THEY LOOK AND LIKE
He was rather stiff in the garden; rather too tall for the raftered rooms
of the burgess’ house. He did not lend himself readily to the snug cheer
which was the rule at Saint Andrews. Des-Essars has recorded the fancy
that he was like that boy who comes home from school, and straightens
himself in his mother’s embrace; ‘not because he loves her the less, but
that he knows himself to be more than when, six months ago, he parted
from her with tears.’ This lordly youth cropped his English words, and
stammered and blushed when he tried the French. He laughed gaily to hear
the Italian _staccato_ run its flight—like a finch that dips and rises as
he wings across the meadow. ‘Monkey-speech,’ my young lord called it.
In all respects he was on the threshold. None of the deeper, inner
speech of their daily commerce came near him; he ignored, because he
did not see, the little tricks and chances, the colour, significance,
allusiveness of it. What was the poor youth to do? He had never journeyed
with the stored gallants of the _Heptameron_, nor whispered to the ladies
of Boccaccio’s glades. He thought Bradamante a good name for a horse,
and Margutte something to eat. The Queen rallied him, the maids looked
out of window; Mr. Secretary exchanged glances with his Fleming, Signior
David bowed and bowed. But this Italian was comfortable, seeing his ships
homeward bound. In rapid vernacular, as he lay late in his bed, he told
himself that the French poet could not have chosen a better night for
his extinguishing.
‘That was a night, one sees, when she suddenly sickened of low company,
having suddenly viewed it and been shocked: of me, and the fat Bothwell,
and all these cuddling nymphs and boys. Our Châtelard was the last
loathly morsel, the surfeit after the Ambassador’s bolus. Certainly,
certainly! I saw her go white at his “winning” of the English favourite:
how a word may stick in a gizzard! Then comes my late friend, hiding for
favours under the bed. “_Dio mio_,” she cries, “do I live in a lupanar? O
Santo Padre, let me henceforward mate only with eagles!”’
He expressed himself coarsely, being what he was; but no doubt he was
perfectly right.
* * * * *
My Lord of Darnley, then—this eagle—was a very handsome youth, clean,
buxom, and vividly prosperous. He had the most beautiful slim body you
ever saw on a young man; and long legs, in whose shape he evidently—and
reasonably—took delight. He had that trick of standing with his feet
apart—grooms induce their horses to it with the tickling of a whip—and
arms akimbo, which, with its blended savour of the Colossus of Rhodes and
a French dancer, gives a man the air of jaunty readiness for all comers,
and always a hint of gallantry. His head was small and well set-on, his
colour fresh; his eyes were bright and roving. Yet no one could look more
profoundly stupid than he when he chose to be displeased with what was
saying. His lips were red, and like a woman’s; he had a strong, straight
nose, and strong hair, short and curling, in colour a hot yellow.
Good-natured he looked, and vain, and courageous. Mary Seton considered
him a dunce, but Mary Beaton denied it. She said he was English.
The day of his coming, the Queen received him in the Long Parlour,
dressed mostly in white, with a little black here and there. She stood
about mid-floor, with her women, pages, and gentlemen of the household,
and tried in vain to control her excitement. Those who knew her best,
either by opportunity or keen study, considered that she had made up her
mind already. This was a marriage, this meeting of cousins: here in
her white and faint rose, shivering like the dawn on the brink of new
day, with fixed eyes and quick breath—here among her maidens stood the
bride. Appearances favoured the guess—which yet remained a guess. She had
travelled far and awfully; but had told no one, spoken no whispers of her
journeyings since that day of shame and a burning face, when she had sent
Adam Gordon to Edinburgh Castle, heard Melvill’s message, and scared away
Châtelard to his dog’s death. Not a soul knew where her soul had been, or
whither it had now flown for refuge: but two guessed, and one other had
an inkling—the judging Italian.
