THE QUEEN'S POLICY
Lady Strafford was admitted, without any delay, into the private
apartment of the Queen, where Henriette Marie sat with two ladies in
a sumptuous simplicity and elegant seclusion, which was noticeable in
the extreme richness and good taste of the apartment, in the attire of
the Queen herself, which, free from all fopperies of fashion, was of an
exceeding fineness and grace, and in her occupation, which was that of
sewing figures in beads on a casket of white silk.
The chamber was so delicately scented with attar of roses and perfume
of jasmine and cascarilla, so finely warmed with a fire of cedar-wood,
that every breath drawn there was a delight; the window was shrouded
by peach-coloured velvet curtains, and the light came from a suspended
silver lamp the flame of it softened by a screen of rosy silk; on the
wall hung mellowed and ancient French tapestries, heavily shot with
gold and silver, and the inlaid floor was covered with silk carpets.
The Queen wore a pale saffron-coloured gown, and about her elbows and
shoulders hung quantities of exquisite lace fastened by loops of pearl.
At the entrance of the Countess, she very sweetly dismissed the ladies
and smiled at her visitor, then continued her task, thoughtfully
selecting the beads from an ivory tray and sewing them skilfully on to
the thick white silk.
The Countess remained standing before the Queen. She was now shown
to be a woman of a carriage of pride and fire, fair-haired and
swift-moving, with a great expression of energy which did not alter her
wholly feminine attraction.
"Your Majesty will forgive this uncourtly coming of mine," she said,
"but I have it on good authority that this inquiry into Irish Affairs
is but a covert attack on my Lord Strafford."
"Yea, most certainly," returned the Queen, raising her soft eyes to the
breathless lady.
"I saw John Pym to-day," cried the Countess, "and methought he had an
air of triumph; besides, would the very boys in the street dare shout
at me unless my lord's fall were assured?"
She twisted her hands together and sank on to a brocade stool near
the window. The Queen slightly lifted her shoulders and smiled. She
bitterly detested the English, who in their turn loathed her, both for
her nationality and her religion, and even for the name "Mary," which
the King gave her, and which was for ever connected in the popular mind
with Papistry and with two queens who had been enemies of England.
Therefore she was well-used to unpopularity and that hatred of the
crowd of which Lady Strafford to-day had had a first taste.
"Why discourage yourself about that, madam?" she asked. "These
creatures are not to be regarded."
"The House of Commons is to be regarded," returned Lady Strafford.
She spoke, despite herself, in a tone of respect for the power that
threatened her husband, and the Frenchwoman's smile deepened.
"How afraid you all are of this Parliament," she said.
"Has it not lately shown that it is something to be afraid of?" cried
the Countess.
The Queen continued to carefully select the tiny glass beads and to
carefully thread them on the long white silk thread. To the Countess,
who had never loved her, this absorption, at such an hour, in an
occupation so trivial, was exasperating.
"I have come to Your Majesty on matter of serious moment," she said,
and she spoke as one who had a claim; her husband had rendered great
services to the Crown, and held his lofty position more by his own
genius than by the King's favour. "Yesterday I sent an express to York,
beseeching my lord to stay there with the army, and to-day Mr. Holles,
one of my kinsmen, hath gone on the same errand. I beseech Your Majesty
to add your weight to these entreaties of mine, and to ask His Majesty
to bid my lord stay where he is safe."
At this the Queen's lovely right hand stopped work, and lay slack on
the white cover of the casket, and with the other she put back the fine
ringlets of black hair from her brow and looked full and delicately at
the Countess.
"Both the King and I," she returned gently, "wrote to my lord before
that--ay, the day before, and were you more often at court, madame, you
would have heard of it."
An eloquent flush bespoke the relief and gratitude of the Countess.
"Then he is safe!" she exclaimed. "At York, amid the army, who can
touch him!"
The Queen laughed lightly.
"Dear lady," she said, "thy lord is no longer at York, but on his way
to London. At least, if he be as loyal as I think he be."
