‘He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,
Who dares not put it to the touch,
To win or lose it all.’
Mary Stuart still wore in her bosom the gold heart that had been won by
Chastelâr in his victory of the day. This it was that had so elated him
at the banquet; this it was that gave him courage in the dance to speak
words of love to his Queen.
The distant music had subsided to a low, plaintive strain; the
apartment into which, in their turn, the two had seemed to float upon
those floods of melody was bathed in a subdued and softened light; the
odour of perfumes loaded the atmosphere; and the sounds of far-off
revelry did but add to the languor and seclusion of the scene. Mary’s
cheek was a shade paler and her step scarce so buoyant as usual. She
seemed fatigued, and whilst awaiting the louder peal of music that
should summon them back to the dance, the Queen seated herself on a
low chair near the doorway, and fixed her eyes upon the floor with a
dreamy, listless gaze. Chastelâr remained standing, bent over her chair
as if fascinated, spell-bound. The music sank lower and lower, and they
were alone!
At last the Queen raised her eyes to his, and what she saw there
brought the blood reddening to her brow. It broke the charm, however,
and the poet found his voice to speak, though his lips trembled so that
he could scarcely form his words. He knelt before her as he would have
knelt to a saint.
‘Ah! madam,’ he exclaimed in broken accents, ‘accept my homage, my
thanks, my everlasting gratitude. This is the day in Chastelâr’s life
that he had better lay him down and die in his great happiness, for the
sun can never shine on such another for him again.’
She smiled on him, half-kindly and half-pitiful.
‘Why should you thus thank me, Chastelâr?’ she said. ‘What have I
granted to my Troubadour that is not richly merited by one so loyal, so
devoted, and so true?’
She spoke lightly and playfully, yet was there a tone of repressed
feeling in her voice. No woman alive could have looked unmoved on the
depth of intense devotion that glowed in Chastelâr’s face.
‘Ay, madam,’ he replied, ‘you have ever been kind and condescending and
gracious to your slave. You know not what your notice is to him: how
he watches every turn of your face, and hangs on every word of your
lips. What the blessed sunlight is to creation--its hope, its love, its
pride, its whole existence--such is your presence, O Mary! O my Queen!
to me.’
‘Nay,’ she replied, half-rising from her seat, and looking round as
though not caring that their dialogue should be overheard; ‘nay,
Chastelâr, how you are trenching on your own prerogative, and wasting
on my solitary ear the materials for a sonnet which should delight the
whole Court. I cannot listen to such compliments from my Troubadour,
save in verse.’
‘You will listen to them thus,’ he exclaimed, eagerly. ‘You will allow
me to lay at your feet a volume I have long wished, but not dared, to
pray you to accept. May I experience this great happiness? Is it a
promise?’
She bowed her fair head in acquiescence, and her colour went and came.
Queen though she were, Mary Stuart was also a woman to the heart’s
core; and it was not in woman’s nature but to experience a tinge of
gratification and triumph in an authority so despotic, a dominion so
complete as this.
Emboldened by the permission, he hurried on:--
‘I would lay all I have--my fame, my happiness, my life, nay, my very
soul--at your Majesty’s feet, and thank and bless you, even did you
trample them to dust. O madam! have you not read of such devotion? can
you not believe in it? Do you not _know_ that there may exist a love so
pure, so holy, so self-denying, that its blessing and its privilege is
to give all and ask for nothing in return?’
Again she looked around her, startled and confused, but there were no
listeners near. Still the strain of ‘the Purpose’ stole soft and low
and soothing on her ear. She resolved she must never hear him speak
again like this; but the moments were all the more precious at the
time. It would be too unkind to check him harshly now. He was madly
in love with her, no doubt; and his punishment would come quite soon
enough: meantime, she thought it better to treat the whole affair
playfully.
‘I too can write verses,’ said she, with a bright smile. ‘Shall I
repeat you a couplet or two I composed to-day? They are not amiss,
Chastelâr, at least for a queen! and considering they are in rhyme,
they are tolerably true--too true, I fear; the more the pity. Listen,
Troubadour, and take a lesson in your own trade; moreover, beseech you,
mark the moral, for that is the whole merit of the stave:--
‘Wild Folly, so the legends tell,
Was wedded to a maid,
A dusky maid that used to dwell
In drowsy summer-shade.
‘Their offspring is a fairy elf,
A thing of tricks and wiles;
He plays with hearts to please himself,
And when they break he smiles.