They used very little ceremony at Saint Andrews. The Queen hated it. An
usher at the stair’s foot called up the Prince’s style, and could be
heard plainly in the parlour; yet Mr. Erskine, Captain of the Guard,
repeated it at the door. There followed the clatter of a few men-at-arms,
a trampling, one or two hasty voices—Lethington’s whisper among them (he
always shrilled his _s_‘s); then the anxious face of the Secretary showed
itself. The young lord, dressed in white satin, with a white velvet
cloak on one shoulder, and the collar of SS round his neck, stooped his
head at the door, and went down stiffly on one knee. Behind him, in the
entry, you could count heads and shoulders, see the hues of red, crimson,
claret—feathers, a beam of light on a steel breastplate. He had come well
squired. ‘Welcome, cousin,’ said the Queen shyly, in a low and calling
tone. My young lord rose; two steps brought him before her. He knelt
again, and would have received her hand upon his own; but she looked down
brightly at his bent and golden head—looked down like a considering bird;
and then (it was a pretty act)—‘Welcome, cousin Henry,’ she said again,
and gave him both her hands. He was afoot in a moment, and above her. To
meet his look downwards she must lift hers up. ‘Welcome, cousin,’ once
more; and then she offered him her cheek. He kissed her, grew hot as
fire, looked very foolish, and dropped her hands as if they burnt him.
But he led her—she not unwilling—to her chair, and sat beside her the
moment she invited him. She was bashful at first, blushed freely and
talked fast; he was stiff, soldierly, blunt: when she was beyond him he
made no attempt to catch her up. Those bold eyes of his were as blank as
the windows of an empty house. They did not at all disconcert her: on the
contrary, she seemed to see in his inertia the princely phlegm, and to
take delight in lowering the key of her speech to the droning formalities
of an audience. The difficulty of it, to her quick, well-charged mind,
was a spur to her whole being. You could see her activities at drill;
the more stupid she strove to be, the more spiritual she showed. She
took enormous pains to set him at his ease, and so far succeeded that
(though she could not clarify his brains) she loosened his tongue and
eye-strings. He was soon at his favourite trick of looking about him;
passed all the maids in review, and preferred Livingstone to any: next to
her Seton—‘a pretty, soft rogue.’ He saw and knew, but did not choose to
recognise, Lady Argyll.
Certain presentations followed. Englishmen were brought up to kiss
hands—tall, well-set-up, flaxen young men: a Standen, a Curzon of
Derbyshire, a Throckmorton, nephew of an old acquaintance in France,
a Gresham, etc., etc. After these came one Scot. ‘Madam, my kinsman
Douglas.’
There came stooping before her a certain Archie Douglas of Whittinghame,
remotely of the prince’s blood, but more nearly of the red Chancellor
Morton’s. He was a young man, exceedingly thin, with a burnt red face,
shifty eyes, a smile, and grey hair which did not make him look old.
Black was his wear, with a plain white ruff.
‘I have heard of you, Master Douglas,’ says the Queen, measuring her
words. ‘You are a priest in Israel after the order of Mr. Knox.’
‘An humble minister, madam, so please your Majesty.’
‘Ah, my _pleasure, sir_!’ She would not look at him any more, either then
or ever after. She used to call him the Little Grey Wolf. Now, whether
is it better for a man to be spoken by his sovereign in discomfortable
riddles, than not at all? This was the question which Archie Douglas put
to himself many times the day.
The Queen would have honours nearly royal paid to the young prince.
The officers of the household, the ladies, were all presented; and all
must kiss his hand. But all did not. Lord Lindsay did not; Mr. Erskine
did not, but saluted him stiffly and withdrew behind the throne. Mr.
Secretary did it; Lord Ruthven did it elaborately; Lady Argyll changed
her mind midway, and did it. The Italian secretary, last of all, went
down on both his knees, and, looking him straight in the face, cried out,
‘Salut, O mon prince!’ which, under the circumstances, was too much. But
the Queen was to be pleased with everything that day, it seemed, for it
delighted her.
