Chapter X: 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.