‘Unpitied pain and toil in vain
That little tyrant brings;
And those who fain would slip his chain,
Must cheat him of his wings.
‘To Cupid’s tortures, you may guess,
Each parent lends a part;
The chain, the toils, from Idleness,
While Folly adds the smart.’
‘And yet, madam, there are chains that the slave hugs to his bosom,’
answered Chastelâr, gazing on her with looks of imploring affection;
‘there is a labour of love that is sweeter than the profoundest repose;
there is a pain that we prize and cherish, clasping it tighter and
tighter till it pierces to our hearts, and so we die.’
‘Such chains I would not lay on _my_ servants,’ said the Queen: ‘such
labour I would never impose; such pain I could not bear to inflict.’
He looked up brightly.
‘Say you so, madam?’ he replied; ‘then indeed do you give me new life,
and something to live for. You graciously accepted that trinket from me
to-day; and the proudest moment of my existence was when I saw it on
your breast to-night; that gold heart is but an emblem of mine own; it
is yours, my Queen, if you will deign to take it. Do with it what you
will; keep it, or break it, or cast it scornfully away.’
He took the Queen’s hand as he spoke, and pressed it fervently to
his lips; but he had gone too far, and Mary, rising from her chair,
snatched her hand from him, and drew herself to her full height.
‘You forget,’ she said; ‘you must surely forget where we are, and to
whom you speak! This is Holyrood, Monsieur Chastelâr, the royal palace
of the kings of Scotland; and I am Mary Stuart, its mistress and its
Queen. Lead me back, sir, to the dancers; the music warns us; and do
not expect to be forgiven if you should so far presume again.’
She spoke angrily, yet some feeling of compunction smote her the while;
and perhaps she was not quite so angry as she looked. She gave him her
hand to lead her back to the dance with lofty condescension; and it was
remarked on her return to the hall, by more than one acute observer,
that the Queen seemed to have quite recovered her fatigue, and that her
colour was deeper, her glance brighter, and her step firmer than during
the earlier part of the evening. One pair of eyes, too, that never left
him save when they met his own, that shone with liquid lustre when he
was present, and filled many a time with unbidden tears when he was far
away, gazed wistfully on Chastelâr to-night, and a fond heart wondered
why his face was so pale, and his manner so dejected and wild and sad.
Mary Hamilton was one of those characters less rare in her own than in
the stronger sex, with whom, to use the poet’s expression, ‘love is its
own avenger.’ For such, happiness, when it does come, should indeed be
intense, for their sufferings are acute, their doubts harassing, their
self-depreciation unsparing in proportion to the abandonment with which
they merge their whole existence in that of another. It is good to love
for those who can love _wisely_, but, alas! for the self-inflicted
tortures of the heart that loves _too well_.
The revel was at its height; louder and louder pealed the music, faster
and faster flew the dancers; all seemed bent on the enjoyment of the
hour, and resolved that the concluding scene of the festival should be
the wildest and merriest of the night. To look at those panting forms,
flushed cheeks, bright eyes, and floating tresses, who would have
believed but that here, if anywhere, was to be found the gaiety that
flings itself without reservation into the pleasures of the moment? Who
would have thought there could be room for care or sorrow in the fair
bosoms heaving proudly under pearls and gold, or detect the ring of
spurious metal in the joyous tones that told of gratified vanity and
partial approbation, and careless, thoughtless mirth?
It is better to leave your partner when you have shawled her deftly
at the door; there she bids you a cordial, perhaps even a tender
‘good-night’ with her mask on, the same mask you always see, that
is painted in such a radiant smile. It comes off though in her
dressing-room, when the aching temples are released from their garland,
and the shining tresses are unbound, and the being that you have envied
as a model of good sense, gaiety, and content, sits her down with a
weary sign, and dismissing you and your platitudes, with which she
seemed so highly delighted, from her thoughts, leans her head upon her
hand, while the hot tears trickle through her fingers for the sake of
somebody you never saw or heard of, who is far, far away.