As he went home to his lodging Signior David talked to himself. ‘As well
expect to weld butter and a knife, or Madonna and a fish-headed god of
Egypt as the Queen with this absorbed self-lover. If she wed him not in a
month she will kill him sooner than take him.’
And Des-Essars records in his _Memoirs_: ‘The prince pleased on
horseback, whence he should never have descended. I suspect that he knew
that himself; for he straddled his legs in the house as if to keep up the
illusion and strengthen himself by it. He was a fine rider. But women are
not mares.’
Nevertheless, Mary Livingstone had guessed, Des-Essars had guessed, the
truth or near it. This ceremony of meeting was as good as a betrothal;
though why it was so, was not for them to understand. The explanation is
to be sought in the chasing, flying, starting life of the soul, hunting
(or being hunted) apart in its secret, shadowy world. There come moments
in that wild life when the ardours of the chase slacken and tire; when,
falling down to rest, the soul catches sight of itself, as mirrored
in still water. That is the time when enchantment may go to work to
disenchant, and show the horrible reality. ‘What!’ might cry this girl’s
soul: ‘this rumpled baggage a maid royal! This highway-huntress, panting
after one man or the other, thrilling like a cook-wench because that
man or this has cast an eye on you! Oh, whither are fled the ensigns of
the great blood? Where hides the Right Divine? Where are the emblems of
Scotland, England, and France? Not in these scratched hands, not behind
these filmy eyes: these are the signs of Myrrha and Pasiphaë, and sick
Phædra.’ Melvill had held up the glass, and she had seen herself toiling
after Robert Dudley; Châtelard had wiped it, and behold her, trapped and
netted, the game of any saucy master. So, in a passion of amendment,
she lent to Harry Darnley all that she feared to have lost. He shared
the blood she had made common: let him re-endow her. He was the prince
she ought to have been. He came a-courting with the rest; but as royal
suitors come—solemnly, with embassies, with treaties to be signed, and
trumpets to proclaim the high alliance. To think of Bothwell’s beside
this courtly wooing was an impossibility. Hardy mercenary, to what had
she dared stoop? To a man—God forgive her!—who would hug a burgess-wife
one day, and her—‘the French widow,’ as he would call her—the next. Ah,
horrible! So horrible, so nearly her fate, she could speak to no one of
it. Simply, she dared not think of it. She must hide it, bury it, and go
about her business by day. But at night, when Fleming was asleep, she
would lie staring into the dusk, her two hands at grip in her bosom, and
see shadows grow monstrous on the wall: Bothwell and the wife of the
High Street, and herself—Dowager of France, Queen of Scots, heiress of
England—at play. She could have shrieked aloud, and whined for mercy: she
seemed to be padding, like a fox in a cage, up and down, up and down,
to find an issue. Harry Darnley was the issue—O Ark of Salvation! Why,
she had known that the very night that Melvill came back. Afterwards, as
night succeeded night, and her eyes ached with staring at the wall—she
knew it was all the hope she had.
Then from her window, watching the shivering-out of Châtelard, she had
seen the prince, before his credentials were presented—his beauty and
strength and calm _manège_ of his horse. Had he been pock-marked, like
Francis of Alençon, his lineage would have enamelled him for her eyes.
But he was a most proper man, tall and slim, high-coloured, disdainful of
his company. He seemed not to know that there was a world about him to be
seen. _Securus judicat_: Jesu-Maria! here was a tower of defence to a
smitten princess who saw all the world like a fever-dream! Her own blood,
her own name, age for age with her.
You see that she had her own vein of romantic poetry, that she could
make heroic scenes in her head, and play in them, too, wonderful parts.
She sat up in her bed one night, and shook her loose hair back, and
lifted up her bare arms to the rafters. ‘My lord, I am not worthy. Yet
come, brother and spouse! We two upon the throne—Scotland at our feet!’
Then, in the scene, he came to her, stooping his stiff golden head.