"London?" repeated Lady Strafford, as if it were a word of terror.
"London? my lord cometh?"
"On the bidding of His Majesty and myself," answered Henriette Marie.
The Countess rose, she pushed back the dull crimson hood from her fair
curls, and looked the Queen straightly in the face.
"Wherefore have you bidden him to London, madame?" she asked.
"That he may answer the charges that will be brought against him," said
the Queen.
"And you have persuaded him to this!" cried the Countess. "I did think
that I might have counted you and His Majesty among my lord's friends!"
Henriette Marie picked up a knot of white silk and began to disentangle
the twisted strands.
"The Earl hath His Majesty's assurances and mine, of friendship and
protection," she said with dignity touched with coldness.
Lady Strafford stood silent, utterly dismayed and bewildered. It seemed
to her incredible that the King should have asked his hated minister to
come to the capital at the moment when the popular fury against him had
reached full height and the Commons were on the eve of impeaching him.
She did not, could not, doubt that the King would wish to protect his
favourite, but she felt an awful doubt as to his power. Had he not been
forced to call the Parliament at the demand of the people?--was it not
to please them that he had sent for the Earl?--so what else might he
not consent to when driven into a corner!
The Countess shuddered; she thought of the angry crowd who had chased
Laud from Lambeth Palace, who daily hooted at and insulted her when
she went abroad, of the useless train-bands, of the general bottomless
confusion and tumult, and she saw before her with a horrid vividness,
the calm, weary face of John Pym, the man who led the Commons.
The Queen surveyed her narrowly, and observed the doubt and terror in
her face.
"Are you afraid?" she asked. "Is it possible you think the King cannot
protect his friends?"
Lady Strafford looked at the beautiful frail woman in her lace and silk
who was so delicate, so charming, so gay, and who had more power over
the King than his own conscience, and her heart gave a sick swerve. She
never had, never could, wholly trust the French Papist Queen, for she
was herself too wholly open and English in her nature.
Henriette Marie rose, and the jasmine perfume was stirred by the
shaking of her garments.
"Is it not better," she said, with a lovely, tender smile, "that Lord
Strafford should come here and face his enemies, than that he should
lurk in York among his soldiers as if he feared what creatures like
this Pym could do?"
"Madame," returned Lady Strafford, through white lips, "no one would
ever think the Earl feared his enemies. But to come to London now is
not courage but folly."
"It is obedience to the King's wishes," said the Queen, and a haughty
fire sparkled in her dark liquid eyes.
"The King," returned the Countess, "asketh too much from his servant,
by Heaven, madame! Those who love my lord would see him stay at York--"
"And those who love the King would obey him," flashed Henriette Marie.
The Countess controlled herself and swept a curtsey.
"I take my leave," she said. "May Your Majesty hold as ever sacred the
promises with which you have brought my lord in among those who madden
to destroy him! As for me, my heart is fallen low. Madame, a good
night."
"I do forgive thy boldness for the sake of thy anxiety," said the Queen
with sweetness. "We women have many desperate moments in these bitter
times. A good night, my lady."
The Countess bent her proud blonde head and departed, and the Queen
took up her beads and her silks and began again to work the bouquet
of roses, lilies, and violets she was embroidering on the lid of the
casket.
A thoughtful and haughty expression clouded the delicate lines of her
face, and this proud pensive look did not alter when the hangings that
had scarcely fallen into place behind Lady Strafford were again lifted,
and the King, unattended, and with an air of haste, came into her
presence.
"Has Strafford come?" she asked.
"Not yet!" replied Charles, in an unsteady voice, "and I have begun to
wish I had not sent for him."
The Queen flung down her work and rose; the angry red of a deep passion
stained her pallor.
"Canst thou never be resolute?" she cried. "Wilt thou for ever hesitate
and change and regret every action? My lord, I would sooner be dead
than see this temper in thee."
The King came and kissed her hand with a charming air of gallantry.