Perhaps you are even with her; perhaps you, too, meeting her gloved
hand in the dance, wince under the senseless exterior which you assume
with your evening clothes, in painful consciousness that you cannot
quite forget a Somebody of your own, the very rustle of whose dress
was music to your ears in the olden golden days that are spent and
vanished like a dream; ay, though you seemed so gay and caustic and
_debonair_ in the cloak-room a while since, when you walk out into the
night, the stars you loved to watch for _her_ sake long ago, look down
upon you more in pity than reproach, and the sighing wind reminds you,
as it never fails to do, of the gentle face that was all your trust
and treasure once, that is lost to you now for evermore. There is no
need for you to hum the refrain of that beautiful song, wailing for
‘the tender grace of a day that is dead.’ Are you likely to forget it,
clinging as it does about your heart like ice, and chilling you to the
marrow even now? Never mind! you have ‘done your ball’ handsomely and
creditably, both to self and partner; it matters little that you are
a couple of well-dressed hypocrites, covering your respective sores
under broadcloth and Mechlin lace; you have offered your incense at the
conventional altar; you have sacrificed religiously to society; you are
at liberty to take off your trappings now, and wash the paint from your
wan faces, and go both of you away by yourselves, to be as wretched as
you please.
The Queen and her Maries danced on, fresh and gay to the very last.
Even the musician’s well-trained fingers seemed less untiring than
the ladies’ feet. But the revel came to an end soon after midnight,
and the sentinels at the palace gates, relieved at that hour, glanced
admiringly after the noble groups that departed in quick succession;
some of the older and statelier forms, be it observed, walking with a
more staid and solemn air than usual, attributable to the excess of the
Queen’s hospitality, and the excellence of the French wines that graced
her table.
There were two individuals, however, now strolling away arm-in-arm with
an appearance of great cordiality, who never suffered their brains
to be heated beyond their self-control, and who, relying on their
wits as the good swordsman on his blade, were careful to keep those
weapons constantly bright and keen and tempered for immediate use.
They were engaged, even in this friendly promenade, in a kind of moral
fencing-bout, with muffled points indeed, and bloodless intentions,
yet such as should prove to each his adversary’s strength against the
future possibility of a real encounter.
Said Mr Randolph to Secretary Maitland--
‘The revel hath indeed sped gaily. I never witnessed a merrier even at
the English court, where my royal mistress hath always given so hearty
a welcome to the Lord of Lethington. The masques were quaint, the music
exquisite, the supper beyond all praise. Holyrood was indeed to-night
one blaze of splendour.’
‘And our Scottish ladies?’ asked the Secretary, who had not failed to
observe his companion’s attention to Mistress Beton, and, suspecting
his design, glanced curiously at his face to gather what he could from
that inscrutable volume.
The Firth down yonder sleeping in the moonlight, could not have been
less unruffled than the Englishman’s countenance; nevertheless, his
language was too enthusiastic to be sincere.
‘They are above all praise,’ said he. ‘Were I one of those soft-headed,
iron-handed paladins of fifty years ago, I would break any number of
lances in maintaining your Queen and her Maries to be the brightest
bevy of beauty in Christendom! But those follies went out with the mass
to make room for others! And, by the way, what thinks worthy Master
Knox and his godly party of all this feasting and fiddling and mummery?’
‘There is a strong feeling of religion amongst our townsfolk,’ was the
guarded answer, ‘combined with loyalty to Her Majesty.’
‘Then they desire to see her wedded,’ resumed Randolph. ‘It rejoices
me to hear this, guessing, as I think I can, at the Queen of England’s
wishes. Frankly now, and between friends, hath your beautiful Mistress
no predilection for any of her wooers?’
‘I am only a statesman,’ answered Maitland, laughing. ‘I can fathom a
plot or an intrigue; but a woman’s schemes are far too deep for me. I
believe, however, that on this subject ladies are not prone to speak
their real minds.’
‘Lord Robert Dudley is a stanch Protestant?’ proceeded Randolph,
interrogatively; ‘and a comely, personable nobleman besides?’
‘Would your mistress like to part with him to mine?’ said the other,
with increasing mirth. ‘If Dudley aims at a crown-matrimonial, Mr
Randolph, he need not cross the Tweed to fetch it, or we are strangely
misinformed in the North.’
‘Nay,’ answered the Englishman, ‘I will be frank with you. The Maiden
Queen would be loathe to resign either title. But it is not on her
marriage that the eyes of all Protestant Europe are fixed. The destiny
of the Reformed Church will be strongly influenced by Mary Stuart’s
choice of a husband.’
‘She will be guided doubtless in this, as in everything, by the wishes
of her people and the advice of her royal cousin,’ was the diplomatic
reply. ‘The Austrian and the Spanish match are alike distasteful. The
Archduke is a greybeard, and Don Carlos a puling, sickly boy. You see,
I can be candid with you. Our Queen will have none of these.’