Jove himself came not more royally into the Tower. She lay all Danaë
to the gold. Trickery here. Thus body lords it over soul, and soul—the
wretch—takes his hire. She knew pure ecstasy that night; for this was
a mating of eagles, you must recollect. She bathed in fire, but it was
clean flame. Bothwell, at any rate, seemed burnt out—him and his fierce
arm, only one to spare for ‘the little French widow.’
So much explanation seems necessary of how she stood, in virginal tremor
and flying cloudy blushes, white and red among her maids—to be chosen by
her prince. She intended him to choose: for she had chosen already.
* * * * *
The prince sat at supper, late in the evening of his reception, with his
light-haired Englishmen and grey-haired Archie Douglas. Forrest, his
chamber-boy, with burning cheeks and eyes glassy with sleep, leaned at
the door. His little round head kept nodding even as he stood. The young
lord laughed and fed his greyhounds, which sat up high on their lean
haunches and intently watched his fingers.
‘I shall take those horses of the Earl’s,’ he said. ‘I shall need them
now. I shall have a stud, and breed great horses for my sons. See to it,
Archie.’
‘By God, sir,’ said an Englishman, with hiccoughs, ‘your word may be the
law and the prophets in this country, and yet no bond in England. They
will ask you for sureties. Well! I say, Get your sureties first.’
My lord was not listening. He pulled a hound’s ear, screwed it, and
smiled as he screwed. Presently he resumed. ‘Did you mark the greeting of
Argyll’s wife, Archie Douglas? How she tried “Sir and my cousin,” and
thought better of it? I made her dip, hey? A black-browed, saucy quean!
What kindred to me are her father’s misfortunes?’
Archie Douglas drained his glass. ‘You hold them, Harry Darnley—the
women. Yet remember you of what I told you concerning the men. Steer wide
of this’—he caressed the jug—‘and fee the Italian.’
But my Lord Darnley got on to his feet, and remained there by the aid of
his fists on the board. Very red in the face, and scowling, he talked
with his eyes shut. ‘I shall fee the Italian with the flat blade, you’ll
see. Greasy cushion of lard! A capon, a capon! And there’s your red
cousin Morton for you!’
‘He is your cousin too, sir,’ says Archie, blinking.
‘What of that, man, what of that? Let him beware how he cozens me, I say.
Boy, I go to bed. Good-night to you, gentlemen.’
They all rose as he went solemnly away with the boy; then looked at one
another to see who had marked him reach out for the door-jamb and pull
himself through by it. Archie Douglas crowed like a cock and flapped his
arms; but when the rest began to laugh he slammed the table. ‘Pass the
jug, you fools. There shall be japes in Scotland before long—but, by God,
we’ll not laugh until we’re through the wood!’
* * * * *
News of the Court for the rest of the month was this. The Master
of Sempill pled his own cause with the Queen, and was to have Mary
Livingstone. He had chosen his time well; her Majesty was not for
refusals just now.
‘My dear, my dear, I shall need women soon, not maids,’ she had said,
stroking the honest face. ‘You shall come back to me when you are a wife,
and as like as not find me one too. Your Master is a brave gentleman. He
spoke up for you finely.’
‘Ay, madam, he hath a tongue of his own,’ says Livingstone.
The Queen threw herself into her friend’s arms. ‘No Madams to me, child,
while we are in the pretty bonds together, fellow cage-birds, you and I.
Come now, shall I tell you a secret? Shall I?’
Livingstone, caught in those dear arms, would not look into the witching
eyes. ‘Your secret, my dear? What can you tell me? Finely I know your
secret.’
The Queen sat, and drew the great girl down to her lap. ‘Listen—but
listen! Last night the prince ...’: and then some wonderful tale of ‘he’
and ‘him.’ ‘Ruthven says that his ring of runes hath magic in it. Some
old wife, that hides at Duddingstone, and can only be seen under the
three-quarter moon by the Crags, she hath charmed it. With that ring,
rightly worn, she saith, a man would swim the Solway at the flood after
the boat that held you. Ruthven knows the truth of it, and swears that no
man can resist the power it hath. There was a case, which I will tell you
some day. There is one stronger yet—most infallible: a spell which you
weave at dawn. But for that there are certain things to be done—strange,
strange.’
