AIR OF ST. ANDREW: ADONIS AND THE SCAPEGOAT
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!’