Mr Randolph, in common with the general public, had known this
important disclosure for weeks. It was his cue, however, to accept the
communication for somewhat more than it was worth.
‘As we are in confidence, then,’ he continued, ‘I will round in your
ear an idea of mine own. What if the Scottish Queen should unite
herself to one of her own blood, and of suitable years, thus avoiding
all foreign influences, the while she does no violence to her natural
inclinations?--a goodly young gentleman, of honest nurture, and of the
Reformed religion. Surely such a mate could be found amongst the noble
families in both kingdoms.’
It was a leading suggestion, from which Randolph hoped to gather a
corroboration of Mary Beton’s intelligence; but he had to do with
one as skilled in state-craft as himself, and equally unhampered by
compunctions as to truth or sincerity.
‘There is none that I can think of,’ replied Maitland, with an air of
such exceeding candour that the other felt convinced he was telling
him a lie--‘unless it be young Lord Darnley; and there are so many
objections to his claim, that although it has often been considered, it
has never been entertained for a moment. Is it possible that it would
meet with your Court’s approval?’
‘I cannot answer without instructions,’ said Randolph, laughing: and
wishing each other ‘good night,’ the well-matched pair separated,
without either having gained a decided advantage in the encounter of
their wits.
The Laird of Lethington, indeed, who had been acting on the defensive,
was satisfied with his own reticence, although his suspicions were
aroused, and the eternal question, ‘What is he aiming at?’ that haunts
the diplomatist, followed him to his pillow; but Mr Randolph was
puzzled and discomfited. He could not piece his information together
as he liked into one of those perfect specimens of workmanship which
he delighted to forward to Secretary Cecil for the inspection of
his Queen. Nevertheless he sat up far into the night, writing a
state-paper to the English grand vizier, and when it was finished, such
is the inconsistency of man, dwelt with considerable complacency on the
handsome stately image of the lady who had suggested it. The road to
power is not often strewed with flowers. Mr Randolph had no objection
to gather them when he could do so without going out of his way, though
he was the last man to keep them when withered, or indeed care for them
one jot after the first freshness was off their bloom.
But what were the musings of a weary courtier, or even the misgivings
of a baffled diplomatist, to the tide of anxiety and anguish that
surged through the overwrought brain of Chastelâr, till the poet felt
as if he must go mad? Alas! for the gift, dangerous as it is brilliant,
of a vivid imagination acting on a deep and tender heart. There are
certain insects in the tropics, with which, unconscious of the cruelty,
ladies are wont to trim their dresses, that sparkle like diamonds, when
thus impaled in torture: while they suffer they glow, and when they
cease to glow they die. So it is with certain temperaments, and those
not the dullest nor the least amiable of their kind. Their very lustre
arises from the pain that is goading them within. The flash that sets
the table in a roar springs often from an aching heart: the glowing
words that clothe immortal thoughts in godlike imagery rise to lips
wet with the bitterest draught of all. Who can describe happiness so
vividly as he who feels that it can never be his own? Who yearns for
beauty with the thirst of him to whom all that is fairest in earth and
heaven but mocks the impotence of his despair? If such temperaments
enjoy keenly, and indeed it would be hard if they did not, they suffer
with an intensity of pain that goads them nearly to madness, and causes
them to rush into follies and extravagances such as less ardent natures
are never tempted to commit.
Chastelâr left the hall tortured with shame and doubt and fear.
Sometimes he wondered at his own recklessness, that could thus risk
his very existence on a word; for he felt that if Mary were really
offended, and he were banished from the Court, he had better die. Then
he taxed the Queen with perfidy, injustice, hardness of heart. Anon,
a softer feeling argued that his offence was not of so grievous a
nature after all, that the Sovereign might pardon and look kindly on
a confession of such devotion to the woman, nay, that it might have
been welcome to her and expected long ago. But Mary’s image, rising
from her chair in offended majesty, dispelled this brighter vision; and
though his very heart was flooded with the remembrance of her beauty,
the sense of hopelessness that had chilled it so often, seemed to creep
over him and paralyse him as of old. At least he felt he could not
bear her displeasure. She had turned away from him when he had sought
her eye after the dance. Perhaps she was mortally offended, and would
never speak to him again. Like all others under the same spell, he
was totally incapable of judging his own case, and saw everything in
a false light. He was even himself aware that he could no longer rely
upon his faculties, and yet he felt an irresistible impulse goading him
to action, no matter what. There is method in every phase of madness
save one, and that is the madness of a man in love.