‘No more of them,’ says Livingstone; ‘you have too much charm of your
own. What need of old bedeswomen have you and your likes? Ah, yes, too
much charm! Tell me now, Marie; tell me the truth. Have you your glove
back?’
The Queen started violently, winced as if whipped in the face and turned
flame-red. Livingstone was off her lap: both stood.
‘What do you speak of? How do you dare. Who has betrayed——?’
‘Nobody. I saw that it was gone. And lately you sent Adam to the Castle.’
The Queen walked away to the window, but presently came back. ‘I think it
right that you should understand the very truth. That lord has angered
me. Monstrous presumption! for which, most rightly, he suffered. Believe
me, I saw to it. But—but—he has a conscience, I think. Something was told
me—made me suppose it. I considered—I gave long thought to the case. A
queen, in my judgment, should not be harsh, for she needs friends. I
took a temperate method, therefore; considering that, if he knew of my
pain, perchance he would repent. So I sent Adam Gordon to Edinburgh, and
believe that I did well.’ She paused there, but getting no answer, asked
impatiently, ‘Am I clear to you, Livingstone?’
‘You will never clear yourself that way,’ says Livingstone. ‘You could as
well expect the Rock to thaw into tears as get Bothwell to repent. That
is a vile thief, that man.’
The Queen ran forward and fell upon her bosom. ‘Oh, I have been
ashamed—ashamed—ashamed! The devil was within me—touching, moving,
stirring me. I thought of him night and day. Wicked! I am very wicked.
But I have paid the price. It is all done with long ago. I told Father
Roche everything—everything, I promise you. He absolved me the day before
my prince came, or I should never have received him as I did. And can
you, Mary, withhold from me what the Church allows?’
Livingstone was crying freely. ‘God knows, God knows, I am none to deny
thee, sweetheart!’ she murmured as she kissed her.
Second absolution for Queen Mary.
The Court was to go to Callander House for the wedding of this fond
Livingstone; but before that there was a bad moment to be endured—when
Adam Gordon came back, without the glove. They had told him in Edinburgh
that the Earl of Bothwell had broken bars and was away. He had gone to
his country, they said, and had been heard of there, hunting with the
Black Laird and others of his friends—hunting men mostly, and Englishmen
too, over the border. He had sent word to George Gordon that, if he was
willing, he would ‘raise his lambs, and pull him out of Dunbar for a bout
with Hell’; but, said the boy, ‘Madam, my brother refused him.’
Adam had ridden into Liddesdale to find Bothwell, into the Lammermuirs,
into Clydesdale: but the Earl was in none of his castles. Then he went
the English road towards Berwick: got news at Eyemouth. The Earl was
away. Two yawls had shipped him and his servants; had stood for the
south—for France, it was thought. The glove was in his bosom, no doubt.
The Queen sent Adam away rewarded, and had in Des-Essars. ‘Jean-Marie,’
she said, ‘my Lord Bothwell hath gone oversea. Do you suppose, to France?’
‘No, madam; I suppose to Flanders.’
He seemed troubled to reply—evaded her looks.
‘Why there?’
‘Madam, there was a woman at Dunkirk——’
‘Enough, enough! Go, boy.’
She had appointed to ride that day to the hawking. The prince was to be
there, with new peregrines from Zealand. Now—she would not go. Instead,
she crept into her oratory alone, and, having locked the doors, went
through secret rites. She stripped herself to the shift, unbound her
hair, took off shoes and stockings. With two lit candles, one in either
hand, she stood stock-still before the crucifix for an hour. Chilled to
the bones, with teeth chattering and fingers too stiff to find the hooks
for the eyes, she dressed herself then in some fashion, and slipped
quietly out. This was her third absolution. Thus she froze out of her
heart the last filament of tainted flesh; and then, bright-eyed and
wholesome, set her face towards the future.