir James twinkled. I have said that he, as well as the Italian, had a kite to send up, to drive this quail into the net of marriage. He now had his opportunity to fly it. ‘Oh, madam,’ he replied, ‘this young Lord of Darnley was not the only courtier anxious to travel the North road: there was another, as your Majesty knows. And if the English Queen let one go at the last it was in regard for the other. It was for fear lest you should win my Lord Robert Dudley.’
The Queen grew red. ‘Win? Win? This is a strange word to use, Mr. Legate. Am I hunting husbands, then?’
‘It is not my word, madam. I can assure your Majesty that both the word and the suspicion are the English Queen’s. It is thus she herself thinks of my Lord Robert—as of a prize to be sought. But my Lord Darnley she calls “that long lad.”’
‘He is my cousin, and her own. He shall be welcome here when he comes—if he comes. But it mislikes me greatly to suppose him sent out from England, a scapegoat into the wilderness.’ She frowned, and bit her lip; she looked haggard, rather cruel. ‘A scapegoat into the wilderness! Robert Dudley’s scapegoat!’
You may cheapen a man by a phrase; but sometimes the same phrase will cheapen you. Hateful thought to her, that she was casting a net for Robert Dudley! And not she only; there were two panting Queens after him; and this high-descended Harry Stuart—a decoy to call one off! Sir James, greatly tickled, was about to speak again; his mouth was open already when he caught the Italian’s wary eye. That said, ‘For Jesu’s sake no more, or you spoil a fine shot.’ So Sir James held his peace. She sent away the pair of them, and sat alone.
Something bitter had been stirred, which staled all her hopes and made sour all her dreams. To ‘win’ Robert Dudley! Oh, abhorred hunt, abhorred huntress! Quick as thought came the counter query: Was it worse to hunt one man than seek to be hunted by another—to seek it, do you mind? to love the pursuit, ah, and to entreat it? There came up a vision to flood her with shame—the old vision of the laughing red mouth, the jutting beard, the two ribald eyes. These were not a hunter’s, O God; these cared not to move unless they were enticed! These belonged to a man who waited, sure of himself and sure of his comforts, while she (like a hen-sparrow) trailed her wing to call him on. Panic seized her—her heart stood still. What had she done, wanton decoy that she was? And what had he done—with her glove? Where had he put it? Anywhere! Let it lie! Oh, but she must have it again at all costs. She must send for it. Oh, unworthy huntress, abhorred hunt!
She must have a new messenger. Adam Gordon must ride into Edinburgh, show a ring to the Earl of Bothwell, and ask for a packet of hers. He was not to speak of his journey to a soul about the Court—on his life, not a word to Des-Essars: he was not to return without the packet. ‘Go now, Adam, and haste, haste, haste!’ She lashed herself ill over this melancholy business, and went to bed early.
This was the night—when she had congealed herself by remorse into the semblance of a nun—this was the night of all in the year chosen by Monsieur de Châtelard for his great second essay. Rather, the Italian sought him out and urged him to it. ‘Hail, sublime adventurer!’ the kite-flyer had cried, the moment he met with him.
‘I accept the title,’ replied Monsieur de Châtelard, ‘but deprecate it as prematurely bestowed.’
‘Not so, my friend,’ says the Italian; ‘but if I know anything of women, there may be this night a very pretty mating—as of turtles in March. A word in your ear. Her Majesty has retired. So early! cry you? Even so. And why? Ah, but you shall ask me nothing more. To-morrow I shall not even inquire how you do. Your face will proclaim you.’
Monsieur de Châtelard embraced his friend. ‘Be sure of my remembrance, immortal Italian.’
‘I am perfectly sure of it,’ answered Signior Davy; and the moment after shrugged him out of his mind. This is what your politician should always do: remember a friend just so long as he is like to be useful.
He never had speech with him again. The miserable young man, detected in a moment in filthy intention, perhaps washed out the stain by a certain dignity of carriage, whose difficulty alone may have made it noble. This fool’s Queen—his peascod, melting beauty of a few weeks since—was certainly a splendour to behold, though the eyes that looked on her were dying eyes. A white splendour of chastity, moon-chilled, sharp as a sleet-storm on a frozen moor,—she had burned him before—now she struck ice into his very marrow. The caught thief, knowing his fate, admired while he dared this Queen of Snow and the North. For dare her he did.
‘What have you to say, twice a dog?’
‘Nothing, madam.’
‘Judge yourself. Lay your soiled hands upon yourself.’
‘Kill me, madam.’
‘Never! But you shall die.’
He died at the Market Cross after a fortnight’s preparation, as he had not lived, a gentleman at last. For, by some late access of grace which is hard to understand, she accorded him the axe instead of the rope. He sent many times for his friend the Italian, and at his latest hour, when he knew he would not come, asked the headsman to present him with his rosary. The headsman would not touch the accursed idol.
‘If you touch me, you touch a thing far more accursed,’ said the condemned man, ‘to whom a death resembling that of his Saviour’s companions in torment would be infinite honour.’ He made his preparations, and said his prayers. There were people at every window.
It had happened that my Lord of Darnley, with a fine train of horsemen, having sent in his humble suit to the Queen and received an answer, witnessed the ceremony: or so they say. He divided attention with the departing guest. All observed him, that he sat his horse well—easily, with a light hand ever ready at the rein to get back the fretful head. He watched every detail of the execution, looking on as at a match of football among sweating apprentices, with half-shut, sulky eyes. He spoke a few words to his attendants.
‘Who is our man?’
‘They say a Frenchman, my lord. Chatler by name.’
‘To whom is he speaking, then? Watch his hand at his heart. Now ’tis at his lips! He makes a bow,—will they never finish with him? How are we to break through! They should truss him.’
A young man behind him laughed; but my lord continued: ‘But—now look, look! Will he never have done? There are women at all the windows. See that French hood up there.’
‘’Tis a woman’s business, my lord. They say that this fellow——’ The young man whispered in his ear.
My lord made no sign, except to say, ‘My cousin is hard upon a forward lover.’
‘Nay, sir. Say, rather, on a lover too backward.’
He got no answer from his prince. All looked, as there fell on all a dead hush. The crowd thrilled and surged: utter silence—then a heavy stroke—all the voices began again together, swelling to one shrill cry. Châtelard, poor kite, flew a loftier course.
The cavalcade began to drive through the maze of people, pikemen going before with pikes not idle. ‘Room for the prince! Room, rogues, room!’