"Sweet," he said, in self-justification, "it is a horrid thing to
command a man into the hands of his enemies."
"Thou knowest," returned Henriette Marie firmly, "that the Parliament
and London both clamour for my lord and will not, by any means, be
quiet until he appear. Thou knowest that we, that I, am in actual
danger."
"Hush, dear heart--speak not of our danger," interrupted Charles
hastily, "lest it seemeth we sacrifice our servant, our friend, to bare
fear."
"Acquit thyself to thy conscience, Charles," she answered with
limitless pride. "Art thou not the King? Must I remind thee of that as
even now I had to remind my Lady Strafford?"
"My lady here?" murmured the King.
"Did you not meet her in your coming?"
As she spoke Henriette Marie moved towards a mirror that hung in one
corner, and looked at her reflection with unseeing eyes, then turned
the same abstracted glance on to the King.
The mirror was set in a deep border of embroidery which was framed
in tortoise-shell, and the mellow colours of these, silks and shell,
were softened into rosy dimness by the shaded light. This same glow
was over the lovely figure of the Queen, her gown of ivory and amber
tints, brightened into a knot of orange at her breast, and the pearls
round her throat, and her soft, dark hair held no more lustre than the
exquisite carnation of her fragile beauty. She seemed utterly removed
from all that was commonplace, tumultuous, noisy, coarse, and Charles,
gazing at her with his soul in his eyes, was spurred and stung, as
always when he regarded his wife, with bitter anger that he was not
allowed to follow the bright guidance of this lady, and live with her
in rich happiness and peace adorned with every fine and costly art,
with all the intellectual delicacies and luxurious refinements which so
pleased them both.
He loathed the English people who dragged him and even his adored
wife into the clamorous atmosphere of intrigue and dissension, of
controversy and riot.
To Charles there was one God, one Church, one King, one right--the
right of God as manifested in the King's right; all else was to him
mere vexation, disloyalty, and blasphemy. The popular side of the
questions now rending the nations he did not even consider; he stood
absolutely, without compromise or doubt, by his own simple, unyielding,
ardent belief that he was King by God's will, and above and beyond all
laws.
And his late impotency to enforce this view on his subjects had stirred
his naturally gracious serene nature to deepest astonishment and anger.
He was baffled, outraged, and inwardly humiliated, and he had already
in his heart decided to be avenged on these gentlemen of the Commons
whose clamours had so rudely broken his regal security, and on the
stubborn English who had taken advantage of the rebellion of the Scots
and his lack of money with which to defend himself, to force on him
this hateful Parliament.
And now, when he knew that Pym, the inspiration and leader of
these unruly gentlemen, was daring to strike at his own especial
friend--minister and favourite, the man who was at once his guide and
mouthpiece--he was bewildered by his intense inner fury, and pride
as well as justice made him regret that he had summoned the Earl to
London.
He gazed at the Queen where she stood in golden shadow, and these
thoughts tormented him bitterly.
He knew her mind; her temper was even more despotic than his, and armed
force was the first and only weapon she would have ever used in dealing
with the people; her counsels were ever for the high hand, the haughty
command, the merciless sword, and always the King hearkened to her. But
his nature was more subtle, involved, and secretive than hers, and he
knew better than she did the growing strength of the forces opposed to
him; therefore he had often endeavoured to cope with his difficulties
after a fashion she called irresolute and unstable.
The Queen broke the heavy silence.
"Strafford will come and we will protect him," she said; "that is
enough."
"Nay, not enough," replied Charles, "for I must be avenged on these men
who seek to touch my lord."
"Hadst thou hearkened to me," she murmured in a melancholy voice, "thou
hadst been avenged on all these long since."
"Ay, Mary," cried the King earnestly, "we are not in a realm as loyal
and steadfast as France, but rule a country that hath become a very
hive of sedition, discontent, and treason, and it is well to tread
cautiously."
"Caution is not a kingly virtue," said Henriette Marie, with that same
sad sweetness of demeanour that was so exquisite a cloak for reproof.