He paced his room in an agony of irresolution. At last he made up his
mind to ask the Queen’s forgiveness. He could not sleep without it. He
must have it this very night before she retired. He bethought him of
the book that she had consented to accept. It was a happy idea: that
unconscious little volume should befriend him. He would present it to
her on his knees, and would read his sentence in the looks with which
she received the token. He was more composed now, and felt as if he
were about the most rational proceeding in the world.
Acting on this suggestion, Chastelâr, with his offering in his hand,
stole softly through the gallery and up the staircase that led to the
Queen’s private apartments. The lights were already extinguished,
and none were moving in the palace, save one or two tired domestics,
loitering drowsily to bed. With a beating heart and noiseless tread he
reached the door of an ante-room that led to the Queen’s chamber, and
paused for an instant to listen. The latch of the door clanked loudly
as he opened it, but all was dark within.
Whilst deliberating whether to enter or not, a light shone along the
passage, and a measured step, accompanied by the rustle of a lady’s
dress, made his heart leap to his mouth. At this juncture, his
presence of mind, which had so strangely abandoned him all night,
came back in a moment. Without looking to identify the intruder, he
laid his book upon the door-sill, and stooping down imprinted a kiss
on the threshold, as one who takes his last leave of the shrine that
guards his idol ere he retires. In rising he encountered the Queen
herself, still in her robes of ceremony and alone. She was proceeding
from the Countess of Argyle’s chamber to her own, and had dismissed
all her attendants save the two that were even now waiting for her in
her bedroom. She started when she saw Chastelâr, and the blood came to
her cheek. Was it the light that shone round her like a glory in the
poet’s heated imagination that produced the semblance, or was it his
own fancy, or could it be reality? He thought her eyes looked wet with
tears.
This was too much for his overwrought feelings. He flung himself at
Mary’s feet, and taking the skirt of her robe in his hands, literally
kissed the hem of her garment again and again.
‘Forgive me, madam, forgive me!’ he exclaimed, in broken accents, and
weeping like a woman or a child. ‘I could not bear it; I could not
rest; I felt I had offended you--I who would die to give you a moment’s
pleasure. I was mad! I knew not what I did; but I crept here to lay my
offering at your feet, and to pray for your forgiveness; although you
would not know it, would never hear or heed me. Pardon! oh! pardon me,
my Queen!’
She could not but pity him; she who was so good and tender-hearted and
pitiful to all: his sorrow was so obvious, his misery so complete.
She gave him her white hand and bade him rise to his feet; then she
chid him gently, kindly, with a grave sorrow on her young face, like a
mother who takes to task a dear but froward child.
‘You would not grieve me, Chastelâr,’ said she, ‘I know. Not one of
my Scottish subjects is more loyal and true than my French minstrel.
Give me your book; I will accept it as a pledge of your service and
fidelity to your sovereign. To your sovereign,’ she added, with a
significant look, before which his eyes were lowered, and his whole
countenance fell. ‘I am not only Mary Stuart,’ she added--and perhaps
it was but his fancy made him think there was a dash of sadness in her
tone--‘I am the Queen of Scotland as well. This country, too, is not
like France; there are grave eyes watching here to which the lightest
matters are a scandal and an offence. Enough of this. I have resolved
to trust you, Chastelâr: I will employ you in my service. You will be
far from Holyrood, but you will be fulfilling my wishes and furthering
my interests. To-morrow you will receive your instructions. Chastelâr,
I can count on obedience. Farewell!’
There was a tone of sorrow in her voice, and she looked on him very
sadly as she passed on into her apartments out of his sight.
Though he heard her words, they were unable to rouse him; though he
saw the glance he appeared to heed it not; his frame seemed crushed
and powerless; his head was sunk on his breast; when he lifted it, she
was gone. Then he drew himself up and looked around him like a man who
wakes from some ghastly dream. His face was very white when he walked
away, and there was a smile on it not pleasant to behold. You may see
such on the face of one who is sentenced to death.
Why should he be pitied? If a man must needs sit down to play his all,
whose fault is it that he gets up a beggar? If he grasps at the phial,
though it be marked ‘Poison,’ and drains it to the dregs, what is he
to expect? Experience will not warn the gambler, he must go to the
workhouse at last; nor reason stay the hand of the suicide, he must die
like a dog--in a ditch.