"Trust me to act as is best for thee and for our sons," replied Charles
firmly. "Trust me to so acquit myself to God as to be worthy of thy
love."
The Queen regarded him with a wise little smile, then pulled a toy
watch of diamonds from the lace at her bosom and glanced at it with
eyes that flashed a little.
"With quick riding and sharp relays, my lord might almost be here," she
remarked.
Charles sank into the great chair with arms by the window, and bent his
gaze on the floor. His whole figure had a drooping and fatigued look;
he mechanically fingered the deep points of lace edging his cambric
cuffs.
Henriette Marie dropped the watch back behind the knot of orange velvet
on her breast, and her glance, that was so quick and keen behind the
misty softness that veiled it, travelled rapidly over her husband's
person.
She noted the grey hairs in his love-locks, the lines of anxiety
across his brow and round his mouth, his unnatural pallor, the nervous
twitching of his lips. He was the dearest thing on earth to her, but
she had been married to him nearly twenty years and she knew his
weakness, his faults, too well to any longer regard him as that Prince
of romance which he had at first appeared to her. His figure, as she
looked at him now, seemed to her strangely tragical; she could have
wept for this man who leant on her when she should have leant on him,
this man whom she would have despised if she had not loved.
"Holy Virgin," she said passionately to herself, "give him strength and
me courage."
She went to her table and began to put away her work. The King raised
his narrowed wistful eyes and said abruptly--
"Supposing the Earl doth not come? We are as likely to be hounded from
Whitehall as His Grace from Lambeth if my lord disappoints the people."
"He will come," said Henriette Marie, delicately putting away her beads
and silks in a tortoise-shell box lined with blue satin and redolent of
English lavender.
Even as she spoke and before she had turned the silver key in the
casket, her page had entered with the momentous news for which they
both, in their different fashion, waited.
My Lord Strafford was in the audience chamber, all in a reek from hard
riding.
They went down together, the King and Queen, and found the dark Earl,
in boots and cloak still muddied, waiting for them.
"My faithful one!" cried Charles, "so thou art come!" and when
Strafford would have knelt, he prevented him, and instead kissed him on
the cheek.
"Sire," answered my lord, "I met your messengers on the road. I had
already left York and was hastening to London to meet this accusation
mine enemies do prepare to spring on me."
Charles seized his hand and grasped it warmly.
"I do approve thine action, and here confirm all expressions of favour
I have ever given thee."
"Thy lady," added the Queen, smiling, "was, poor soul, fearful for
thee, but thou art not, I think, seeing thou hast our protection and
friendship."
"Madame," answered the Earl, fixing on her the powerful glance of his
tired dark eyes, "I am fearful of nothing, I do thank my God, save only
of some smirch on my honour, and that is surely safe while my gracious
master holdeth me by the hand."
There was energy and purpose in his look, his carriage, his speech, his
bearing had the unshakable composure of the fine man finely prepared
for any fate.
"Sire," he said, speaking with great sincerity and emotion, "my own
aim hath been to make thee and England great, and if His Majesty is
satisfied, I hold myself acquitted of any wrong to any man, nor do I
take any such on my conscience."
The King, much moved, clasped my lord's firm right hand closer in his
own, and stood close beside him in intimate affection.
"What weapon hast thou prepared to fight these rascals with?" asked
Henriette Marie.
"Madame," replied the Earl grimly, "I shall go down to the House
to-morrow and impeach John Pym of high treason on the ground of his
sympathy with, and negotiating with, the rebel Scots." He smiled
fiercely as if to himself, and added, "_My head or thine_, and no time
to lose!"
A sudden tremor shook the Queen, a silence fell on her vivacity.
"Come to us to-morrow," said Charles, "before going to Westminster--and
now to thy waiting wife and a good night, dear lord."
"Truly this evening I am a weary man," smiled Strafford, and with that
kissed the hands of his lieges and left them.
They stood silent after his going, not looking at each other.
They could hear the distant angry clamour of London at their gates.